In our visually-focused age of memes and imgur, one thing you may not realize is that people can also be funny with words. In fact, we’ve done it for thousands of years, from the boring and hard to understand William Shakespeare—nice try, Bill—to the more manageable Dave Barry. People have wooed lovers, conquered nations, and embarrassed their children with effective humor.
But how do they do it?
Puns!
Puns, puns, puns. You either love them, or you are wrong. Charles Lamb and Edgar Allan Poe both had low opinions of those who did not like puns, with Lamb going so far as to say, “I never knew an enemy to puns who was not an ill-natured man.” So if you don’t like puns, well, you must not be a very pleasant person to be around.
To be fair, I don’t really consider myself a humor writer. I’m more like a half-assed blogger whose personal dysfunction makes people laugh out loud in airports, coffee shops, and cubicles. (Wow. It’s actually kind of sad when you think of it like that.) Whatever. Here I am, contributing to a series on humor writing – so, for today, let’s pretend that I’m a humorous writer, sharing the secret formula to being hilarious.
Get ready for it. Pretty sure I’m about to blow your mind…
Paul Angone All Groan Up
I can’t force funny. Like trying to trim the nails of an alley cat, every time I try and make funny do exactly as I say, I get clawed.
When I write, my core goal is not to be funny; my goal is to tell the truth in an entertaining way. If that happens by way of funny, then hot damn! Call me a blend of Owen Wilson and Conan O’Brien in blog form. I won’t stop you.
Even though I try not to force funny, when analyzing my writing process, I definitely employ some strategies (daresay, commandments) to allow funny the space to breathe—if it in fact wishes to come to life.
