Do you like reading funny books? Do you like writing books that make other people laugh?
I just had a new book published in February – Eddy Popcorn’s Guide to Teacher Taming. It was so much fun to write and it was the follow up book to Eddy Popcorn’s Guide to Parent Training which came out last year.
The illustrations are by the amazing Benjamin Johnston and they’re hilarious. You can find out more about his work here.
And here Ben talks about how he draws.
But today I want to share some things I learned about writing funny books. Firstly, it’s great to think of a funny name for your character – and Eddy Popcorn was perfect. Eddy is just like popcorn in that he’s full of life. (Tip 1)
In the first book, Eddy has been grounded for the school holidays for not writing his book reflections. Seeing as I love to write, I wanted Eddy to be a writer too. So in Eddy Popcorn’s Guide to Parent Training, he writes a book for kids about how to deal with problem parents. This is tip number two – write about things you know about or that you like to do – for me, that’s writing. (Tip 2)
Tip 3. Think about the things that you find funny and use them in your story. For example, our rabbit, Pickachew used to chew things up that he wasn’t supposed to and he used to chase the dog and it was very funny to watch, so I thought that I’d use these things in Eddy Popcorn’s Guide to Teacher Taming. In this book, Eddy buys a rabbit that he calls Chewy and chewy chews up his homework, but that teacher won’t believe him.
Tip 4. If you’re writing a funny book – exaggerate. For example, in both my Eddy books I describe liverwurst sandwiches as tasting a lot worse than they actually do.
Tip 5. If your friend or someone you know does funny things, ask if you can use them in your books. My son used to decorate his school blazer with the labels from fruit and I thought it would be funny if Eddy did this.
I hope these tips were helpful.
Have fun writing your funny story.
Happy writing 🙂
Dee
