What do you prefer? writing the actual laugh "hahaha" or just saying "he laughed really hard" I just found this problem in middle of a conversation
Laughs
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Use 'he laughed'.
Use even that sparingly. There are four thousand way to show someone is amused without saying he laughed.
Use even that sparingly. There are four thousand way to show someone is amused without saying he laughed.
I never type out the laugh. It's always 'he laughed' for me. If somebody is being sarcastic, I will occasionally type out "Ha ha ha." But rarely. (I'm NEVER sarcastic.)
And I agree with what job said also...
And I agree with what job said also...
Sarcastic:
"Haha."
Unsarcastic:
He laughed.
Usually I'll use "snorted" though. My characters snort a lot.
"Haha."
Unsarcastic:
He laughed.
Usually I'll use "snorted" though. My characters snort a lot.
I avoid using laughed by itself, but tend to use chuckled, guffawed, snorted soda up her nose, giggled or snickered. If I do use laughed, I qualify it with heartily, uncontrollably, 'til he cried, or other such.
Theognome
Theognome
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Chuckled, snorted, cackled, all of that is better than "Hahahaha!" Only as an exclamation (like when you beat a guy at cards and say, "Ha! I win!") or as a sarcastic comment (Personally I prefer "Har, har.") is haha okay.
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I'm a "he laughed" kind of person. But sometimes I will write "haha" instead. It depends on what feels right at the time.
Jokes between characters are WAY funnier if the characters don't laugh. It's just like watching a comedy. Way funnier if the actors don't laugh.
Just saying.
Just saying.
True, but people laugh sometimes when nothing's funny. They laugh out of nervousness or anxiety, out of incredulity, and sometimes out of pure and unadulterated spite.
Many of my characters are devious, and so the dialogue is often...sardonic. Characters chuckle not because they find the situation funny, but because they're thinking, Joke it up now, jokester, but watch the shadows later...
Good point. There are definitely times when laughing is appropriate--didn't mean to imply this thread doesn't have validity. Just figured I'd mention this here.
I always think twice before I put in laughter...there are times, like in Will's examples, when laughing adds something to the situation. When you're trying to make a funny character, he will come across as much funnier if the other characters don't laugh at him.
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And in LOTTERY I wanted the reader to know my character had a habit of laughing loud and at inappropriate moments- so I had him say, "Ha!"
An exact description of the best of TV sitcoms, WKRP, Mary Tyler Moore, Cheers, Taxi, Seinfeld. It isn't so much a matter of "jokes" as it is a matter of being shown characters caring passionately about absurd things, and doing even more absurd things to express that passion: The Rev. Jim Ignatowski (Christopher Lloyd on Taxi), confused and mystified upon learning that the Pope is Catholic; know-it-all postman Cliff (on Cheers), ever ready to pontificate in profound terms on the most mundane and minute aspects of everyday life; George and Elaine desperately trying to please the Soup Nazi, in order to get a taste of the legendary soup.
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One of my characters is a sixty-ish man who has a unique laugh that I have to actually write out. He goes: "Ha-HAH!" and points his finger.
(This particular trait is patterned after a man at my work who laughs this way. I liked it so much I wrote it into the character (that already existed).)
allen
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