Writing/Making a Joke

Not everybody is able to formulate jokes. Before you’re able to do this, you have to be funny. The funniness of a joke depends solely on the teller and how it is told. But it’s not only being funny that qualifies you to write a joke; you also have to be quite imaginative. Imagination is the key and base of all jokes (both funny and unfunny). So if you’re not funny and not imaginative, I’m afraid this post isn’t meant for you. I pointed out how to know if you’re funny in one of my previous posts titled “How to Become a Comic Maven”.

Here are 7 tips to help you in the art of joke making:

1.     Take real events that happened and inject some humour in them. This form of comedy is called Anecdote.

2.     Exaggerate your stories. Making use of hyperbole when narrating a real event (in an attempt to make it funny) will definitely make it a funny joke.

3.     Use your imagination (Crucial). Imagine silly things happening and you may have a really good joke coming out of them.

4.     Make fun of yourself. Notice that comedians that have physical flaws usually use that flaw to create jokes. A fat comedian could use his fatness to create a pretty good story that’ll serve as a joke etc.

5.     Look for old popular sayings and make them into something funny. For instance: “Show me your friend and I will tell you who you are” hilariously transformed into: “Show me your face and I will tell you how ugly you are”.

6.     Don’t use direct words or phrases to make the punch line. If you saw the 2011 Comedy Central Roast of Donald Trump, a perfect example what you should do is Whitney Cummings’ joke about Larry King: “ I don’t even know where to start, I guess I’ll start with Larry King because I don’t know, tick tock” It’s obvious she meant Larry King could die at any moment because he’s so old. If she had said something like “….because he may die at any second”, it would have been less funny.

7.     Avoid making the joke long. Some people take a supposed-to-be short joke into a long story, which will eventually make the audience bored. Even though the punch line may be great, the journey to it will be long and tiring. It’ll even give the audience an opportunity to go to the restroom.

Here is a link to more and advanced tips on how to create a joke and an explanation of the anatomy of a joke written by comedienne and comedy writer Jan McInnis: Anatomy of a Joke

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