So you want to come up
with a killer punch line for your joke? Ask the question – “what is the moral of this story” and/or use the starter phrase. . . “in other words.” As I’ve mentioned before, what you’re trying to do with humor is to say something without saying it. So if you look at the joke punch line as something you’re trying to wrap up the joke by saying it another way. You don’t have to actually say “this is the moral of the story,” just think of it that way to get to the funny.
For example,
in my joke about gifts for my dad, I say “I can’t believe my dad survived us growing because every gift we gave him was deadly. We gave him cigars, razors, ashtrays; we even gave him a radar detector. Hey dad, smoke, drink, drive fast, we love you!” I used the “in other words/moral of the story” idea to come up with. . . in other words. . . “smoke, drink, drive fast, we love you!”
Sooooo,
the moral of the story in joke writing is to ask these questions to come up with the funny! In other words. . be funnier by asking these questions. Okay, enough said!
Jan