Comedian

Hi everyone! How was your Valentine's Day? I had a date with The Walking Dead, a good book (that I'm writing), and a bowl of peanut butter ice cream. Much fun! And one of the best TWD episodes ever, if I may say.

As you know, all month long, we're talking about characters. Two weeks ago, it was protagonists. Last week, antagonists, and this week, it's some of my favorite characters... The minors.


Now, a lot of people say that the best minor characters are the ones that we don't really care about, the ones who are just there to support the story and aren't really there to do much other than propelling it forward. Well, they're partially right. But even minor characters need to have a life.

The Comic Relief

This guy is one of my favorite characters to write. I've only managed to do a couple of them successfully, but even a little bit of comedy can be a welcome reprieve from an intense science fiction novel. I would know, since that's what I'm writing right now.

But the question we have to answer, the question we've been answering every week this month, is how do we make a successful character in this theme. And I again have two simple things I do to make the comic relief the best they can be.

1. Relief

The biggest thing to do with your comic relief character is to only really make them amusing in moments of deepest tension. Use them to offset the intensity of your story, by making them come out and do something utterly expected. Have your comic relief character throw a berry that hits your antagonist squarely between the eyes, right in the middle of his speech for world domination. Better yet, have him come in and sit on the table in that moment, and explain how the antagonist isn't going to win. Then have him run away screaming when he realizes he's in a room of bad guys. Like when Han and Chewy run down that corridor after the storm troopers and come up on even more of them. Something realistic, but something to give your reader a little chuckle on the side.

2. No Slapstick

This is the key to a good comic relief character: do not have them do anything slapstick. Don't have them fall on a banana peel or step in poop. Make them a real person, with real world problems. Just make them someone who looks danger in the eye and answers by making a joke.

Trust me, there are a lot of people out there who actually do this. You might know one of them, and if you do, that's a very good way to get started.


I don't know why, but my comic relief characters frequently seem to be eating at a time when no one should be eating. I think maybe in my writer brain, food equals funny?
You'd never know about the food in their hands though, because I generally cut it before the story goes to print. No one needs to be eating 24/7.

The point is, write what you think is amusing. At the very least, it'll help you relieve some of the tension in your head. And if it sucks, you can always cut it later.

[love]

{Rani Divine}