Do we have any opinions about any of these things? They’re all pretty horrible, for starters. The tearing out of the heart strikes me as the most workable one of the bunch. It’s mild because a lot of time has passed since the tragedy. It’s something a Native American might have done hundreds of years ago. It’s such a wildly inappropriate thing to do, it compels me to think of the opposite, to let Irony help out on this one:
A savage who tears out hearts and eats them raw is confirmed as the new U.S. Secretary of Defense
President Nominates Gen. Herbert T. Klinesdale Secretary of Tearing Out Hearts and Eating Them Raw
That last one brings out some Subtext: that posts like Secretary of Defense, and the fact that we live in a world where war and conflict must awkwardly coexist with appropriate and civilized society, is strange and barbaric.
Next is Hyperbole. Hyperbole needs something to exaggerate, so we need to start with an opinion or some Subtext. So, what opinions do we have?
• Dessert is delicious
• Slides are fun
• Bunnies are cute
• Depressed people are no fun to talk to
Now, how can we exaggerate these ideas? We can take a dessert from that first one, and contrast it with something far larger:
World United by Delicious Cake
Let’s move on to the next Funny Filter, Wordplay. Wordplay is a great Funny Filter to start from scratch with because when you find an interesting way to play with words, sometimes interesting Subtext can come about in unexpected ways. Think of some common words, or maybe words that might seem like they’d be fun to play with, then start goofing around with them to see if we can come up with anything.
• Bilbo Baggins
• The Reichstag
• Bumble bee
• Tumble-bum
• Tupperware
• Stink bomb
• Squirt gun
• BB gun
• Pellet gun
Now, are there words that sound like these words that could be swapped with them, or ways to contort these words into new words?
Abominable Bumble Bee Haunts Local
Bramble
A homemaker is in stable condition after an unexpected Tupperwarelanche
There’s a made-up word in that second one, but not much Subtext.
Toys“R”Us has banned the sale of semi-autoloading squirt guns.
That enough attempts at Wordplay for now.
Reference is next. Here, we need to think of things that have happened in our lives, little moments that we think readers might be able to relate to.
Like, isn’t it awful when you prepare a meal then drop the plate when you’re heading to the table with it? (“Don’t you hate it when...” is another good way to get yourself in the mode of thinking up a Reference joke.) Summer is better than winter because you don’t have to put on and take off all those layers of coats, hat, boots, etc. They say nobody gets enough vitamin D from the sun anymore, but they also warn against sun exposure.
That’s enough raw material. Let’s try to come up with a way to express some of these by bringing to mind the Reference, letting the reader add two and two to come up with it on their own.
Avoiding the sun yet getting enough Vitamin D are both important, so I drink 8 glasses of sunblock per day.
Next is Madcap. To get us started, some inherently funny things often used in Madcap are animals, funny hats, falling, goofy clown-horn sound, pants, chimps.
What do these things bring to mind? I like funny hats (that’s where I go) and the pope has one of the funniest hats of all. It’s such a great target because of the inherent Irony (he holds one of the most serious positions on Earth yet he wears the silliest hat) and Shock (making fun of religion). With Madcap, we already have three Funny Filters and we haven’t even told the joke yet!
So, how can we make this situation even sillier?
Pope breaks out matching conical gloves for winter
This one would be good with a picture showing the Pope wearing two-feet-tall, pointy (and impractical) gloves to match his hat. In that case, we could cut some words:
Pope breaks out matching winter gloves
After Madcap comes Parody. A good way to start with Parody when you’re writing it is to think of the last thing you read, and try to parody that. The last thing I read was the order form from the photography company with my son’s school pictures.
To parody that, the first thing that comes to mind for me is this form in the not-too-distant future, when child abductions are on the rise. Companies like this would send out order forms so you can select your child’s milk-carton photo.
Super dark with some added Shock, but at least it has meaty Subtext.
We keep moving to Analogy, which we divine by come up with two disparate things that might have some similarities:
• A terrorist attack and a common household errand
• A gathering storm and an impending visit from unwanted company
• A parent and a god
• Santa Claus and God
Then take one of those ideas and split the two pieces apart. Lay one out clearly, but only allude to the other:
Suicide bomber had one other thing to do but can’t remember what it was
To save humanity from sin, Santa sacrifices Chris Kringle, Jr.
For Misplaced Focus, we want to think of something unimportant that we can focus intently on at the exclusion of something else that’s far more important. What are some things that are really big and important?
• The world ending
• An apocalypse
• A devastating flood
• The world exploding
Now, what are some very small things related to those big things? We’re looking for little, unimportant details surrounding them. For the world ending, there will be lava, plants will die, there will be no more episodes of our favorite TV show. What will come of the fashion industry? For the apocalypse, there are the Biblical details, like horsemen, the Antichrist (actually, he’s probably to major a figure in that). How about
Joan Rivers and her daughter give a fashion play-by-play at world’s end.
The apocalypse will be a boon for out-of-work horsemen
That first one is more of an idea for a sketch than a one-liner. But that’s okay. We’re in Clown mode, so everything is embraced.
Last one on the list is Metahumor. Let’s shoot for type-B Metahumor and deconstruct something having to do with comedy:
Hilarious comedy show elicits laughter, cheers
And how about one more to try for a type A. Let’s try starting out with an idiom having to do with humor or laughing.
• Laughter is the best medicine
• It only hurts when I laugh
• Laughter makes the world go around
(Actually that’s love, I think)
Okay, let’s try working with that last one and see what happens:
It only hurts when I laugh, so I don’t laugh, which hurts.
Some word repetition in there adds a little Wordplay to that one.
With the Divining method, since we’re solely in Clown-brain mode, it’s always a good idea, if possible, to let new jokes sit for a few days so you can forget them, then look them over and assess them with a more objective eye (your Editor brain).
Chapter 7 Action Steps:
1. Write 10 one-liners or headlines or jokes using the Filtering method, going through Subtext and other non-joke observations you find in your notebook or Morning Pages.
2. Go through your jokes from the Chapter 6 Action Step and run them through the Finessing process to make sure they’re as good as they can be.
3. Write 10 one-liners using the Divining method, cycling through each of the 11 Funny Filters.
8: PROCESS OVERVIEW
Let’s review the step-by-step process for how to generate funny ideas, and how to use this process to practice writing humor, and ultimately work toward producing hig
h-quality humor, and doing so consistently.
All good humor writing starts with an opinion. A writer needs to have something to say. This opinion doesn’t have to be funny, it just has to be something you have a feeling about. The humor writer generates this idea, and then is compelled to express it to readers. It can be an opinion about how it’s no fun getting old, how chores are annoying, or something more sophisticated, like the idea that the whole human condition is a farce.
Usually, an opinion suitable for good Subtext comes in the form of a simple sentence: noun, verb, object. It must be an irreducible thought, which has no Subtext or hidden meaning of its own. It must be a flat, “on the nose” opinion.
This opinion, whether sophisticated, dark, uplifting or just small and silly, is the essential spark needed to create humor. The more astute and original your opinion, the better your humor writing is going to be. If your opinion is trite or contrived or, worst of all, a cliché, your humor writing is not going to be very good.
You can start with this opinion, or you can start with an attempt at a joke, and worry about finding and finessing the opinion out of it afterwards. Either way works.
There are two primary ways to generate the opinions you need to write about. The first is to be struck by the lightening bolt of inspiration. This method is highly unreliable, so it’s a good idea to keep a little notebook and pen with you at all times in order to capture those precious thoughts whenever they hit.
The other method is to sit in front of a computer or pad of paper and just start writing. Write continuously and without judgment for a half an hour every day. As you write, try to gently nudge your thoughts toward what amuses you. This is how you grease the wheels of your mind and churn up all sorts of humorous ideas and opinions that you didn’t even know you had.
Humor-Writing Tip #18: Ruffle Some Feathers
In Satire, if someone’s not offended, you’re probably not doing it right. The best humor has a little sense of danger, or mischievousness, as if the writer is getting away with saying something that shouldn’t be allowed. Often this is at the expense of a humorless authority or comfortable target. When a target gets angry at something you wrote, as long as they’re a deserving target, consider that a badge of honor and a sign of success.
These two activities develop The Clown side of your brain. The Clown is the right side of the brain—the foolish, unrestrained, confident and prolific part of your brain where all your funny ideas come from. By carrying a notebook to write down inspired thoughts and by continuing to do the Morning Pages exercise, you prime the pump of your creativity until it is overflowing.
All good humor writers experience this sense of idea-overflow, and as a result feel compelled to get it out through writing. It’s something they have to do, or they’ll burst. Developing the Clown side of the brain is how you can generate this compulsion in yourself. It’s relatively easy, but can take a few days or even weeks to see results from the Morning Pages.
The prolific and successful humor writer needs to develop not just the Clown side of the brain, but the Editor side as well. The Editor represents the left side of the brain, the logical, critical, and organized side. This side of the brain needs to be conditioned to sculpt humor by evaluating ideas based on the criteria laid out in this book. Does it have too many words? Is it a cliché? Is it comforting the comforted? These questions need to be answered, and any joke that doesn’t meet the criteria for good humor needs to be either finessed or scrapped.
It will take some time for you to get confident using this process. The best way to master it is to practice it regularly. Here is a suggested schedule for that practice:
Every day, write in your notebook when an idea strikes you, and force yourself to do the Morning Pages exercise.
Once or twice a week, go through your notebook of ideas and your daily Morning Pages. If you see anything remotely interesting or potentially funny in there, take it out and put in on a short list. For most writers, only a single-digit percentile of what they write will make it onto this short list. That’s fine. Some weeks you may have more, and some weeks you may have less. That’s fine, too. Just remember that the more material you generate, no matter how good it is, the more you’ll have to work with. And that’s all that matters at this stage.
However, if you find you’re consistently finding nothing interesting or amusing in all of your raw material, you’re probably being overly critical of your work (relying too heavily on the Editor side of your brain), and it might be a good idea to get a second opinion, try to lower your standards, or go back to the drawing board and do more Clown cultivation. You might also try putting your work it in front of readers, no matter how good or bad you think it is. No matter what happens, you’ll probably learn something about your work that could help you improve.
There are generally two kinds of ideas that make it onto your short list: (1) Funny observations or opinions, and (2) unfunny observations or opinions. Each kind of idea is valuable. The former is clay you can shape into a joke. The latter is ore from which quality humor can be mined.
As you reshape and create jokes, your Subtext may change. That’s okay. As long as your Subtext is saying something that you can stand behind, you’re doing well. And if it’s making you laugh, then you’re in great shape.
Unfunny opinions can be extremely useful to the humor writer. They represent how you feel about a given subject, which is potential Subtext for humor. You can turn these ideas into funny writing by filtering them through one or more of the Funny Filters.
The Funny Filters filter or process your ideas so readers can’t taste your bitter, raw opinion. You want your reader to experience only the sweet refined humor. Ideally, you want them to do this by discovering your Subtext subliminally. It’s like feeding an aspirin to a child. You don’t give the child a plain, dry, bitter pill to swallow. You crunch it up and put it in a spoonful of jelly. This is how Subtext works.
If readers wanted unrefined opinion, they would read the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. They’re reading your work because they want to read something funny. So, you need to hide your Subtext in a spoonful of humor. This is what the Funny Filters do for you.
Spend a few minutes every day trying to write humor. Do this by one of three methods: Filtering, Finessing and Divining.
In Filtering, you experiment with your Subtext by running it through each of the 11 Funny Filters. See if anything funny happens to it when it’s looked at in the differently shaped funhouse mirror each Funny Filter provides. If something funny happens, add that idea to your short list of potential jokes. If nothing particularly funny happens, you’re either being too critical again, or maybe your Subtext isn’t elemental enough or astute enough.
The 11 Funny Filters represent the only 11 things that will work to reliably generate laughs in comedy. If you’re working with good Subtext, one of the Funny Filters will work to make your Subtext funny. Go through them again and make sure you’re using each one properly.
If you don’t have any Subtext but instead have a funny observation or funny line or joke that you’ve written, use the Finessing method. Now you’re not looking so much at Subtext as you’re trying to maximize the laugh potential of the joke. Go through all 17 of the Humor Writing Tips in this book and assess your joke.
Does it conform to all the guidelines outlined in those tips? Is it a cliché? Could the contrast be heightened? Could you rearrange it so it has a better, less clichéd structure, or so that the funny part comes last?
What’s the target? If the target is good (it must comfort the afflicted or afflict the comfortable), or if it’s edgy because it gets tantalizingly close to the wrong target, move on to asking yourself what Funny Filters are being used. It’s very important that you know what joke you’re telling, and how you’re telling it. You need to be aware of what you’re communicating and how you’re making it funny for the reader. Only then can you have the kind of control you need to maximize the experience f
or your reader and get the biggest laugh possible.
Ask yourself, Could this joke make use of more Funny Filters? Could you layer them? Go through each Funny Filter and see if there’s a way to incorporate some element of each without adversely affecting your joke, and certainly without adding words. Most won’t fit, but you might get lucky with a garnish. A slight pinch of Shock or Madcap almost always makes a joke better. And with some work, some sophisticated Wordplay could probably be applied. Could a character be involved? Could you change the format and turn it into Parody?
When you’ve beefed the joke up as much as you can, ask yourself, can any words be cut? Proof it, and make sure it’s spelled right and makes grammatical sense.
If you have no notes or jokes of any kind, use the Divining method, and go through each of the 11 Funny Filters and brainstorm jokes using each filter’s inherent funniness.
After a few weeks of this, you’ve probably got yourself a few good jokes. Sift through the best jokes on your short list and decide what to do with them. For what media is each idea is best suited? Do you have small ideas, suitable for no more than a tweet or one-liner? Do you have bigger ideas—ones that could sustain a short story? Maybe it’s even worthy of a comic novel or screenplay?
Whatever the case, now it’s time to get your work in front of readers, and find out what they think of it.
And whatever you do, don’t fall in love with that one idea and stop generating new ones. Writers write, and successful writers continue to write, and continue to develop new ideas.
How to Write Funny: Your Serious, Step-By-Step Blueprint For Creating Incredibly, Irresistibly, Successfully Hilarious Writing Page 11
