Writing Funny
Today I will teach you how to write funny. I will be referring to my earlier post about the world’s tallest man. Read that one first, two posts below, if you haven’t already.
Picking a Topic
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The topic does half of your work. I look for topics that have at least one of the essential elements of humor:
Clever
Cute
Bizarre
Cruel
Naughty
Recognizable
In order for something to be funny, it has to have at least two of the six elements of humor. A story about a 7-foot 9-inch Mongolian herdsman marrying a smallish woman is bizarre all by itself. In the humor context, bizarre simply means two things you wouldn’t normally find together.
Notice how many of the humor elements I worked into my post about the tall herdsman:
Clever: Retrieving an iPod in a clever way, and the salmon in a canoe analogy
Cruel: Shish Kabob accident with his wife
Bizarre: Conjoined twins with two heads and one vagina, huge man with smallish wife, and a Mongolian herdsman with an iPod.
Naughty: The entire post
The story of the world’s tallest man wasn’t “recognizable” in any meaningful way, so it lacked that element. For many people, that element is the only important one, and the other dimensions are just flavor. If you leave out the “recognizable” element, many people won’t relate to the situation. I took that chance because the other elements were so strong.
I also left out the “cute” element, but that one is never essential. It mixes best with the “cruel” and “bizarre” elements, e.g. a bunny with a bazooka.
Simple Sentences
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Keep your writing simple, as if you were sending a witty e-mail to a friend. Be smart, but not academic. Prune words that don’t make a difference.
Write About People
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It’s impossible to find humor in inanimate things. If you must write about an object or a concept, focus on how someone (usually you) thinks or feels or experiences those things. Humor is about people, period.
Write Visually
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Paint a funny picture with your words, but leave out any details that don’t serve the humor. Notice how many images I packed into my post about the tall guy. It’s hugely visual, and yet I never describe what he looks like, other than being tall.
Leave Room for Imagination
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When I described how the tall guy could retrieve an iPod from a storm drain, I only mentioned the gum, his “python,” and a Victoria Secrets catalog. Every reader formed a slightly different mental picture of the specifics. Leaving out details allows readers to fill them in with whatever image strikes them as funniest. In effect, you let readers direct their own funny movie.
Funny Words
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Use “funny” words when you can. Here are some I used:
Mongolian
Herdsman
Vagina
Trouser
Shish Kabob
Storm drain
Johnson
Slap
Canoe
You can read that list of funny words totally out of context and it almost makes you laugh. Funny words are the ones that are familiar yet rarely used in conversation. It’s a bonus when those words have funny sounds to them, as do most of the ones in my list.
Pop Culture References
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References to popular culture often add humor. It’s funny that the world’s tallest man is retrieving a lost iPod, and not something generic such as a wallet. And it’s funny that his manhood is compared to Ryan Seacrest as opposed to something generic, such as an oak tree. Someone could write a thesis on why pop culture references are funny, but just accept it.
Animal analogies
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Animal references are funny. If you can’t think of anything funny, make some sort of animal/creature analogy. It’s easy, and it almost always works. I made these creature analogies in my post…
King salmon
Python
Exaggerate, then Exaggerate Some More
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Figure out what’s the worst that could happen with your topic, then multiple it by ten or more. Don’t say a mole is as big as a grapefruit. Say that mole is opening its own Starbucks. (Notice the pop culture reference of Starbucks.) The bigger the exaggeration, the funnier it is.
Near Logic
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Humor is about creating logic that a-a-a-lmost makes sense but doesn’t. No one in the real world could put gum on his penis and retrieve an iPod from a storm drain. But your brain allows you to imagine that working, while simultaneously knowing it can’t. That incongruity launches the laugh reflex.
Callback
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A callback is when you end with a funny reference that already got a laugh. In my post, I knew the Ganbaatar gag would get a laugh, so I used it again in a different sense for the closing line. It puts a nice period on your humor writing.
Genetic Abnormality
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Humor is like any other human capacity; some people are born with more of it than others. No amount of advice will help if you don’t have the humor gene.
Here’s a link to a newish comic called F Minus, by Tony Carrillo. He has the humor gene. I’m picking him to be the next big comic. (Read a few weeks of his archive before forming an opinion.)