Writing humor

In my opinion, for something to be funny, it has to be believable. I've found the best way to insert humor into your novel is to take a simple remembrance and stretch it--add to it--much like a fisherman does when he tells about that big bass. Take a simple story and put your imagination to work. In my novel, The Red Scarf, I have several stories involving the principal characters that have a grain of truth in them---enough to be believable. I'll give you an example: At a Tarzan movie, we watched as Tarzan and the natives trapped some bad guys by digging a pit and covering it with branches. We thought that was so neat we decided to try and catch a raccoon in a pit trap. In real life that actually happened. When I went to check the pit trap the next morning a skunk had fallen into it. I ran back to town to get my friend, but when we returned the skunk had escaped. That's the whole story, but read how the story changed in The Red Scarf.

The next morning we couldn’t wait for church to be over. All through Sunday School we whispered back and forth about what we were gonna have in our pit trap. John Clayton came home from church with me, and after Sunday dinner; we called Sniffer and headed for the swamp. We ran the whole way to the beech tree rise deep in the swamp. Sunday dinner had been slow, slow, slow, cause the preacher ate with us, and now it was getting late. Heck, one of the things I remember the most is that it was getting dark and all the big trees made it look real gloomy. I kinda got a little spooky cause I sure didn’t want to be caught deep in the swamp after dark.
Boy, by the time I got to the pit trap I was gasping for my breath, and I was just so excited I could hardly stand it. I got to the pit trap before John Clayton.
“Something’s in the trap!— Look,— there’s a hole in the sticks and leaves where it fell through!,” I yelled. We peered in the pit, and in the fading light we could barely make out something dark and furry moving around trying to climb the dirt walls.
“All right! Look at that! Hey, we done caught ourselves a big old coon,”’ I hollered.
“Yeah, ” echoed John Clayton, “but—uh—what now? How are we gonna get the dang coon outta the pit?”
Well, that was a pretty good question, and I guess we’d been so excited about catching the coon we hadn’t even thought about how we were going to get it in a sack to take to Mr. Benton.
We sat there looking down in the hole trying to think of some way to capture the coon. Heck, I could just look at the white teeth marks on my hand where a big old coon clamped down on my hand last summer when I reached in a hollow log to pull out a rabbit, which weren’t no rabbit a-tall but a mean coon and, if I reached down in that hole and grabbed the coon, it was gonna bite the fool outta of me. Then I had a pretty good idea.
“Hey, John Clayton; you know somethin’? If we could get a rope around the coon, we could pull it up, drop it in a tow sack, and take it over to Mr. Benton’s. Heck, we got at least eight dollars right here in this hole, and all we gotta do is get the coon out and in a sack.”
“Yeah, Richard, that might work, but who’s gonna put the rope around the coon?”
“Heck, John Clayton, we’ll just drop a loop over it like those cowboys do cows and pull it up; you hold the sack, and I’ll drop it in. This will be so easy you won’t believe it. Come on, let’s go back to my house and get some heavy cord and a tow sack.”
We walked and ran back to our barn and found some good strong white cord and a tow
sack.
“Hurry up, John Clayton, it’s gettin’ dark, and I’m not about to stay in that spooky swamp after dark.” We ran and walked as fast as we could and in a few minutes we were back at the pit trap ready to lasso the coon.
I got lucky on the first drop of the cord.
“Whoa! Get the sack ready, stupid. I’ve already got the cord 'round its neck, and I’m ready to pull it up.” I could feel the coon a-jerking, kicking, and snarling. “I got ’em! I got ’em! Get the sack!”
Sniffer stuck his head down in the mouth of the hole, howling to beat sixty, and John Clayton was on his knees holding the sack out ready to let me drop the coon in it.
“Okay, get ready! Here it comes!” I yelled. “And don’t ya let it get away!”
Boy, I could feel the coon jerking and snarling as I slowly pulled it up out of the hole. I stopped pulling right before the coon was at the top of the hole, and me, Sniffer, and John Clayton were all on our knees. The coon was almost out of the pit and we were all bending over to see catch the first glimpse of the coon.
“Okay, Mr. Coon, come outta that hole!,” I yelled as I stood up and pulled the coon out on the end of the cord.
When I pulled the coon up out of the hole I kinda thought it looked a little different. If fact I was wondering why it had some white fur on its back when John Clayton yelled;
“That ain’t no coon, Richard! It’s a skunk!”’
“Noooooooooo! Look out!” I yelled, but before we could move the skunk raised its tail and sprayed its musk all over everybody.
“Ahaaaaaaaaa! Ahaaaaaaaa! Run! Run!” I screamed as I dropped the skunk on the ground and turned to run.
Clomp!
Sniffer, who was right by my side, grabbed the skunk before it hit the ground, and boy, if you thought it sprayed the first time, that weren’t nothing to what hit us the second time.
“Ahaaaaaa! Sniffer! No! No!” I yelled and I whacked as Sniffer on the head to make him turn the skunk loose, which he did, but the skunk sprayed everybody again and Sniffer caught most of it right in his face.
"Hoooooooo! Hoooooo!"
Sniffer staggered back howling, pawing his nose and eyes as the skunk trotted off.
“Oh!—, Oh, my God! I can’t breathe. Ahaaaaaaaaaaa! Run for your life!” I screamed as I wiped my face and eyes, desperately trying to get rid of the stinking smell.
We were jumping around trying to rub the stuff off, and I’m not kidding when I’m telling you it was the worst dang smell you’ve ever smelt in your whole dang life. Course me and John Clayton were a-yelling and Sniffer was howling to beat sixty, but all the yelling and howling weren’t doing no good.
“Ahaaaaaa! Ahaaaaaa! Oh! Oh! Dang! Dang! Dang, you, Richard! We smell horrible—…. This stuff is all over us,—…… and it’s all your stinkin’ fault! You stupid idiot!” ” screamed John Clayton.
“My fault! You thought it was a coon too!. You must be blind if you can’t tell a skunk from a coon.” “Why didn’t you tell me to drop it back in the hole?”
“You liar! Liar! You sorry liar! What are we gonna do now?”
“Shoot, I don’t have a clue. I know one thing for sure, Momma ain’t’s not gonna let us come in the house a-smellin’ like this.”
They weren’t was nothing to do but slowly walk back to my house with Sniffer, who was stopping to roll in the dirt and paw at his nose every few feet. Wow, I’ve smelled some bad stuff before, but nothing like what that skunk sprayed us with.
We walked up to our back door, and I called out to Daddy.
Daddy walked out and before he even got near us he said, “What’s wrong? What’s that I smell?”
“Uh, well, Daddy, we happed to get too close to a skunk.,” I said.
Daddy started to smile as he stood there in the door. He walked down the steps to check us out, but before the door slammed shut Sniffer went running in the kitchen.
I could hear Momma screaming at Sniffer all the way out in the back yard. Sniffer burst back through the door with Momma swinging a broom.
“What in the world has that dog rolled in now? My kitchen smells horrible!”
Then Momma saw us standing there with our heads up trying not to smell the skunk musk that was all over our clothes.
“What? What in the world have you boys been into now?”
“Skunk got us, Momma.,” I said.
“Skunk got you? What in the world were you doing gettin' close enough to a skunk to get sprayed?”
“Uh, well, Momma, we had this trap just like Tarzan, and—….”
“Oh, my gosh, well, strip off your clothes. You can’t come in this house smellin’ like that.”
“What? What?” said John Clayton, who dang sure didn’t want to take off his clothes in front of Momma.
“I’ll go get a bar of Lava soap, and you boys can stand out here in the back yard and bathe while your daddy holds the garden hose on you. Now, get out of those clothes, and put them in the wash pot. Jack, fill the pot with water and boil those clothes for about thirty minutes, and put about a quarter cup of Pine-Sol in with them.”
Momma was all business, and even though it was about thirty-five degrees, and getting dark, we started undressing.
I got everything off, and Daddy picked up our clothes with a stick and dropped them in the wash pot. He started a fire with pine kindling and threw everything we had on, including our shoes, in the pot.
“Okay, boys;, Richard, you’re first, take this bar of soap and wash while I hold this hose over you.” Daddy turned the hose on, I turned around, and a full stream of cold water hit me right in the middle of my back, and when the first drop hit my bare skin, I jumped three feet high.
“Ahaaaaaa, Daddy! Stop! Stop! It’s too cold!. I’m freezin’ to death!.” I screamed.
“Richard, stop whinin’ and start scrubbin’ with that bar of soap.”
So, for the next ten minutes I spent the most miserable time of my life standing in the back yard in the dark with cold water cascading over me, scrubbing like crazy, while John Clayton stood there grinning like a possum.