Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46463
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46463
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Humor in fiction, sci-fi or not, needs to feel organic and natural occurring, like something that might actually happen or be said spontaneously in real life. If it is a joke, it must fit the character telling the joke. If it is just a humorous situation, it needs to seem likely or probable that the character might get into that situation.

We have all heard straight up jokes, in stand up comedy, or children's interactive jokes or riddles, knock-knock jokes, "What do you call ..." jokes, etc.

The place for those in fiction is with characters playing those roles: A stand-up comedian, a night-show host, or kids interacting with adults or each other.

Humor in fiction is wonderful if you can make people laugh (besides yourself). It IS part of the experience of life that once in a while someone will spontaneously say something so funny you double over laughing.

But as always, you don't want to break the reader's story immersion by having somebody say something entirely out of character, or referring to some current real-life phenomenon outside their time line. If your reader laughs, you want it to be because they felt like they were _there_ when a person they know said something hilarious.

Original score: 1