To Wit: An E-zine On How To Be a Wit
07/15/2008

This is an E-zine from Thomas Christopher on how to be witty.

WITTY SELF-EXPRESSION PRODUCTS

I'm offering T-shirts and other self-expression products designed using the techniques discussed here. I've set up an online "store" at wittyselfexpression.com. I expect to use many of the designs as examples in this e-zine.

Take an Attitude

The easiest way to write humor is to take a hostile attitude toward something and then justify that attitude. Why "hostile?" Humor grows out of irritation. Humor is not nice. Recall Marvin Helitzer's THREES acronym: A joke needs a Target, Hostility, Realism, Exaggeration, Emotion, and Surprise.

Judy Carter offers a formula for jokes that lays out how to create stand-up routines (see Carter, Judy, The Comedy Bible, Fireside, 2001):

joke = setup + punch line + toppers

The setups are serious. Only the punch lines are funny. The toppers are more punch lines based on the same set up. Carter uses the phrase "act out" instead of "punch line," since the easiest form of stand up comedy is to act out what the setup talks about.

Setups themselves are built out of three things:

setup = attitude + topic + premise

The topic is obvious. The joke has to be about something. The attitude, in her scheme, is that the topic is Weird, Hard, Scary, or Stupid. People have also gotten a lot of mileage out of cynicism: believing that there is a hidden meaning to things and it is not nice. Or, more precisely, "Believing or showing the belief that people are motivated chiefly by base or selfish concerns; skeptical of the motives of others." (Definition from Ask.com.)

You must never use hatred as an attitude; it's not playful enough. People will not want to join you in that attitude. If you must say you hate something, use irony. Say you love it.

The premise is a general statement that justifies taking that attitude toward that topic. It is also called “an opinion, a hit, a slant, a spin, a point of view.” You can construct a setup by filling in this sentence:

What's attitude about topic is that premise.

Here are three examples of setups and possible punch lines:

[It’s weird that] People in Colorado never dress up even for formal occasions.

"Let's see... I wore those flip-flops to the last banquet... Wait a moment. You're not wearing those cut offs are you? ... Because it's after labor day, that's why. Wear your nice jeans."

A weird thing about dating is that “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” have nothing to do with friendship.

"I don't think we should start dating. We've been such close friends for years. I don't want to ruin our relationship... No, really, I only want to get married to someone I don't know very well."

Marriage is hard these days It is like Buddhist reincarnation.

You'll go through it again and again and again until you get it right.

Here's what you are looking for in a premise. It should be

• Serious, not funny. The setup is serious. If it's funny, you've gotten into the punch lines.
• Insightful & original, not trite. If the premise is a common idea, there's no surprise in you trying to justify it.
• Specific, not abstract or vague. Abstract and vague don't work for humor. You can always improve the premise by asking, "What kind of...?"
• True, not false. Humor has to be grounded in reality.
• About others, not about your own life. Others are not interested in something only about you. They won't connect to it emotionally.
• An observation, not a story. Stories are more the realm of the punch line part of the joke, and for stand up comedy, you don't want them even there. They take too long.

If you want to find some possible premises for a topic, try this. Draw a vertical and a horizontal line across a sheet of paper. Label the four quadrants Weird, Hard, Scary, and Stupid.

In each quadrant write premises that would justify taking that attitude toward the topic. For example, I heard a couple of days ago that research showed parents were not as happy as people without children, even though they say they are happier. That's weird. Let's try finding other down-sides of being a parent and see if we can come up with some jokes.

Looking over these ideas, singly and in groups, we can come up with the beginnings of a few jokes. Notice that we don't need to state the set up explicitly, or even put the set up and punch lines in different sentences.

Economically, kids don't make sense. As an investment, they lose money, and they are way overpriced as a consumer item.

Kids bring joy to our lives, except while we're raising them, and when they move away, and when they move back in.

I maintain a balance between work and home. I come home to my wife and kids to recover from the stress of my job. I go to work to recover from the wife and kids.

My wife and I wanted a divorce, but we didn't want to damage the kids. We looked into counseling, but then we thought, hey, the kids need a shrink anyway...

Kids are only hard to live with during their twos, and during their teen years, and all the rest of the time.

They're not great jokes perhaps, and nowhere near all the jokes we could get from the premises, but we have a start.

There you have it. An easy road to humor is to take an attitude towards a topic and then justify that attitude. Prompt yourself by asking what's weird, hard, scary, or stupid about it, and you're well on your way.

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