14/09/2025
Why Humour Is the Secret Ingredient in Creative Writing (Besides Coffee)
Every writer has been there: staring at a blank page, sipping coffee that’s now colder than their ex’s last text message, wondering how to make their story sparkle. The answer, my fellow scribblers, lies not in the stars, nor in the thesaurus, but in humour. Yes—humour, that life-saving spice that makes even tragedy taste less like boiled cabbage and more like a Michelin-star dish.
Humour is The Human Glue. Let’s be honest—nobody has ever said, “Wow, this story is incredibly depressing, I can’t wait to read it again!” (Okay, maybe once. Hello, Russian literature.) But sprinkle in a witty line, a silly character quirk, or a sarcastic narrator, and suddenly your readers lean in like gossiping neighbors over a fence. Humour is the glue that keeps people turning pages instead of turning off the light.
Even Shakespeare Knew It. Shakespeare, that old bald genius, understood humour. He threw in drunkards, jesters, and cheeky wordplay even in his darkest tragedies. Why? Because he knew audiences needed a breather between the stabbing, poisoning, and ghost-haunting episodes. Without humour, Hamlet would just be three hours of existential whining—basically, Twitter before the memes.
Humour as a Trojan Horse. Want to sneak in big themes—politics, inequality, heartbreak—without sounding like a lecture? Wrap them in humour. Readers swallow the medicine because it’s coated in laughter. George Orwell used satire to expose corruption. Mark Twain wielded wit like a sword against racism. And let’s not forget, your aunt on Facebook uses memes to critique the government daily. Humour is the Trojan horse that smuggles truth past people’s defenses.
Humour Makes Characters Relatable. We don’t love characters because they’re perfect; we love them because they slip on banana peels of life like the rest of us. A witty one-liner or self-deprecating joke makes fictional characters feel more human than any perfectly
