The Serious Guide to Joke Writing: How To Say Something Funny About Anything pdfdrive com

are directly or indirectly involved.’
‘If you want to be surreal, choose an object and think about it from the object’s
point of view,’ I add. Again, it’s a while before anyone speaks.

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‘How about the ballot box?’ says one chap.
‘Okay,  imagine  you  are  a  ballot  box,  you’re  only  brought  out  occasionally  and
you’re stuffed full of papers and then emptied.’
‘Sounds like bulimia to me.’ (The quiet woman from earlier is now definitely on
a  roll
xxii
).  ‘They  get  nothing  for  ages  and  then  they  are  stuffed  full  of  ballot
papers, that’s an eating problem if ever I heard of one.’
‘Can you imagine putting your vote in the ballot box and it burps,’ says someone
else.
‘That would make a great cartoon,’ I say. ‘Any other objects or people?’
‘Where do all those pens come from on election day?’ says the same person who
came up with ballot box. ‘I reckon they co-opt them from the bookies or Argos
for  one  day’s  service.  These  pens  normally  spend  their  time  making  bets  or
buying rubbish but for one day these pens get to choose the government.’
I’m impressed at his thinking.
‘Did that idea just pop into your head?’ I ask.
He looks a bit embarrassed but says, ‘To be honest I couldn’t think of anything
so  I  imagined  an  election,  going  to  the  polling  station,  seeing  the  ballot  box,
seeing the pens.’
‘Basically  you’re  thinking  about  it,’  I  say.  ‘It  sounds  obvious,  but  there’s  no
reason why we should think of everything off the top of our heads. It’s a myth
that joke writers are all geniuses. Talk to any of them and they’ll tell you a lot of
it  is  drudge  work,  sifting  through  stuff,  but  once  you  get  an  idea  it’s  really
exciting, and you do look really clever, which is what you look like right now.’
The chap beams at me.
‘I  cannot  overstate  how  much  thinking  the  Surrealist  Inquisition  takes,  but  you
get such a good crop of gags that it’s so worth it.’
I hand out the Question Sheets (see Exercise 13) and set them the homework of
choosing a subject for the Surrealist Inquisition to interrogate.

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