'Make 'Em Laugh'

 

Photo by Eye for Ebony on Unsplash

What makes you laugh? Like really laugh, crying and maybe hard to breathe? I had one of those moments over Christmas whilst watching the Vicar of Dibley episode where she is engaged to be married.

I can’t promise I’ll have that same effect but I’ve been given the honour of hosting a week of prompts for vsshumour on Twitter. It’s from the 8 – 14 Feb, and each day I’ll share a word which people can use to create a funny very short story.

Thinking of humour and my next blog post coming up, gave me the idea of interviewing our very own Fran Hill. Here’s what she had to say…  

 What makes you laugh?  What makes me laugh most is absurdity. I have a keen eye for the ridiculous, the bizarre and the ironic, particularly in everyday life. So, for instance, it amuses me when I'm unpacking the shopping and find that the tomatoes are labelled 'grown for flavour'. That makes me wonder what all other tomatoes are grown for. In my most recent book 'Miss, What Does Incomprehensible Mean?' there's huge irony in the fact that the main character (me, because it's a memoir) is meant to be in control of a classroom but is barely in control of herself. What doesn't make me laugh is cruel humour such as those videos of children falling over and hurting themselves while the family watches on and laughs. I'm not keen on slapstick for the same reason - I don't get the 'clown' thing at all.

What words do you find funny? I think some of the funniest words in our language are those that contain what linguists call reduplication. That's when a sound is repeated within the word. Examples of this are okey-dokey, boogie-woogie, shilly-shally and the heeby-jeebies. You won't find many of these words used in serious, sober texts such as obituaries or in epitaphs on gravestones, therefore. We use reduplication instinctively when we talk to babies and small children and you'll find it in nursery rhymes and children's stories. Also, of course, there's the word 'moist' which, as Miranda fans all know, is a very funny word, and gets funnier the more you say it.

 Do you have any top tips on writing humour? My first tip would be to write humour not by adding 'jokes' into an otherwise serious piece of writing but by letting humour come naturally from funny characters and funny situations. For example, take a doctor who is frightened of blood or a vet who hates animals as your character, and that will inevitably lead to funny scenes as they try to cope. A second tip would be to read the work of writers who make you laugh or watch their sketches/plays/sitcoms and think really hard about what you find funny. Is it because of a twist you weren't expecting? Is it because of the interaction between two contrasting characters? Is it because of the repetition of a tag-line? Write down what you observe.

 Does the Bible ever make me chuckle? Yes, all the time. I think God has a huge sense of humour and some of the biggest ironies in the world are divinely-inspired. You only have to look at the gospel story - a baby comes from a poor, unknown family to save the entire world. Or, take the parables of Jesus and their bizarre imagery, or his wisecracks about the Philistines. Some stories are also hilarious: one of my favourites involves the donkey who backchats its master, Balaam, and another is the story of Eutychus who falls out of a window because Paul's preaching has bored him into unconsciousness.

 Is it possible to see humour in challenging circumstances? It's not only possible: it's one of the only ways to survive. 'If you don't laugh, you'll cry' is one of those sayings that holds a profound truth. Laughter and tears are sometimes hard to differentiate. Adam Kay's book 'This is Going to Hurt' about his life as a doctor is a great example. He recounts often tragic stories about patients and his interactions with them with enormous humour and irony, demonstrating that, in challenging professions such as medicine, it's the only way to cope. We call it 'gallows humour', don't we, for a reason? I suppose God gave humanity humour to help us cope with the mess He knew we would get ourselves into.

Fran Hill is a writer and teacher from Warwickshire. Her latest book 'Miss, What Does Incomprehensible Mean?' is a funny teacher-memoir written in diary form. It charts a year in her teaching life and demonstrates that it's not only the students who misbehave. Find out more about Fran's work on her website www.franhill.co.uk 

Thanks very much, Fran!

I’d love to hear your favourite funny word and what makes you laugh. Let me know in the comments or on Facebook.

Martin is a writer, baker, photographer and storyteller. He's been published in the ACW Christmas anthology and Lent devotional. He's currently honing his craft at flash fiction and you can find him on Twitter here.