Writing Jokes To Rewire Your Brain
A quick guide on how to be funny
Growing up I held the belief that being funny was something that occurred naturally. You either have it or you don't.
Here’s the thing,
We all have a humerus bone
It’s true and even those without them can learn to be funny. Like any art, you must understand the structure.
Once the process clicks in your brain, you will be cracking jokes and making laughs.
On a basic level jokes are,
- A topic
- An angle
- A punchline
Picture each one of these as a chord and when you put them together in a beautiful way they will make music.
Here is a diagram to demonstrate what we will be creating
Topic
You start with a topic.
A topic must be,
- Factually true
- Emotionally engaging (Makes you think — That’s amazing, disgusting, stupid, etc)
Angle
The angle is the direction you want to take the audience down. You are the conductor of their train of thought.
Once you have your topic you can,
a) Create a punchline, then an angle
b) Create an angle, then a punchline
Punchline
As you're taking them down that path, you suddenly hit them with a punchline
You can do this through associations
- Taking two dissimilar ideas attached to the topic and finding a connection between them.
You do this through incongruity,
- Find two dissimilar ideas
- Write as many associations for those two words or ideas as you can
Ex.
Cow Milk
- Milk
- ‘Got Milk?’
- …
Breast Milk
- Mother
- MILF
- …
Topics rich in associations make for easier joke writing. From the example above, I can use a Play on Words to say,
‘Got MILF?’
Topic- Study Reveals Why Breast Milk Is Better For An Infant Than Cow’s Milk And Baby Formula…
Angle: It will have your friends saying…
Punchline: Got MILF?
Most of us are content seeing a topic, reacting to it, and being done with it.
When a comedian digs deeper into that same topic they can create a sense of surprise by asking,
- Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How?
Then you answer it in a clever way using incongruity — linking the radical ideas back to the topic.
This makes the audience say,
Wow, I never thought of it that way!
But they could have if only they knew the comedian’s dirty little secrets.
I hope you enjoyed this quick guide on how to start writing jokes!
If you found it interesting and want to learn more, there is a book called Comedy Writing for Late-Night TV by Joe Toplyn. It gives a full, comprehensive rundown on all things joke writing.
This book is a must-read for anyone interested in comedy.
