Funny talk
Funny in real life and funny in print are different skills, says Jane Wenham-Jones
Jane Wenham-Jones
TALK IT OVER
For years, people have told me I’m funny and should write a book. Now I have finally made a start, I’m getting very frustrated. My friends have always encouraged me to share anecdotes and appeared to find them highly amusing – but trying to reproduce these in print is a different matter.
For example, I told a gathering in the pub about a funny encounter I’d had in the supermarket and they all roared with laughter. When I wrote it down for the informal writing group I’ve just joined, there were a few polite titters and the suggestion that it didn’t sound very realistic. Even though I had told it exactly as it happened. I tried recording another tale that had gone down well verbally and making an exact transcript. That landed like a lead balloon too. How can I learn to be as hilarious in writing as I thought I was in person?