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Next week, I’ll be posting an interview I did with Kimberly Pauley about Still Sucks to Be Me and her writing process. In case you missed me talking about it ad nauseum, Still Sucks to Be Me is the aptly named sequel to Sucks to Be Me, the story of one Mina Hamilton (now) Smith whose parents are vampires and must decide if she wants to become a vampire too. NPR’s Margot Adler named it her favorite vampire novel for teens (yay!) and said: “It was smart, original, with a lovely, honest heroine, and it was laugh-out-loud funny. I almost fell out of bed laughing at one point.”

In honor of Still Sucks to Be Me’s book birthday, I thought I’d share with you a few of the many lessons I’ve learned about humor writing from editing funny authors like Kimberly.

Tailor your humor to the intended audience.

If you’re going to write funny fiction for kids or teens, you have to get inside their heads and remember what made you laugh at that age. If you’re writing for six to ten year olds, toilet humor rules. If you don’t believe me, go and find a group of eight year old boys and shout “diarrhea!” I guarantee they’ll laugh so hard they cry. The forbidden (aka anything a parent might turn their nose up) makes little kids laugh like nothing else. They’re pushing the boundaries and they like that in their humor. D.L. Garfinkle’s Supernatural Rubber Chicken is a masterful example of funny fiction for that age. For middle-grade (ages 8 to 12), physical comedy (slapstick), absurd or embarrassing situations, and silly characters and dialogue make kids laugh. Some of my favorite parts of Lukas Ritter’s Monster Slayers are the scenes where the characters confront the ormyrr. The ormyrr is a giant slug-like D&D monster who drools, spits phlegm on its enemies, and speaks like a mentally-challenged Yoda. He’s so ridiculous you can’t help but laugh. With teens (12 and up), mostly humor lives in the voice of the writing, whether it be sarcastic, superior or self-deprecating. In Kimberly Pauley’s Still Sucks to Be Me and Sucks to Be Me, main character Mina has a very real-world teen voice (according to this teen reviewer), with biting commentary that makes the character, and the book, feel like the best friend you love to laugh with.

Find your own voice.

Nothing is worse than someone TRYING to be funny in a way that they simply aren’t. In other words, if you didn’t crack a smile when you read “diarrhea” (or worse if you think I am a disgusting, immature human being and I should be banned from the internet), you probably aren’t meant to be writing funny fiction for 6 to 10 year olds, no matter how much you want to. Think about the kinds of things that you say casually to your friends that make them laugh. Embrace the humor that resonates naturally with you and then find the audience you want to write for. The funny authors I work with are fundamentally funny in the same ways their writing is. Kimberly makes funny sarcastic asides, just like Mina does. Lukas Ritter has experienced some laugh-out-loud pratfalls and bizarre embarrassing moments (involving lasagna and his bed—you’ll have to ask him yourself). D.L. Garfinkle writes a humor column about family life, does standup, and has a collection of rubber chickens . . . what more can I say?

Combine things that don’t seem to go together.

Humor comes from mashing together the expected with the unexpected. Any time I mention our series Supernatural Rubber Chicken, people laugh, simply because those three words together are just so crazy weird! Or Sucks to Be Me—not only is the title punnily sarcastic, but the character is unexpected. Everyone expects an angsty vampire, so when cynical contemporary commentary starts pouring out of Mina’s mouth, you can’t help but be surprised and laugh. A more subtle example is the premise for Sucks to Be Me: the vampire world Mina inhabits is governed by a ridiculously bureaucratic organization called the Vampire Council which creates the key conflicts in the story, and makes for some really funny situations and hilarious commentary by the main character.

Study stand-up comedy.

Stand-up is its own specific style of writing. But there are many techniques you can borrow to make your humor writing shine. The simplest advice: all jokes should have a set-up and a punchline; and timing is everything. Set-ups and punchlines can be as simple as a joke told in dialogue, or can be more complex situations that end in funny outcomes. Use the “call-back” technique: Comedians will reference a punchline of a previously told joke in the middle and sometimes even again in the end of the set. The audience laughs even harder the second and third time, because they’re in on the joke. Make the last line or scene of your book a call-back and you’ll leave your readers rolling.

Develop a thick skin.

Not everyone is going to share your sense of humor. Humor writing polarizes people in a way that no other writing does. Seek out critique partners who get your sensibility and when you’re ready to submit, research agents and editors who have worked with writers who have a similar sense of humor. Prepare to get some harsh rejections because some people can’t separate not getting the humor from the writing itself. Of course, don’t use that as an excuse to avoid revisions—the best comic writers refine their stories until the laughs come easy. If no one laughs at your jokes, you may have to admit to yourself that your humor is one-of-a-kind. But if someone gets it, keep on working! If nothing else, you’ll make yourself laugh.

In conclusion: “I like turtles.” (See Tip # 3.)