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

Question: I’m reading objectively but can’t find any lines to highlight. Any tips?
Answer: First of all well done for reading objectively. I once had someone in my
class  who  hadn’t  written  any  jokes  and  so  I  asked  to  see  what  lines  he  had
highlighted. He hadn’t got any! He couldn’t tell me there was a whole newspaper
without a single interesting line so he must have been judging things too soon.
Secondly,  if  a  subject  is  very  difficult  don’t  just  look  for  whole  lines,  look  for
individual  words  too.  Concentrating  on  words  can  really  help  you  change  the
original meaning of the overall sentence.
If in doubt try this short article below. I have chosen it deliberately because it’s a
difficult paragraph to write from, I can see TWO words that could have different
meanings. How many can you see?
‘
A  London  fertility  clinic  is  changing  their  policy  on  older  mothers  as  record  numbers  try  to  become
pregnant after the menopause. As a result two 58 year old women are about to receive treatment. One of the
two patients has already been through seven failed IVF cycles.’
The most interesting lines are...

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They could also mean...
The most interesting words to me were ‘Cycles’, and ‘Policy’.
• ‘Cycles’ could also mean bikes or washing machines.
• ‘Policy’ could also mean Insurance Policy.
To turn these into joke ideas:
• IVF cycle sounds like something you get on a washing machine; she had
seven IVF cycles, two rinses and a spin.
• I’ve got a washing machine especially for childless women. It’s got an
IVF cycle.
• The clinic got a new policy on older mothers; I’ve got third party fire and
theft on mine.
I think out of those ideas the IVF cycle ones are the best (I even tried them out
on  my  friend  who  has  had  IVF  and  she  laughed  a  lot).  I  couldn’t  turn  the  bike
idea into anything but I was still right to think about it. It was part of the process.