What makes your character laugh out loud?

[Roc]

This is something that was just shortly brought to my attention. We think up the personalities of our characters and what not, yet this somehow eluded me.

What makes your character laugh?

 

[TWErvin2]

What makes Flank Hawk (Krish) laugh? Comments/observations from his frind, Lilly, (when he gets her sense of humor).

 

[Anders Ämting]

Well gee, that's a tricky one. I mean, the only answer I can think of is: "Something that characters finds funny." It varies, though, because different characters may have different senses of humour and some may be more prone to laughing than others.

Isn't this kinda the same thing as asking: "What makes real people laugh out loud?" If you are good at writing humour you should also have a feeling for what sort of things strike people as generally amusing.

 

[The Dark One]

I'd also suggest that 1st person or 3rd person are very different. In a 3rd person narrative, you just say he laughed which will be accepted by the reader if the context is believably humourous. But in a 1st person narrative the reader is far more intimately privy to the narrator's thoughts and personality, which means you have to be a lot more convincing and a lot more genuinely funny if you want the reader to believe the narrator is laughing. Unless the reader is laughing themself, this will fall very flat.

 

[shangrila]

Darias laughs with his daughter and (mockingly) at people that overjudge their skills. That's about it. He's not a very happy man.

Jezra, on the other hand, is more sociable. She tries not to laugh at people but sometimes can't help herself. She's not really one to tell jokes, though some light, humorous teasing isn't out of the question.

Sal laughs at everything. He knows he's going insane, so he figures it's what he's supposed to do.