Any joke writers out there?

hmm creation process.

Several.

How is X like Y. How are they not alike.

For example - What can you tell your next father in law about a fish/fishing that you can't say about his daughter?

Straight observational humor -- things that just don't make sense without reading in the implied meanings or connections (Like the old joke about IHOP having a large sign at the door that read "We have menus in braille."

Mostly though? Irony.

Mine usually start with observing something, and then thinking "wouldn't it have been funny if...." The "if" being one little thing that could've happened differently and made a funny situation. Or a character saying something unexpected.

I s'pose I'm not really a joke writer, more of a gag-writer.

What's the deal with _____? Is it a _____ or is it a _______? Who are these people?

my joke creation process is a secret, as i write them as a ghostwriter. i can't speak of them...so i won't speak of their creation process.

KTC said:

my joke creation process is a secret, as i write them as a ghostwriter. i can't speak of them...so i won't speak of their creation process.

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they're about as difficult to detect, as well.

Zzzzzzzing!

I usually do the turn-of-perspective on an observation. Take the observation from a completely different view, and the result is funny. Examples:


"The FBI has announced that their new Predator computer system they bought to help defeat terrorism doesn't work, and now they're trying to get the 200 million dollars they spent on it back. Problem is, the guy at Best Buy told them they could only get store credit."


"I tried that dating website Chemistry.com out. Turns out my perfect match is Selenium."

quickWit said:

they're about as difficult to detect, as well.

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don't make me bake you, dumb bunneh.

i think you're either funny or you're not. some people think writing comedy is hard...if that's your feeling, maybe you should try something else.

use the absurdity of life on a day to day basis as your inspiration...if nothing funny is coming to mind, again...maybe it's not your calling.

With jokes and comedy I usually just talk about things I have encountered and people tend to find my way of telling very funny. I guess it takes a good eye to spot all those little laughable things in everyday life.

I like the George Carlin approach of using exaggerations. For instance, ever since I heard about Ambien causing people to do specific things like driving. Possible side effects include waking up on the freeway doing 75 and going "AHHHHHH!!!!!WTF!!!!!WTF!!!!!". I'd love to see the Onstar call for that one-"Onstar, what's your emergency?"
"I'M DRIVING!!!!!!!"
"O.K., you're driving, and...."
"I'M DRIVING!!!!!"
"O.K., we get that you're driving, what seems to be the problem?"
"I was sleeping......NOW I'M DRIVING!!!!!"

The problem is everyone has different styles. The best thing to do is read a few books on how to write comedy. That'll give you the several techniques of basic joke construction.

If money is a problem, order them through the library or buy them used from a local independent bookstore or from Amazon.

I have many processes as well, but the top 2 are

The 'what if' cases, take any situation, any idea, anything really! And add an what if...? Of course the whats and the ifs have to be something that puts the event in a sarcastic, funny, humorous position.

The 'put yourself in their shoes' point of view. For example if you are writing about politicians, dumb people, highly hyper people, etc etc. Put yourself in their situation, most of the time i actually end up playing as the character like pretending to be George Bush or Bin Laden myself and things start to roll out by itself. If you were george bush what would you do to embarrass yourself? If you were Laden what are you going to do in your hide and seek games?

Learn from internet marketers (i consider myself one) - if they can get people to 'pay' in order to watch a 'fake bin ladens' death video, then i believe us writers can do better. The elements of Shock, surprise and excitement always work.

To be honest most comic writers are just too busy writing dark, intelligent or deep comedy. But lets face the reality, the future generations are not getting any smarter and the oldies arn't going to last forever. Take the example of failblog, collegehumor, break, smosh, theonion, etc. All these have modern day comic elements and not some 19th century deep humor, this is why they are successful. Don't write for your fellow writers (as most people try to do, its one thing to improve writing but its a different story when it comes to making a career out of it), write for the readers. Your readers are the generations of today. It doesn't matter how great your writing is, but can you sell it? Can you shock someone when they read it? Go take a look at those sites i mentioned and you will know what people like these days.

Good luck

Speak Hyperbolean. that's imperative.

Next. Remember - You're a Nauthor. that way when people ask you what you're doing, you can say, "Nauthon" - and you'd be perfectly right about it. That is, unless you come from the wrong side of it.

To do comedy, whether in print, gag writing, or stand up (Oh, please - I don't do stand up. I'd have to remember all that stuff I memorized) Just remember this . . . .

Just put your mind in neutral and just idle on. That way, if you don't make it, you could try out as a car.

Comedy is my spa see al ity. there's no space in all those words. I can do a real mean James Cagney. Watch this: "You dirty rat . . . " See. sounded just like him, didn't it? I can even do it without even moving my lips. See? You never even saw my lips move did you?

What do you mean you saw my lips move? Git 'em Floo. Flick 'em back to Kalamazoo. (Floo is my 8 foot Dodo bird. harvey is his best friend. I can't see either one of them - but I don't talk to Harvey.)

See? Comedy is an art form. For me, it is a NART form. (North American Railroad Transport).

Need a lift? Call Arnold. You know, the gov. I can't life anything more than five pounds any more. Arnold will lift you right out of the doldrums and into the fire. On second thought, maybe you should contact Jackie Chan.

I write comedy dialogues. The process took a chapter in a book to explain.

I published another book of comedy dialogues that I performed with.

KTC said:

don't make me bake you, dumb bunneh.

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At first I was like...



but then I serious'd...

If you want to learn nuts and bolts of joke construction, I recommend the books of Gene Perret. He was a joke writer for Bob Hope.

I write parody news so I just read a lot of news and try to think of a funny spin to the articles I read. I also watch a lot of the Daily Show and Colbert Report.

dclary said:

I usually do the turn-of-perspective on an observation. Take the observation from a completely different view, and the result is funny. Examples:


"The FBI has announced that their new Predator computer system they bought to help defeat terrorism doesn't work, and now they're trying to get the 200 million dollars they spent on it back. Problem is, the guy at Best Buy told them they could only get store credit."


"I tried that dating website Chemistry.com out. Turns out my perfect match is Selenium."

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Well you made me laugh! Now what will you do with these jokes? Tell them during a stand-up routine? Sell them??

I'm curious. Please do tell.

My humor writing tends to be a little off the wall and hard to catagorize. I did have some success with a self-syndicated weekly horoscope parody column for a few years, but it's hard to find markets.

I've just started posting some of my stuff on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Harriscope/123538551098562