Writing Humour - General Ideas

Humour writing is not the easiest thing in the world to do. If it was, as the cliché goes, everybody would be doing it. But here are three quick things you can do to start your humour writing career:

Cultivate a Humorous Mentality

Contrary to some things you might read, a funny outlook on life can be honed and sharpened. It all comes down to what you surround yourself with. The stuff you put into your life will largely dictate the stuff that you produce with your life. If you want to cultivate a good sense of humor, then start filling your life with humorous things. Stop watching gritty crime dramas all the time and start watching good, character-driven comedies. Watch some good standup comics. In fact, watch them twice. The first time, just sit back and enjoy the show. The second time, really pay attention to the structure of everything from the individual jokes to the performance as a whole. Take notes. Go ahead – throw away your pride and become a geek! You’re investing in your career!

Feed Your Brain

The best humor is informed humor. What I mean by this is that your readership will grow quicker if you are touching on issues that people deal with everyday. Read some newspapers – and not just the comics! Pay attention to the big things that concern people and sit down and write about them. Get emotional! Get angry and vent! Which leads into the last thing . . .

Write, Write, Write

As someone once said, “Writers write.” As puerile as that sounds, it’s a good maxim to keep in mind. If you’re going to call yourself a writer, then write! That’s all there is to it. Don’t write to be funny at first – just write. The funny will come later when you go back to revise. Don’t bust your posterior trying to make it perfect the first time. In fact, don’t try to make it perfect at all. In the world of humor writing, perfect is dangerously close to boring. Write it all out and then go back and clean up the stuff that would really embarrass your family if you published it as is. Stuff like terrible spelling, egregious grammar, and erroneous facts can all be cleaned up on the rewrite. But in order to rewrite, you first have to write!

If you just start with these three basic practices, I promise you will be well ahead of the crowd trying to break into humor writing.

Ken Nelson is a freelance writer and cartoonist. He markets his unique brand of humor at the Flogwear site where anybody can purchase t-shirts, mugs, aprons, calendars, and many other items printed with his cartoons and writings. [http://www.cafepress.com/flogwear]

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