Roald Dahl once said "You can write about anything for children as long as you've got humour."
This might be bit off the point, but I never found his books to be especially funny. Sure, they were all great, but there wasn't even a single moment in them in which I even giggled a little. Still, they were the best.
But coming to the point though, you're probably going to find a touch of humor in all YA books, and in some adult books as well. Unless what you're writing is a very serious story, (even in very serious stories humour can find its place once in a while) you'll probably want to insert some jokes or funny moments to engage your readers.
Now, there's one thing though: How to make your book funny? While there are no set rules, you can learn a lot by reading books that are funny (like Artemis Fowl for example). Some ideas are:
1. Use a comic relief character. While it's probably going to look overly cliche if you have someone who just exists to make things look funny, you can insert that as a trait in one of your characters.
2. Have one of your characters, maybe even the main one, have some sort of interesting quirk. Even the most serious of people have their own oddities.
3. Maybe you don't want to make any of your characters funny. Then you can turn some of the situations they get into downright bizarre.
4. Another thing you might want to try is describing people in an odd way. (The Artemis Fowl books are a good example of this. If you've read them, you probably know how Eoin Colfer describes a whole lot of things.)
But do remember one thing: Humour is a very subjective thing. It varies from person to person. What you may think is laugh-out-loud funny may just get an odd look from someone else. This is true about writing in general too, what one reader might find interesting, would be annoying to another. (But there are some things that in general, all readers will enjoy. Experiment. That's the only way you'll find out.)
This might be bit off the point, but I never found his books to be especially funny. Sure, they were all great, but there wasn't even a single moment in them in which I even giggled a little. Still, they were the best.
But coming to the point though, you're probably going to find a touch of humor in all YA books, and in some adult books as well. Unless what you're writing is a very serious story, (even in very serious stories humour can find its place once in a while) you'll probably want to insert some jokes or funny moments to engage your readers.
Now, there's one thing though: How to make your book funny? While there are no set rules, you can learn a lot by reading books that are funny (like Artemis Fowl for example). Some ideas are:
1. Use a comic relief character. While it's probably going to look overly cliche if you have someone who just exists to make things look funny, you can insert that as a trait in one of your characters.
2. Have one of your characters, maybe even the main one, have some sort of interesting quirk. Even the most serious of people have their own oddities.
3. Maybe you don't want to make any of your characters funny. Then you can turn some of the situations they get into downright bizarre.
4. Another thing you might want to try is describing people in an odd way. (The Artemis Fowl books are a good example of this. If you've read them, you probably know how Eoin Colfer describes a whole lot of things.)
But do remember one thing: Humour is a very subjective thing. It varies from person to person. What you may think is laugh-out-loud funny may just get an odd look from someone else. This is true about writing in general too, what one reader might find interesting, would be annoying to another. (But there are some things that in general, all readers will enjoy. Experiment. That's the only way you'll find out.)
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