Humour and dialogue

I went to see Fiona O'Loughlin at the Regal last night. Funny woman. It got me thinking about humour, and how you DO humour in writing. One way to start is to translate something/body that made you laugh in real life into a piece of written dialogue. TASK Whatever it was that got your funny bone working, write this up as a short dialogue between two imagined characters. Feel free to set the scene, but make your piece mostly about dialogue. For instance: "I'm cold." Sam was always cold, thought Mary. "So put on a jumper, you dill," she said, without any great malice. "But it's my feet." Jesus. It was always his bloody feet. Mary's shoulders sank about a metre. "Socks, Sam! Ever heard of socks!" etc. etc. Allow yourself to stay with the scene, feeling your way into what these imaginary characters would say. Don't worry too much about "he said, she said". You can the assignment of who said what later when you're in editor mode.