How to Write Funny: Your Serious, Step-By-Step Blueprint For Creating Incredibly, Irresistibly, Successfully Hilarious Writing

by Scott Dikkers

  Subtext isn’t the same as a theme or moral. The theme of a piece of writing is the general subject being explored, and it often can’t be reduced to a single statement. Subtext, on the other hand, can be. Theme is often overtly articulated in the writing. In certain screenplay-writing circles, for example, writers are told to be sure a secondary character verbally states the movie’s theme on a certain page in every script. Morals are similar. A parable or other type of lesson ends with “the moral of the story,” which is advice the writer would like readers to learn from or live by. Subtext is not advice. It’s a value judgment.

  Unlike with themes or morals, you never state the Subtext. If you do, your humor writing will fall apart. It’s called Subtext because it’s concealed under the text, and never revealed except inside the reader’s mind. It’s like a subway. It travels underground. If it traveled at street level, pedestrians, cars, and everything else would get plowed through as it crashed through everything in sight. This havoc is a fitting analogy for what happens to your humor writing when you state your Subtext.

  Humor-Writing Tip #8: Know What Joke You’re Telling, And Be Sure Your Reader Knows What Joke You’re Telling

  Always be in control of the message by using a clear, intentional Subtext. Never leave a joke open to interpretation. When you ask yourself, “What is my joke really saying?” You need to have a specific answer. You need to know what your Subtext is, and how you’re revealing it to your readers. If you don’t know what you’re saying, or why you think it should be funny, you have no control over what Subtext your readers discover, no control over how they discover it, and therefore almost no chance that they’ll laugh at it.

  In Satire, the Subtext is revealed in each joke. In a longer form of writing, each joke (or “joke beat”) is spaced out in the writing so the writer can exercise some control over when the reader laughs, and when the reader gets a break from laughing, creating just the right pace.

  To some degree, Subtext is subjective. What one person reads into a piece of humor writing may be different from another person. The skilled comedy writer aims to make the Subtext of any joke as clear as possible, so as to control the message being delivered to the reader.

  Subtext is the most important part of your writing. Jokes by themselves without much Subtext are a fun yet somewhat empty experience. As a writer, you have one mission: to communicate ideas to readers. Your Subtext is where those ideas are. They’re not in your literal text. Your literal text is merely the delivery medium—a UPS truck. What you want your readers to get is the precious cargo inside—the stuff they ordered. Those are the core ideas you want to communicate.

  You don’t want to leave humor writing too open to interpretation. You don’t want to shoot your message with a shotgun, spraying out ideas with any number of broad interpretations—this is the realm of fine art and other non-comedic modes of expression. In comedy, you want to shoot with a laser rifle, to avoid any possible misinterpretation of your message. If people misinterpret your message, they may not get your joke.

  Science Fiction

  Science Fiction, a genre of storytelling that emerged in the 19th century, has a lot in common with Satire. By looking closely at science fiction, we can better understand Subtext and how it works in Satire.

  Many of the same techniques for writing humor discussed in this book are employed in the best science-fiction stories. Foremost among these techniques is the use of Subtext. Science fiction is essentially Satire but instead of using humor to communicate Subtext, it uses the awe of science, the future, or worlds and aliens yet unknown.

  Virtually all science-fiction stories have a sobering, progressive message beyond the surface text of the story. For example, H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, one of the earliest and greatest science-fiction novels, says, “Humanity’s arrogance as the dominant species may be unwarranted.” George Orwell’s 1984 says, “Totalitarianism destroys souls.”

  In science fiction, it’s often easy to spot the Subtext. It’s the awesome spectacle, not the Subtext, that makes it fun. In Satire, Subtext is more hidden, and it’s the discovery or realization of the Subtext that makes it funny.

  It can be awkward to try to articulate Subtext, because we normally don’t say it out loud—we only think it. But to write successful humor, you need to be aware of your Subtext.

  You also need to be in total control of it. You need to know what Subtext you intend to communicate, and you need to orchestrate its optimal discovery by the reader. That’s the singular skill of the humor writer.

  By the same token, comedy is not math. You need to allow for a little wiggle room in the articulating of Subtext. You will naturally get different opinions from different readers as to what exactly the Subtext of a given work of Satire is trying to communicate. Nonetheless, the goal of the writer must always be as little variance in interpretation as possible.

  Subtext can usually be stated in a simple sentence: subject, verb, object. And it must be irreducible. It can have no hidden meaning in itself. If your Subtext has a hidden meaning, or deeper Subtext, or is itself trying to be funny or tell a joke, then it’s not your true Subtext. The Subtext of any piece of humor writing is a simple statement of opinion. Furthermore, it must be coherent, something people will understand.

  You can identify Subtext by looking closely at a single funny line and asking yourself, “what is this line really saying?” What you’ll find is that once the joke is deconstructed, it’s communicating a strong value judgment or opinion held by the writer, an observation about life.

  Former Onion and “Colbert Report” writer Dan Guterman is one of the best joke writers in the world. He issues a steady stream of great jokes on his Twitter feed (@danguterman). Here are some, broken down into their subtextual message:

  Don’t forget: Tomorrow is Bring Your Daughter To Tears Day.

  SUBTEXT: The idea of Take Your Daughter to Work Day is sad, that in our society girls (not boys) need this extra exposure to the workplace.

  Couldn’t get tickets to the Daytona 500, so I just stayed home and set a box of Tide on fire.

  SUBTEXT: NASCAR is a pathetic, too-heavily sponsored sport, and it’s a twisted fact that many people watch if for the accidents.

  Fun Fact: If you stretched out your intestines they would reach all the way to the cabin in the woods you were murdered in.

  SUBTEXT: It’s a little unsettling when people point out how long our intestines are.

  Notice how in each of these jokes, the Subtext points out a problem with humanity or society. The best satirical Subtext does this. That is, in fact, the role of Satire.

  Dan uses so many Funny Filters (chapter 6) as well as techniques to create edginess (chapter 9) that it’s often difficult to narrowly define his Subtext—there’s a lot going on in each joke, and they can be interpreted in slightly different ways. Subtext is somewhat personal, but his jokes aim well, so there’s not too much room for misinterpretation, and wherever you come out, you’re tapping a rich vein of Dan’s opinion on any given subject.

  Humor-writing Subtext does not need to be funny. In fact, it usually isn’t. “People are cruel,” is a subtextual message that’s been used to great effect by many Satirists. “Racism is wrong,” worked well for Mark Twain. “Totalitarian government is dehumanizing” and “Power corrupts” worked very well for George Orwell. Subtext that’s worked well for other satirists over the years: “Relationships are not special”; “People who have kids are selfish”; “Governments are incompetent”; “We’re all slaves.”

  Not only are some of these not funny—many are downright sad, even scary! This kind of dark Subtext can make for extremely powerful and memorable humor writing. Steve Allen said, “comedy equals tragedy plus time.” In fact, he believed the source of all comedy was tragedy.

  Todd Hanson, The Onion’s head writer for many years and one of the handful of people instrumental in forging The Onion’s uniquely dark and sardonic style, said humor is about one thing: “life�
��s nightmare hellscape of unrelenting horror.”

  Don’t discount the power of tragedy, either in your own life or in the collective life of humanity, to make for powerful Subtext that can lead to some of the most richly satisfying humor.

  HOW TO COME UP WITH SUBTEXT

  Do you have any opinions? Do you feel passionately about anything? Do you have ideas about life, people, the world, and what’s wrong with everything? Of course you do. And that’s all you need to make great Subtext.

  Humor-Writing Tip #9: Comfort The Afflicted, Afflict The Comfortable

  This tip comes from journalism, but it works for Satire, too. If the target of your Satire is the downtrodden, such as the homeless, or victims of a tragedy, it will come across as mean-spirited, and audiences won’t find it funny. You can make a joke about anything you want, but the target must deserve ridicule. The best targets are usually “the comfortable”: the status quo, an entrenched power, or any authority, no matter how low-level.

  There are two simple methods you can use to create Subtext.

  First, look through your notebook of ideas or a Morning Pages exercise you’ve written. These are glimpses into what madness is floating around in your subconscious mind—disconnected opinions, thoughts or ideas that are yearning for some kind of expression. These are notions bubbling up from he darkest caverns of your intellect that on some level you care about. Maybe you didn’t realize you cared about them until they popped out of you in one of these exercises. But they popped out all the same, and now you can use them. Some of these opinions or observations could be Subtext in themselves, some might reveal a deeper Subtext. Either way, try to dig down to the core message.

  Second, generate some jokes or ideas that you think are funny using the Morning Pages just-move-your-fingers-and-keep-writing approach, then, later, when you have your Editor hat on, read through these ideas and ask yourself what these misshapen half-jokes are really saying—what’s the Subtext? If you detect astute Subtext, there’s a good possibility that joke is working, and you should consider refining it.

  In the next chapter, you’ll find specific tools for refining a joke, and transforming Subtext, which is often not inherently funny, into jokes that are actually funny.

  CHAPTER 5 ACTION STEPS:

  1. Look at your exercise from the last chapter, your 10 jokes, and determine what the Subtext is for each joke. Try to write out the Subtext of each idea using a simple subject-verb-object sentence. What is your joke really saying when you strip away the humor?

  2. Write 10 different Subtext ideas. These shouldn’t necessarily be funny. They’re just opinions or value judgments like, “We’re destroying our planet,” or, “People without a legitimate handicap should not be allowed to ride mobility scooters in the grocery store.”

  6: THE 11 FUNNY FILTERS

  The Subtext of any joke must be thinly veiled, and there are 11 different ways to veil it. By filtering your Subtext though one of these 11 “Funny Filters,” you create a barrier between your reader and you—more specifically, between your reader and your intended Subtext—allowing the reader to add two and two to discover your hidden message.

  That discovery results in a laugh. This is how all jokes work.

  They’re called Funny Filters because the humor writer starts with Subtext, which is not usually very humorous, then filters it through one or more Funny Filters so it comes out the other end as a joke.

  Each Funny Filter is described in this chapter in no particular order.

  There may be other ways to make people laugh besides these 11 Funny Filters. What makes someone laugh is sometimes unpredictable. Just about anything can make someone laugh at the right time, under the right circumstances, and in the right context. However, if something causes someone to laugh that’s not one of the 11 Funny Filters, that’s not a reliable or repeatable occurrence. What the 11 Funny Filters offer is a level of objectivity and predictability.

  Humor-Writing Tip #10: Heighten Contrast

  Humor often involves the contrasting of two things, whether it’s the straight character and jokester, two opposing ends of an ironic situation, or a fake world and the real world. A common flaw in a lot of unsuccessful humor is that the contrast inherent in the joke is not heightened enough. By simply heightening the contrast to its greatest possible extreme, a lot of comedy writing is made instantly funnier.

  To appeal to the widest possible audience, the humor writer must create a situation in which jokes have the best chance to succeed. In professional comedy writing, only these 11 Funny Filters will meet with consistent success. If a piece of your writing doesn’t employ at least one of the 11 Funny Filters, or it’s not using the Funny Filter(s) properly, very few readers will find it funny. If you use them as directed, most readers will find your writing funny most of the time.

  And that, as we’ve established, is the most objectivity and predictability you get in comedy: the chance for a good batting average.

  FUNNY FILTER 1: IRONY

  Irony happens when the literal meaning of what you write is the opposite of the intended meaning. “Opposite” is the key word. Irony is all about opposites. If the Subtext you want to communicate is “nuns are weird,” you would use Irony to create a joke by expressing the opposite opinion: “Nuns are perfectly sane,” or “There’s nothing strange about dressing in a cumbersome headdress, locking yourself in a church and avoiding sex for the rest of your life.”

  The trick to Irony is heightening the contrast so that the two things you’re contrasting are truly polar opposites.

  When you learn to drive, the instructor may have referred to proper steering-wheel handling as “9 and 3”—with hands on opposite ends of the wheel, giving you maximum leverage to turn in either direction. “10 and 2” would be hands too close together, giving you less leverage to control the vehicle in an emergency. Think of contrast in Irony in the same way.

  You’re playing play a fun game with your readers—they want to see how far you’ll go to espouse the opposite of your opinion.

  Here are some headlines from The Onion that use Irony:

  • Alcoholic Father Disappointed In Pothead Son

  • Cool ‘Cybergranny’ Needs Machines To Help Her Live

  • Mother Theresa Sent To Hell In Wacky Afterlife Mix-Up

  • It’s Not A Crack House, It’s A Crack Home

  Irony can sometimes be confused with the “Ol’ Switcheroo,” which is when a joke turns out differently than expected. Turning out differently is not the same as turning out the opposite, which is the key to Irony. Switcheroos also happen when two things trade places in a joke. “Dog Bites Man” is a well-worn example.

  The Ol’ Switcheroo is sometimes used to construct remedial jokes, often in comic strips and mediocre sitcoms. (“Did you take the dog out?” “I couldn’t.” “Why not?” “The dog took me out!)

  Irony is also sometimes confused with Sarcasm. Sarcasm is “Irony light”—a watered down version that’s delivered with an annoying attitude that exposes its Subtext in too knowing a way, like a teenager might try to get a laugh by saying, “Oh, I’m so excited to get up and go to school today.”

  Sarcasm isn’t all that funny because it’s not believable. Sarcasm isn’t trying very hard to fool anyone.

  By contrast, when you use Irony as a literary device in Satire, you pretend to adopt the opposite of your true message with absolute conviction, and you play it straight.

  Neither Switcheroos nor Sarcasm count as Funny Filters, and can’t be trusted to make professional-quality jokes.

  IRONY SUMMARY:

  WHAT IT IS: Extreme Opposites

  HOW TO USE IT: Write the polar opposite of your Subtext.

  FUNNY FILTER 2: CHARACTER

  Character is the most popular Funny Filter. It’s used almost exclusively on every comedy TV show, comedy movie, and most sketch and improv shows. It’s the great engine behind virtually all performance-based comedy. Character is important in prose as well, but, like al
l of the Funny Filters, works especially well—and makes for more layered, literary humor—when used in combination with other Funny Filters.

  The idea behind Character is simple: When a comedic character acts on his, her or its clearly defined traits, a joke results.

  The key is that the character must be comedic. A comedic character is a very simply drawn, two-dimensional character who has no more than 1–3 traits, which the reader is made aware of, quickly, through the character’s actions or simple exposition.

  Comedic characters aren’t meant to be realistic like dramatic characters. Dramatic characters are meant to seem three-dimensional, like flesh-and-blood people with nuance, contradictions and complex histories. Readers want to feel like they actually know dramatic characters. Writers often write long bios for these characters, figuring out what they eat for breakfast, where they went to elementary school, who their ancestors were.

  Humor-Writing Tip #11: Use Verisimilitude

  If you’re copying something else in form, which you’ll often do in Satire (be it a pattern of speech, a character, or another work of entertainment), you must make it as similar to the thing your imitating as possible. If it’s a senator character, for example, he should talk like real senators talk. If it’s a parody of, say, an advertisement, it should sound as much like a real advertisement as possible. Be consistent, and never “break voice.”

  Comedic characters are much simpler. You don’t want to write a long, detailed bio for a comedic character. You just want to list 1–3 traits. Comedic characters aren’t meant to seem real. They’re meant to merely represent a fundamental flaw that all human beings share. We can all relate to a comedic character who symbolizes one of our core weaknesses. Laughing at them allows us to laugh at ourselves and the inherent foibles that make us all alike. Readers don’t see comedic character as real, nor do they want to. They expect them to be simply drawn.