This last thing is important when you’re telling an especially difficult story. The story of the armed robbery in a McDonald’s (“The Robbery”) is the most difficult story for me to tell, and it’s probably the most difficult story to hear. A gun is pressed to the side of my head and the trigger is pulled in an effort to get me to open a portion of the safe that is locked.
But I open this story with my children’s ridiculous, hilarious magic show. The disappearing-dime trick, for example, features my daughter telling me and my wife to close our eyes while she makes the dime disappear. Then, without warning, she violently jams the coin into my ear.
It’s a sweet, funny moment that is relevant (the robbery affects the way I see my children to this day), but it’s also intentionally light and joyous. In a couple of minutes, I’ll be describing how my face is pressed into a greasy tile floor as I listen to a man slowly count down to what I think is my death. The experience will result in two decades of untreated PTSD and an ongoing existential crisis. It’s my darkest story by far. But opening with something light invites my audience in and lets them know that, as violent and disturbing as events are about to become, I have a beautiful, little girl in my life who jams dimes into my ears as a part of her magic show. It’s all good.
An early laugh also provides the storyteller with an all-important auditory signal of approval: “Oh, good. My audience likes me. They’re on my side.” It’s a fine way to feel as you begin.
In a larger theater, where I often can’t see my audience because of the glare of the spotlight, that auditory response is especially reassuring. “Oh, good. The audience is still there. They didn’t quietly leave while I was adjusting the microphone.”
Early laughter puts everyone at ease and makes the next few minutes supremely easier.
2. Make ’em laugh before you make ’em cry.
The second time I make the audience laugh is just before the actual accident.
Describing my mother’s car as the size of a box of Pop-Tarts often generates a giggle, but the real laugh comes a few seconds later, when I tell the audience that I’ve always been told to steer into the skid in situations like this, but I don’t know what that means.
I want my audience to laugh here because we are seconds away from the collision. The contrast between their laughter and the approaching horror heightens the shocking and visceral nature of what is about to happen. I often say that I like to make people laugh before making them cry, because it hurts more that way.
That is my goal here: Make them laugh so the collision and the resulting violence hurt more. Contrast is king in storytelling, and laughter can provide a fantastic contrast to something authentically awful.
3. Take a breath.
The third time I make the audience laugh is immediately following the accident. One of the kids from the pickup truck looks me over, leans in, and whispers, “Dude, you’re fucked.” This almost always causes the audience to laugh, but I tag the boy’s dialogue with “It is the most accurate medical assessment that I will receive that day.” Big laugh.
I want my audience to laugh here because they have just endured the details of a horrific car accident, and I need to break the tension. The audience needs to take a breath. Whenever a story has become exceptionally tense and the audience needs to reset, a laugh is the best way to do this.
This laugh may seem organic rather than planned. The kid shows up at the right moment and says the perfect thing to cause a laugh. True, but a lot of kids show up that day. Another boy places my head on his lap and prays, telling me not to worry, I’ll see God and Jesus soon, and all will be okay. Another boy screams uncontrollably upon seeing my legs and needs to be moved away. A girl weeps beside me. A lot more happens than is described, but I strategically choose the one line that has the most potential to be funny, and it’s made funny through timing, tonality, and that tag on the end.
That’s the job of a storyteller. Make good, strategic choices, and then make the most of those choices.
4. Stop crying so you can feel something else.
The last time I make the audience laugh is near the end of the story, when I say that the betta fish is the only fatality of the accident. This laugh is another opportunity for the audience to take a breath and reset. Many begin crying upon learning that my friends are piling up in the waiting room. I sometimes do too.
I need the audience to collect themselves for the final few lines, because I know they might cry again. Rather than weeping through the end of the story, I want them to cry twice, because each time it’s for a slightly different reason. They first cry upon realizing that my friends are piling into the waiting room, filling in for parents who should be there. Then they cry again when I explain, “Pat is wrong. You can give your friends surprise Christmas presents, because they give me the best one I’ve ever received.”
The audience cries the first time because my friends have arrived when I needed them most. They cry because they are back in 1988, witnessing events firsthand.
They cry the second time because I’m reflecting on fifteen years of having friends fill in for the family I’ve always wanted, and hopefully, stating something larger and more universal: People can pick you up when you’re down. They will fill in the gaps left by others, however large those gaps may be. Just because your family lets you down doesn’t mean you’re alone.
When your audience can feel those two separate and distinct feelings, separated by a laugh, the potential depth and meaning of the story increases considerably.
Also, you don’t want your audience weeping for long periods of time. It’s not pretty.
That’s it. A story that isn’t funny in any way has four moments of laughter, all placed in specific ways for strategic reasons.
This is not to say that these are the only reasons for a story to be funny. Humor is a fantastic tool that can be used to increase the enjoyment of a story. It can keep an audience engaged. As you learned in the previous chapter on surprise, humor can serve as camouflage for something important that must pay off later. Humor can make a storyteller more likable. Humor is how I managed to get girls to like me for most of my life.
Some stories can’t help but be funny. I tell the story of providing a semen sample as part of genetic testing entitled “Genetic Flaws.” Going to a “collection center” in a former-elementary-school-turned-medical-facility to “make a deposit” is funny no matter how it’s framed. I couldn’t make it unfunny if I tried.
I tell the story of stealing left-footed children’s shoes from a shoe store during a less-than-daring late-night raid entitled “Shoe Thief.” This is also unavoidably funny. Stupidity is always hilarious.
But each of these stories also have heart, because that is what stories must have no matter what. There is more to each of these stories than simply the laugh. Each one lands on something real.
You must end your story on heart. Far too often I hear storytellers attempt to end their story on a laugh. A pun. A joke. A play on words. This is not why we listen to stories. We like to laugh; we want to laugh. But we listen to stories to be moved.
We love stories that contain moments of humor and hilarity. Sometimes an entire story can be funny. But those last few precious sentences — the space where you will land your story — should end with heart. Close with meaning. Stories must conclude with something greater than a laugh.
If you want your story to linger with your audience (and that should be your goal), you should end in a place that is moving, vulnerable, or revealing, or establishes connection with the audience.
Save your laughs for the middle, when you want to keep your audience engaged. Allow them to carry your audience to the end. But end your story with something bigger than a laugh.
As I said, I can’t make people funny, no matter how often I am asked to try. I have yet to figure out that trick, and I may never figure it out. Humor is a combination of wit, speed, tonality, confidence, daring, nonconformity, flexibility with the language, underst
anding of your audience, and more. In a lot of ways, it’s all about the way you say something. Delivery is critical. It can make the unfunny incredibly funny. Not exactly a bucket of skills that are easily taught.
But I can help a storyteller add humor to the story. You can at least be funny within the confines of your story. After that, all bets are off.
Like all other emotional responses (see the previous chapter), humor is based entirely on surprise. A combination of specific words spoken in a specific way at a specific moment initiates a surprise that sparks a smile, a giggle, or actual laughter. Like every other emotional response, laughter is simply a well-cultivated surprise.
The two easiest ways to achieve these humorous surprises are through Milk Cans and a Baseball, and Babies and Blenders.
Milk Cans and a Baseball
Milk Cans and a Baseball refers to the carnival game where metallic milk cans are stacked in a triangular formation and the player attempts to knock them down with a ball. In comedy, this is called setup and punch line. The milk cans represent the setup, and the ball is the punch line. The more milk cans in your tower, the greater potential laugh. The better you deliver the ball, the more of that potential will be realized. The trick is to work to the laugh by using language that carefully builds your tower while saving the funniest thing for last. Sadly, the instinct of most people is to say the funniest thing first. They can’t wait to get to the funny part, and in doing so, they ruin it.
For example, in a story entitled “Homeless and the Goat,” I tell the story about the period of my life when I was homeless. Near the end I say, “I was rescued from the streets by a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I sleep in a pantry off their kitchen that they’ve converted into a tiny bedroom. I share this room with a Jehovah’s Witness named Rick, a guy who speaks in tongues in his sleep, and the family’s indoor pet goat.”
Goat is the funniest word in that paragraph, because it is the most unexpected of all the words. It’s the biggest surprise. Therefore it must be said last. It is the ball that I use to knock down my tower of milk cans. Can you see the tower I built before getting there?
Saved by Jehovah’s Witnesses, pantry, tiny bedroom, Rick, speaks in tongues, in his sleep, indoor pet goat.
That’s a lot of milk cans. Look at those last two words: indoor and pet. I chose them with care. I say them slowly, with a definite pause between the two. I use these words to enhance the surprise. When I say indoor and pet, my audience is thinking, Dog? Cat? Parakeet? Hamster? Even potbellied pig is an option. But goat?
Goat is funny, but it’s only funny when said properly. When my friends tell this story on my behalf, they say things like, “Matt once slept with a goat. And a guy who talked in his sleep. The guy actually spoke in tongues when he was sleeping. They slept in this tiny room off the kitchen of this family of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
They kill the humor. They kill it because they can’t wait to say the word goat. They kill it because they make no effort to make the goat more than situationally funny. They kill it by not using the but-and-therefore principle; the way they tell it is essentially with an awful series of ands. I take a situationally funny moment (I once shared a room with a goat) and make it into a bigger laugh by manipulating the language around it.
This is the art of Milk Cans and a Baseball. Taking moments of potential humor and making them as funny as possible. The stack of milk cans need not be large to generate a laugh. “A car about the size of a box of Pop-Tarts” also gets a reaction. It’s only a giggle, because the tower of milk cans isn’t that tall, but it’s still a surprise.
“Car about the size of . . .” is my milk can. It establishes an expectation that whatever is about to follow will be approximately car-size.
Riding lawn mower. Horse. King-size bed. Dining-room table.
All possibly funny, but not as funny as “box of Pop-Tarts” because “box of Pop-Tarts” is the biggest surprise. I’m comparing a car not to another vehicle and not to another large item, but to a small container for a food-like item.
Pop-Tart is also a funny word, which only adds to the humor. Some words are just funny. It’s well known that words with the K sound are funny. Words like cattywampus, cankles, kuku, caca, and pickle are funny just because of that hard K sound (though I think pickle is funny even without the K sound).
Oddly specific words are also funny. It’s funnier for me to say, “I’m pouring water over Raisin Bran because I am too stupid and lazy to buy milk” than it is to say, “I’m pouring water over a bowl of cereal.”
Why? Specificity is funny.
Babies and Blenders
Babies and Blenders is the idea that when two things that rarely or never go together are pushed together, humor often results.
In the story about Elysha discovering that I was hungry as a boy, I describe Charlie like this:
Except for Charlie’s obsession with biting his mother’s ass — an obsession I can understand quite well — he is the sweetest boy you’ve ever met. His first complete sentence was “Thank you, Mama.” When he needs a diaper change, he shouts, “Poop is here!” When I arrive home at the end of a long workday, Charlie is the first and often the only person to greet me at the door. Charlie oozes love. But when it comes to food, my sweet, angelic, three-year-old boy is a little asshole.
This always gets a laugh, because three-year-old boys are rarely described as assholes, especially after being described as sweet, angelic, and little.
In the story about the way that my grandmother pulled my loose teeth, I refer to her as a sadist. Grandmother and sadist are rarely seen together, so it’s funny.
In a story that I tell about swallowing a penny as a boy, I describe the fireplace that I am sitting in front of when the swallowing happens. It’s a full-size plastic, plug-in fireplace ordered by my parents through the Sears catalog. Plastic brick. Plastic wooden mantle. On that faux mantle are picture frames, and inside those frames are the pictures that were in the frames when my mother first bought them. A family of white, blond, smiling people, far better-looking than our own family.
This description always gets a laugh, even though I’m simply describing the truth. It’s funny because fireplaces are not supposed to be plastic and plug-in and ordered through mail-order catalogs, and picture frames shouldn’t be filled with magazine models. All of these incongruities are jammed together and generate laughs.
Would I describe the fireplace in such detail if it didn’t generate a laugh? Probably not. But the description comes at the beginning of the story, and you know how valuable a laugh can be at the beginning of a story.
My favorite example of Babies and Blenders is an old Sesame Street game called “One of These Things Is Not Like the Other.” Storytellers play this game in their stories all the time by creating a list of three descriptors, with the third being nothing like the other two. My favorite storyteller in the world — Steve Zimmer — does this in a story entitled “Neighborhood Watch.” After Steve’s family is not invited to the neighborhood Hawaiian luau, they decide to host the Zimmer family barbecue, which features “Zimmers, pineapple-flavored ham, and despair.”
One of those things is not like the others, and the result is a big laugh.
These are not the only two ways to create humor in a story. There are others, of course. But I would argue that almost all humor boils down to one of these two strategies, and really down to surprise.
Exaggeration is another form of Babies and Blenders. We push an unreasonable description against something that doesn’t normally fit that description, and a laugh is the result. But this only works when everyone agrees that you’re exaggerating. If I’m falsely exaggerating in the attempt to make my audience believe that my exaggeration is accurate, that is not an exaggeration. It is a lie — an unacceptable one in my book.
When I tell my audience that my Jewish wife picked out her first Christmas tree, and it was “seven feet wide and three feet tall,” everyone knows this is an exaggeration. No on
e believes that the tree was really seven feet wide and three feet tall. Therefore they laugh.
Although exaggeration is easy, it must still be executed well. The “seven feet wide by three feet tall” Christmas-tree dimensions were chosen carefully after many other dimensions were cast aside. For reasons that I don’t entirely understand, seven by three feet is funnier than nine by four feet or five by two.
I tried them all. I didn’t grab the first exaggeration that came to mind. I acknowledged that the words are important and the choices should be made with care.
Humor can be an enormous and essential asset to storytelling. Most people want to tell a funny story, and with some strategic crafting and execution, most can. But remember that humor is not necessary. There are many great stories that are entirely humorless but are still highly effective and beloved.
Humor is optional. Heart is nonnegotiable.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Finding the Frayed Ending of Your Story (or, What the Hell Did That Mean?)
I was a member of the Blackstone Millville Regional Junior Senior High School marching band. I marched with the band from 1984 to 1989 as a member of the drum corps, playing the bass drum and various percussion instruments in the pit.
This was serious business. We were a competition marching band, performing elaborate halftime shows, even though the school had neither a football team nor a football field. We practiced in a school parking lot painted with yard markers. We worked like hell. We were Massachusetts champions for all the five years that I played in the band, and New England champions in two of those years. I marched in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the Rose Parade, and down Main Street in both Disneyland and Disney World. Serious business.
Every summer I spent a week at band camp preparing for the coming season. Band directors would bring us to a college campus or a vacant military base to plan and practice our music and marching routines for the coming year.
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