- Don’t try to be retroactively funny. If your piece ends in a twist, don’t rely on the twist to make the piece funny; it should be funny throughout, even if the twist is the big punchline.
- Use form to your advantage: find tension between content (concept) and form
- Content: Transformer clashes; Form: Insurance letter.
- Piece claims to give general advice, confuses with biography (ex. Love Like in the Movies)
- If you’re writing a parody, you have less freedom of narrative because overarching narrative is pre-established; some topics are more parody-able than others (ex. 911 Call piece)
- End on something funny. In one liners, try to end on the funniest words
- “Lowkey tornado”
- Concision: Once the audience figures out the joke, extra length that doesn’t continue to surprise becomes tedious.
Writing Humor (sp23)
Spring 2023
