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

Not Wordy Enough?
Having  told  you  that  jokes  can  be  too  wordy  I’m  now  going  to  say  that  some
jokes need more words – I told you there were no rules! That doesn’t mean that
you can add any old flannel to your gag.
What gags often benefit from is rhythm and repetition. I once had the fascinating
experience of being at the back of a comedy club where the sound was so bad I
couldn’t hear what the comics were saying. Yet, I could still tell who was funny
and where the punchlines were. This, of course, is about the comicss ab2 timing.
And timing is very much helped by rhythm.
But  again,  any  old  rhythm  isn’t  going  to  do.  It  needs  to  be  the  rhythm  of  your
act, your sitcom character’s voice or, if you are a strip cartoonist, the number of
boxes you need to fill.
If you see a transcript of actual comedians’ acts
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they are full of repetition, and
little add-ons like ‘you know’, and ‘yes really’, that hold up the punchline or the
starting of the next gag.
When  Frankie  Howard  repetitively  said,  ‘ooo  don’t’  and  ‘yes  missus’  it  was
adding to his timing and personality. Or try this one from Arnold Brown:
The best way to lay compost, in my opinion, just in my opinion, is to get
someone else to do it.
Brown with his lilting Scottish voice lulls the audience in. If you’re not sure try
saying it without the ‘in my opinion, just in my opinion’. You’ll find that it just
doesn’t have the same rhythm.
Another  method  is  to  lull  the  audience  in  with  a  rhythmic  list  before  you  hit
them with the punchline - this is also called The Rule of Three:
Here’s one of mine...
I love it that the song ‘I Will Survive’ is still popular...
It means a whole new generation of women can split up with their
boyfriends, learn the words, sing the song, feel the pain and then get back
with him anyway.
Can you see where the rhythm is?
Learn the words. Sing the song. Feel the pain.
The words also lead the audience in the opposite direction, so it helps the build
up to the punchline.

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So once you’ve honed a joke down you can build it up again according to your
or the character’s vocal rhythm.

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Adding Attitude
This  book  is  designed  to  help  you  write  jokes  about  any  subject  whether  you
care about it or not. But if you can muster up an attitude to something it might
help you find the right way to present it.
Comedian  and  writer,  Dan  Evans,  told  me  that  when  he’s  writing  for  other
people,  ‘It  can  really  help  focus  if  you  know  they  will  only  want  jokes  from  a
perspective that is snide, angry, totally unaware or whatever. Maybe if people are
intending  to  write  for  themselves  they  could  really  try  to  find  what  it  is  about
their angle or passion that is very personal to them.’
Even  not  caring  about  a  subject  is  an  attitude  in  itself  and  can  help  hone  your
jokes and find the right words for them.

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