Bestselling author of several hilarious book series for kids Tim Harris joined Valerie Khoo in our Creative Conversation series to share his clever writing tips and tricks to writing stories that will make kids – and even adults – laugh out loud.
A full-time primary school teacher for 15 years, Tim never thought about becoming a full-time author. But after cracking-up his students with a story he’d written, this teacher decided to pursue a career in writing funny books for kids. Tim is now a full-time author with several bestselling kids book series such as the Toffle Towers, Mr Bambuckle’s RemarkablesandExploding Endings.
This teacher-turn-author spills the beans in his conversation with Valerie on what techniques and skills writers need to deliver great jokes and gags for kids and, rest assured, they can be learned. Tim has mastered these techniques through writing his books and excitedly shares them through his top 5 tips on how to write a brilliantly hilarious story that will leave kids in fits of laughter.
During the busy months when Tim is travelling delivering presentations and hosting creative writing workshops, he finds it difficult to find time to write. But he shares with us how he has carved out enough time to write and publish so many great books.
Revealing his writing methods, Tim goes through how he creates narrative arcs that work, not only in individual books but for a book series as a whole. The author tells us his successful methods for building scenes and developing characters for his books.
Discussing the different types of humour that can be used when writing funny books for kids, for example toilet and spontaneous humour, Tim explains how important it is to write jokes that are effective and timeless; to make the humour relevant and suitable. And yes, Tim has confirmed that there is room for ‘dad jokes’!
We even get an insight to Tim’s approaches for plotting and planning so that he creates an exciting story line that is fully equipped with all the best jokes and gags every time. So, get your post-its ready and take notes.
Watch the replay of our Creative Conversations episode with the hilarious Tim Harris here.
Warning: This Creative Conversations episode contains fart jokes that may have you laughing uncontrollably.
If you're curious about writing humour for kids – not just dad jokes – and want to test how funny you are, Tim has developed a course that will teach you how to construct a great kids story full of brilliant laugh out loud moments that kids will love. Check out Tim’s Laugh out loud: Crafting funny stories for kids.
