It's not funny

If one of your characters is an archaeologist and you know nothing about that, you do some research, right? That seems straightforward.

It seems to me that it gets a bit harder when one of your characters is cleverer than you are or is funnier. What do you do then?

Maybe when a character is cleverer than you, you can be smart with dialogue and syntax to convey intelligence. And you could research subjects that they talk about to show us the things that concern them.

But funnier?

No book I write will be a laugh a minute funny. I mean there may be a smirk here or there, possibly I could even raise a chuckle from you. But I won’t be writing a comedy anytime soon. People tell me I make them laugh … but I'm never quite certain how or why. If it happens it happens.

I just can’t turn on the funny.

So if a character is funnier than I am … how do I do that?

10,000 big ones

I’m changing the subject from our holiday plans. There’s more than a little Mr Toad in the Beattie family personality, which I don’t wish to highlight any further…

I am going through my next 10,000 words as they are due with my mentor on Friday. On Sunday my heart sank as I began to read through. My family, whose minds were all on the snow in Siberia, were distinctly unmoved by my trauma. On Monday, I got past the first two pages, and there were definite signs of improvement. I marked up the pages (I confess, while I had a pedicure!) with big strokes of the pencil I stole the complementary, promotional pencil from the hotel in Korat… It’s a perfect pencil; dark enough without being too soft and it keeps its point beautifully so they found their way into my pencil case. (Yes, damn it, okay I stole two pencils.)

I am desisting from shovelling MORE on my metaphors. Clearly dialogue comes relatively easily to me, for which I am thankful. But! There has to be a but… But, characterisation; emotional roundness of my main character… Can’t work it out. She’s STILL two dimensional.

What to do?