Finding the Funny
Yes that’s the name of my first
humor writing book (Finding the Funny Fast), and it’s also the prominent words in a couple of my keynotes (Finding the Funny in Change and Finding the Funny in Communications). But today I want to talk about finding the funny in the obvious.
We found lots of humor at the Grand Canyon
I’ve mentioned
How it’s sometimes hard to find out where the punchline is in a joke. I’ve written jokes in which I realized that people were laughing half-way through, during the set-up. This causes me to say the joke slower and pause for the new punchline. But while writing for a client this week, I was reminded of how we need to pay attention to everything we write, and stop focusing solely on what we THINK is the joke.
I wrote some jokes
And then sent the client an email. In my email I just joked around about something, and it turns out she liked the joke in the email and bought it. I didn’t focus at all on this joke – no sweating or rewriting or wondering if it was funny. All I did was be myself and goof around when sending her the email, and that is how I found the joke.. . and made some extra cash!
So when writing jokes, look at all
Of the things you’re writing about. . . don’t focus too much on trying to be funny; instead I just was funny and it worked. Years ago, when I was struggling to put together my humor keynotes, a colleague told me not to worry about trying to be funny. Since I’m a comedian, it will just happen organically and as he said “you can’t help but be funny”. . . and it worked.
So this week’s joke writing advice is to just “be” . . .not worry about “doing.”
Jan
www.TheWorkLady.com
www.HealthComedian.com
www.ComedyEmcee.com
The Only Rule Of Comedy
I’ve been away from my blog for a while. . my apologies.
Turns out writing a book in 3 months causes you to never want to write anything AGAIN. I had a super brain drain that I’m coming out of (check out “Convention Comedian: Stories and Wisdom From Two Decades of Chicken Dinners and Comedy Clubs”). But with the recent list of funny people passing away, I thought this subject would be appropriate to remind ourselves of what’s important in comedy.
I’ve written about many of the “rules” of comedy, such as . . .
things are funnier in 3’s, the “CH” sound is funny, and don’t use cuss words, etc. . .but really, when it comes down to it, there is only one hard and fast rule. Be funny. It doesn’t matter if your humor is dirty or clean or stupid or immature or whatever, it must be funny. I was reminded of this with the recent deaths of Joan Rivers and Robin Williams.
Regardless of if you think Joan Rivers
was too “over the line,” you cannot help but laugh at her jokes because they are funny. And I think that’s what we should all strive for when writing jokes.. . be so funny that even if people dislike your humor or your personality, they still laugh.
I never met Joan Rivers, but I did follow her style
of set-up punch jokes. . .and I thought she was hilarious even if some of her stuff was stuff I’d never admit to laughing about. Robin Williams also had a different take on comedy because he was so high energy. I wasn’t so much a fan just because it exhausted me to watch him, but when I did watch him, he was, again, always funny.
In the creative process,
while we work hard to find a good subject, craft a great punchline, make sure it fits with the event, etc. . .we must never lose sight of the fact that it has to be funny. Does the joke you’re writing make you laugh out loud? If it does, then it just might work for others.
One of the lines I came up with
that cracks me up, even though I can’t use it for all my shows, is in my bit about buying my timeshare. I talk about what a stupid move it was. And I say “the guy next to me thought it was a scam, and he’s a Scientologist!” That line makes me laugh out loud, and I can’t use it at my corporate events, you will hear me saying it in our Baby Boomer theatre shows.
So keep searching for the stuff that is really funny. . . make it so funny that people will laugh even if they don’t like you!
Jan
www.TheWorkLady.com
www.HealthComedian.com
www.ComedyEmcee.com
New Book Alert: Convention Comedian
yes I’ve been quite about joke writing for a few months because all my comedy energies have been stuffed into book writing. And now it’s here; my new book titled Convention Comedian: Stories And Wisdom From Two Decades Of Chicken Dinners And Comedy Clubs.
Here’s the Amazon link
And here’s the book. . .it’s stories about my comedy travels, but also the “what i learned” wisdom section which makes it relevant for many people. Hope you like it!
Jan
www.TheWorkLady.com
www.HealthComedian.com
Stories and Wisdom from Two Decades of Chicken Dinners and Comedy Clubs
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