Writing Funny

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.)

http://www.comics.com/comics/fminus/index.html

Comments

[Egonitron]

Humor is so subjective, it's impossible to please everyone. Personally, I like your blog and comic (although I'm not a fan of F Minus.) These tips were great, and you're right for the most part, at least for modern humor. I don't have much of a funny bone in writing, but I'll see if this post helps. Thanks, Scott!

[Jon]

Brevity rocks.

[jerry w.]

F-Minus?

Funny!

It's funny in that that's the same grade I'd give it on a day to day basis.

Lost in the shadow of "Pearls before swine" and so many others, and not going to see the sun soon.

Cathy was funny once, years ago......

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

[Hidius]

My favorite F Minus strip was the one where the warriors were shooting arrows with suction cups, and then the suction cups came off, changing warfare forever...

[Billy B]

It's too bad that you can't fix the world with humor, but you can't. It's only a band aid for dealing with it.
Billy B

[Sir Mike Tallon]

He's great. Here was my favorite:

http://www.comics.com/comics/fminus/archive/fminus-20070626.html

[Brett]

As a Zombie fan, I found June 30th to be particularly funny. July 7th was also quite good. Some of them just totally missed though, not even a chuckle, because they were to corny, wordy, or subtle.

[Shishio]

I didn't find F Minus all that funny. Here's a few better comics:

http://www.thepbf.com (I know this was linked earlier, but it deserves all the recognition it can get.)

http://www.lucid-tv.com

http://www.youdamnkid.com

[Phil]

"Steelhead Salmon" is funnier than "King Salmon". (But perhaps only to those of us who live under the space needle.)

[Whatever]

So I guess F Minus is also syndicated by United Media.
Very bad Adams...

[Joe Cooper]

I loved F Minus, especially the one where they're in the desert with the slot machine and the water vending machine. Brilliant!

I also wanted to point you toward this: http://www.kreepykat.com/ Cruel humor mostly!

[Michael Casey]

Your 2-of-6 rule is interesting, Scott, but I was never convinced that it implies causation rather than simply correlation. I feel like it's missing something key; I'm reminded of your dismissal of the popular humor formula [bad stuff + surprise + someone else]: "If that were true, serial killers would be winning all humor competitions." Naughty + cruel could be a rape, cute + familiar could be a baby, etc.

You cleverly weasel out of this problem by employing your one-size-fits-all 80/20 rule. This is clever because YOU DON'T SAY WHAT THE OTHER 20% COULD BE. It could be *anything*. At first whiff, getting to 80% on two of the six sounds reasonable, given the broad range of those essentials (and, of course, the 80/20 rule), but on close inspection it becomes clear that there are waaaaay more not-remotely-funny things than even almost-funny things that can emerge from that formula. My weasel sense was tingling something fierce.

Now I've realized the genius behind your formula. The formula is indeed a formula, but it doesn't work the way you advertised it. You ingeniously designed it to *provoke* funny thoughts in the minds of us readers; you were gambling on our own ability to draw up comedy given a few bare-bones contexts. Once we start thinking about cuteness and cruelness and bizarreness, our brains will sooner or later stumble upon something funny, like bazooka bunnies (get Rayman Raving Rabbids for your kids, btw). Our brains automatically filter out the non-funny stuff, like "just a baby". You encourage the mindset of experimentation, which is what all humor needs, and we take over from there.

So what's the remaining 20%? Why, the very same thing you were using to share your formula: hypnotism.

[David]

I read them all. They're alright.

[Nimrod]

I only read a couple weeks of F-. I like it. I really like his imagination. But there's a LOT of range as to whether any given comic may or may not be funny. That's probably why you told us to read through his archive.

His Ben Franklin comic put me in stitches. So great. The 1/2 guy on the airplane, also good. But the guy fishing at marine world? Incredibly bad. Beyond lame. So, lots of range.

On average, it's as funny as any other comic.

I might buy his book. If there are at least a handful of Ben Franklin-quality comics in there, it would be worth wading through the stinkers to find them.

[J Jetzen]

I think that "kumquat" may be the funniest word of all time.

You can say that word in any group, in any situation, and at least one person will laugh.

Thanks for the humor tips. I knew there was a formula for this, but never quite knew what it was.

[concatenator]

Oh, and another thing, its not funny when its a-a-almost funny, like F Minus.

[concatenator]

Nope - F Minus was not the slightest bit funny, even if you say so. I did not laugh, snicker, or smile on the inside. It's torture when the guy is obviously trying to be funny, and not succeeding. Like a nurse trying to give you an injection with a blunt needle.

I assumed this is just a way of checking out the competition, or another free will experiment.

[CLB]

I agree with poster Enough Wealth. F Minus is reminiscent of the Far Side and looks promising.

Another relatively new strip that is good is The Pajama Diaries by Terri Libenson. Yes, it covers the same ground as Baby Blues, but there’s enough humor in family situations to go around!

www.pajamadiaries.com

[canajian]

You did use the recognizable part in your post. The Shish Kabob situation and the scene in the bath room. No one has ever experience a full Shish Kabob, but had tried. And everyone knows what goes on in the bathroom.

[Ward Newcomb]

Thanks for the advice. I must say though, that I am disturbed that you think canoe is a funny word. Some of my best canoes are friends.

But in keeping with your previous Mongolian post, there was a segment on the evening news last night showing the world's tallest man meeting the worlds smallest. Have to wonder how big his ganbaatar is. Can't say, however, that I have same level of curiosity.

[me]

Your Mongolian post was terrible, Scott. I cringed just reading it . . . Silly penis euphemisms are on par with fart jokes in the bottom of the low-brow humor barrel. The humor felt forced and obvious, and now I know why: it was constructed according to this set of rules. Your best posts have a spontaneous, unpredicatable quality to them that makes them special.

[JoNa]

Thank you.

When I get laughs from my writing, it is always by accident. I seldom understand what it is that people find funny about my minor or major tragedies. They probably think I'm exaggerating.

I've bought books on how to write humor. The publishers probably laughed a lot as they counted their money.

I tend to kill humor by drowning it in words.

Now if my novel is published and becomes famous, I'll owe you. Damn! Where do I send the check?

[Penethra]

Poor Natalie!!

[jerry w.]

Great description on how to be funny.

Sadly, it was in the least funny post you've done in a long time.

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

[single jane]

Scott,

look at what I found through using the stumble tool in my firefox thingy- http://www.biggercheese.com/comics/0360.png