CREATIVE WRITING
Comic timing
Writing funny is one of the hardest things to do well, and it can mean playing a long game. Former standup turned comedy writer and now novelist C.K. McDonnell explains how nothing in a comic writer’s life is ever wasted, and how you can make comedy work in your fiction.
C.K. McDonnell
Carla Speight
Comedy is a bit like terrorism. There’s no one set route into it, but it invariably ends up with your family explaining to anyone who will listen that they’ve no idea how you’d ended up like this. I once had what my mother considers to be a proper job in IT. She could explain it to the neighbours, and they wouldn’t pull sympathetic faces. People know what computers are and they’re useful. Stand-up comedians on the other hand, well that’s just a modernday court jester who doesn’t even get to meet important people. They should have seen it coming though. I was the weird kid who sat inside reading Terry Pratchett books when everyone else was out playing football.
It has now been twenty years since I last told someone to ‘turn it off and on again’ in a professional capacity and since then, I have made my living from comedy or ‘comedy adjacent’ activities. I was a stand-up comedian, a kid’s TV writer, a gun-for-hire writing for comics on panel shows, an in-stadium announcer for a professional sports team (once described as ‘The second most annoying man in British rugby’ – The Mail), and most recently, an author. As of three years ago, an author is all I am, which if nothing else, does make my tax return a lot more straightforward to fill out. I’ve even grown a beard and I’m actively pursuing cardigan-wearing opportunities. Much to my mother’s relief, I’ve hung up my clowning shoes. The neighbours know what books are. In a certain light, it’s almost respectable. Almost.