Dying is easy. Comedy is hard. In an essay for Lit Hub, Maeve Higgins says that comedy is an intrinsic aspect of life and as such, belongs in writing of all kinds. “Humor is not a dodge or a distraction or a cheap trick, it’s an essential part of being alive, and as such, we must include it in the art we create,” she says. “In sadness, anxiety, and even violence, part of the human instinct will always be to laugh.”
In fact, Higgins finds writing that lacks any humor to be inauthentic and lacking something. “Writing funny means threading jokes, curiosity, and connections throughout your work,” she says. “It means coming up for air, knowing that those sips of oxygen are essential for clarity of thought and will allow us to go even deeper next time.”
And no topic is off-limits. “Remember how irresistible it can sometimes be to giggle at a funeral,” Higgins says. “In My Sister, The Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite makes the reader laugh along at the story of a sociopathic murderer and her well-meaning, but complicit, sibling.”
Higgins says comedy belongs in all writing. “To surprise, subvert, and snap us back into the conversation when our minds have shut down because they are tired or in pain,” she says. “Writing funny is difficult both emotionally and technically, but when it’s done right, it reads easy. And what a service that is! Reading funny is a pleasure and a relief, striking notes that otherwise get missed, helping us to hear the entire messy symphony of human experience.”
