Lisa Walker writes novels for adults and young adults. She has also written an ABC Radio National play and been published in the Age, Griffith Review, Big Issue and the Review of Australian Fiction. Her recent novels include a young adult coming-of-age story, Paris Syndrome (HarperCollins, 2018), and a climate change comedy, Melt (Lacuna, 2018). She has worked in environmental communication and as a wilderness guide, and recently spent six months in a Kmart tent in outback Australia. Lisa lives, surfs and writes on the north coast of New South Wales. The Girl with the Gold Bikini, her sixth novel, introduced teen PI Olivia Grace. Trouble is my Business is the second Olivia Grace novel.
Today, Lisa Walker is on the blog to tell us about how and why she uses humour in her writing. Read on …
Lisa Walker (Photo by Tim Eddy).
Why be funny?
I think of myself as a serious person, yet in my writing, I like to be funny. It’s a conundrum Why is that? For a start, it’s because writing humour is fun. Completing a novel is a long process. It’s easier if I get a chuckle out of it every now and then. While I think it’s enough to be funny just for the sake of it – let’s face it, there’s enough doom and gloom in the world – I also think humour can serve a purpose. When we share a joke, we get an insight into something we might not have thought about before. A truth told by humorous means can potentially be a deeper truth.
Humour can be used as a trojan horse to introduce issues I care about. Steve Martin says that comedians should have a ‘manifesto’ which is the source material for their humour. I’ve realised that my humour mainly arises from three subjects – feminism, environmentalism, and pretentiousness. So, I guess that’s my manifesto.
Olivia, the protagonist of my latest teen mystery series, might lecture a man on the street about sexism, but she does it while dressed as a Gold Coast meter maid. She joins a marine-mammal rescue mission with a bunch of activists but makes a social faux pas while talking to a dolphin. The incongruity of these images gives the scenes a comic twist. In this way, comedy can engage readers on issues they might otherwise avoid.
Humour can arise from all aspects of a novel – setting, character, plot, and word choice. My mystery novels are set on the Gold Coast and in Byron Bay. While these places strike me as particularly ripe for humour, everywhere has its funny side. Humour comes from looking at things we take for granted in a fresh way. Try looking at your life as an alien would and notice the absurdities.
You could call my Olivia Grace books comedies of manners, but instead of upper class manners, I satirise surfing etiquette, new age therapies, and celebrity yoga. With its hipster surfers and chakra aligners, Byron Bay is a dream come true for social satire. The Gold Coast is equally amusing in a completely different way. Glittering high rises with names like Chamonix and Cote d’Azur, theme parks, and rampant tourism, make for a fertile comic environment.
‘Steve Martin says that comedians should have a ‘manifesto’ which is the source material for their humour. I’ve realised that my humour mainly arises from three subjects – feminism, environmentalism, and pretentiousness. So, I guess that’s my manifesto.’
Humour arises from the characters and their foibles too. Most of us know what it’s like to be socially awkward. We might not have run into an ex-boyfriend while browsing the Woolies condom aisle like Olivia, but we can imagine how that might feel. I often give my characters ‘out there’ qualities I don’t have myself. Olivia’s the kind of girl who does a headstand in a gold bikini in the middle of Surfers Paradise. Reader, I am not that girl and never have been.
Humour can also come both from dialogue and a character’s internal monologue. In Trouble is my Business, I take the internal monologue one step further by creating a contrasting persona called Nansea, which Olivia adopts when she goes undercover. Nansea is a bold, go-getter, while Olivia is cautious and reliable, so the internal monologue is full of conflict and absurdity.
Plot can also be manipulated to create comical situations. The fish out of water scenario never gets old. Placing a character in a situation they don’t have the skills to handle is so much fun. Olivia goes undercover as a very bad yoga instructor, works as a Gold Coast meter maid, and infiltrates a cult in the guise of a troubled hippie. Here, the humour comes from the juxtaposition between Olivia’s true personality and the role she is playing.
For me, writing with humour is about staying true to my experience of the world. I view many situations in life with a touch of humour, so it makes sense to write them that way. In the words of the illustrious Homer Simpson, ‘It’s funny ’cause it’s true’. Besides, the research is in – people with a sense of humour live longer.
—Trouble is my Business by Lisa Walker (Wakefield Press) is out now.
Trouble is my Business
Olivia Grace: Book 2
Olivia Grace, recently retired teen PI, has her priorities sorted. Pass first-year law, look after her little sister, and persuade her parents to come back from a Nepali monastery to resume ... well, parenting.
But after Olivia's friend Abbey goes missing in Byron Bay, a short drive from Olivia's Gold Coast home, she can't sit back and study Torts. It's time to go undercover as hippie-chick Nansea, in hippie-chic Byron Bay, hub of influencers and international tourism, and home of yoga, surfing and wellness culture....
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