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It's great when you're reading a novel and there's a passage of the writing that causes tears of laughter to stream from your eyes. From a writing perspective, however, such comic gold can be extremely difficult to mine. How, then, can the writer maximize his or her chances of producing a scene that will have people laughing rather than groaning? Well, in this article, I'll cover some hints and tips that I hope will prove useful.

Put your characters in awkward circumstances:

One instance where I cracked up with laughter was when reading the first novel in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series. Butcher constantly heaps woes upon his central character, the wizard Harry Dresden. Poor Harry never seems to have a good day and this, in itself, will have you chuckling. There was a scene, however, where Butcher really hit gold. Harry had invited a woman over to his house for a first date and was having a shower to freshen up beforehand. At that moment, not only did his date arrive but so too did a toad demon who proceeded to rampage through Harry's apartment. Harry, with soap sods stinging his eyes and still naked, then has to try to use his wizard powers to fend off the demon whilst also trying to protect his bewildered date. Oh, and his date had also accidentally drank from a love potion that Harry had made (but not intended for her) so, whilst all this was going on, she was getting amorous towards him. It was brutally funny but it was the clever build up of events that made it so rather than just off-the-cuff humorous dialogue.

Heavy on dialogue and light on narrative:

It's better if the humour comes from your characters' mouths rather than you just trying to deliver it all through narrative. You can, of course, supplement the descriptive narrative. However, the best comedy scenes usually place a heavy emphasis on quick-fire dialogue exchanges between the protagonists.

Make your characters act in ways that are out of character:

Having a prim and proper character acting drunkenly after drinking just one glass of wine probably has more comedic potential than writing the same scene for a character who spends all his or her time in pubs.

Don't try to crack jokes or be too obvious:

Your job as a writer isn't to be a stand-up comic. When a novelist writes a comedy scene, it is usually funny because of the bizarre circumstances that characters find themselves in and the humour comes from the way that their predicaments are revealed. There is usually no need to throw

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