Hi there!

During my interview with Morris Gleitzman, I got to ask him a personal question.

Well, personal to me. I asked him where his humour came from-did he write with jokes in mind or does it come naturally.

He said that his humour stems from his characters, and how they see the world. It’s in how his characters respond to problems. And I think he’s spot on.

Morris started his career writing pure comedy-jokes that were funny for the sake of being funny. Something that I originally wanted to achieve. Obvious example would be Andy Griffiths’ Just series.

As a stand up comedian, there are only two things I write-set ups and punchlines. It’s very different when it comes to writing stories. I’m shifting my process from ‘what can I do to make this part funny?’ to ‘how can I show my character responding to a problem?’

In other words, a longer set up…for a more satisfying punchline.

It’s been ages since I’ve been this enlightened with my writing, and it’s getting to that stage where all I think about is Lengy and his family-who knows I’ll be dreaming of them soon hehe My worst fear was writing new bits for Thai-riffic! wouldn’t be as funny as my original material. I didn’t want to dilute the humour in the story. But then I discovered that digging deeper into my characters’ thoughts has produced its own jokes.

Well, I think it’s funny. And at this stage, that’s all that counts 🙂

O.W