Writing Humor (Lit Starts) , livre ebook

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64 pages

English

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A book of writing prompts from the San Francisco Writers' Grotto, authors of the best-selling 642 Things series. Focus on a single aspect of the craft of writing with help from the San Francisco Writers' Grotto. Writing Humor starts with a foreword by author Chris Colin, who offers pointers for developing your own comedic style. The rest of the book consists of prompts and space to think, providing opportunities to explore your voice in various hilarious scenarios. Among other ideas, you'll be asked to write: an account of a bachelor, from the perspective of his refrigerator a Craigslist ad for something you are desperate to sell a eulogy to a pair of jeans that no longer fitan evaluation of a coworker in the form of a school report card a list of embarrassing moments that are funny in hindsight Take to a cafe, on vacation, or on your morning commute and practice your creative writing a little bit at a time.Special FeaturesAdvice from a published writer, followed by promptsPart of a collection of single-subject writing prompt books by the San Francisco Writers' Grotto Check out the other books in the Lit Starts series: Writing Action, Writing Character, and Writing Dialogue.

Informations

Publié par	ABRAMS BOOKS
Date de parution	05 juillet 2022
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9781647009724
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0584€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

writing humor
P. G. Wodehouse began writing at the age of five. What I was doing before that, I don t remember, the English author remarked. Just loafing, I suppose.
For three- and four-year-olds eager to break into humor writing, Wodehouse s example is heartening. But for aspiring writers who wait until seven, eight, or beyond, tales of early productivity might sting or even discourage. I am here to say don t let them. Humor writing can be initiated at any age. With nothing but a pen, an amusing person can come to earn dozens and dozens of dollars a year.
Step one: Decide what funny is. Joe Randazzo, who has done such funny things as edit the Onion , defined it more or less as abnormality. Things become funny when they depart from what is expected, he wrote in his book Funny on Purpose . The jarring nature of the diversion produces a nervous reaction (laughter) as our brain hiccups and then reroutes itself to get back on course. . . . Comedy, then, is the organized pursuit of abnormality.
Good, fine. But there are still guidelines for pursuing that abnormality:
1) Have a point. In the satirical essay A Modest Proposal, Jonathan Swift s was to mock British attitudes toward the poor and the Irish-via a departure from what is expected:
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is, at a year old, a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.
2) Have a voice. Taffy Brodesser-Akner is a journalist, but a funny one. In the Randazzo taxonomy, I think a good chunk of her funniness is the meta kind-she s conspicuously departing from the norms of the genre she s working in. Here s her lede in a GQ piece about sugar daddies, in which she introduces a character not in the expected manner of an investigative journalist so much as your funny, eviscerating friend:
Thurston Von Moneybags (not his real name) was scammed once by a girl in Houston. He had arranged to meet her so that he might size her up and determine whether he wanted to give her a monthly stipend in exchange for regular sex and sometimes maybe dinner. In other words: Was there chemistry? Was she blonde and blue-eyed, the way he liked them? Was she thin but not anorexic, a shapely body, you know? Could he talk to her? That was very important. It was a little important. It wasn t that important.
3) Know what? Don t let a point get in your way. Here s a tweet from TV writer Megan Amram, who runs her familiar self-laceration mode through deranged logic:
By the time he was my age, Lee Harvey Oswald had already shot a PRESIDENT. I haven t even shot a normal person.
In sum, good writing obeys the same laws regardless of genre: Don t say that much. Be specific when you do. Respect the reader s intelligence. Pace yourself. Resist empty cleverness. There s a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit, Dorothy Parker wrote. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.
Years ago Patricia Marx wrote a great piece called Getting Along with the Russians, which happens to follow all the rules above perfectly:
Education, not force, is the effective way to change the Russians. If we want a three-year-old not to put his hand on a hot stove, we do not beat him unmercifully. Rather, we teach him that a stove is hot, by pressing his hand to the burner for a minute or two.
Comedian Wan