Jokes are the most essential part of any comedy, so, it is very important that your jokes are good and not just good but that they consistently get laughs.
A joke is something that makes people burst into laughter. Most of the people create jokes by coincidence. Some comedy writers maintains a notebook to write down the jokes or comedies that they have came across in their life. Killer jokes are the best and will awalys win over the audience.
Writing and telling jokes is not an easy task. The comedy writer should think in every possible way to make the crowd burst into laughter. Because, the uttered joke may be funny for some, while others find it irritating. Timing and usage of words are more important while writing a killer joke.
So how do you write a killer joke?
Research On Topics For Different Situations To Write The Joke
The first thing you should do is to research and find your material for writing the joke. Select your topic and write jokes relating to your topic. Gather as many jokes as you can and write them down, because among them you may find a golden joke, that almost writes itself.
Always listen and observe the world, the places and people that have the potential for comedy. You can even think about your own self, and the comedies that you have came across to frame a joke. Research about the topic that easily makes people to laugh. The topic should be a relatable and a easy to understand.
Consider The Joke Structure And Write Punchlines And Tags
There are many ways to write the jokes such as one-liners, stories, and word play. First, decide and consider the structure of your joke and proceed further.
Jokes as a short story is also an effective method. Start to build a short story around a punchline. Think about the funniest thing that you have came across. Make a setup that creates expectations in your punchline.
No matter what structure you use, every joke has a setup and a punchline. The punchline and setups may contain elements of surprise, expectations, twisting words, ironical words and many more. Remember, your joke should be small and over leading of words may collapse your joke. Avoid unnecessary details and phrases.
Your setup should be one or two lines long and never more than three. It should create expectation among the audience and should give them the details in that one punchline. The punchline is the funny part of your joke that will make people to laugh.
Though punchline gets the biggest laugh, the other peaks of laughter includes the tag lines. Tag lines or Tags are the ones that adds funny moments throughout the joke and builds a comedic tension among people.
Write In An Incongruent Way
Comedy usually occurs when the situations or any ideas that don’t match between two or more. (i.e. in an opposite manner) .The incongruity theory suggests that humor arises when things that do not normally go together replace logic and familiarity.
For example, a joke becomes funny when we predict an outcome and another happens. So indulge the way of writing in an incongruent way to obtain humor from readers.
Incongruity way of writing will indulge the people to laugh. This way of writing the joke will change the expectation of the people in a comic way, making them to laugh at the end.
Add Realism
Making real life comedies will be original and can be practiced and readily delivered. Telling fake ones and imaginary one will not work as that much as the real ones. Writing a real-time joke which connects with the universe, can easily grasp the audience.
There should always be a piece of truth in every joke, so that the audience can relate and associate with it. Humor sense arises if contradiction increases. Exaggeration and incongruence of your joke will make the people to think about what thing are and how they are related, this will make them to burst into laughter.
Fix Your Target
Fix your target first and then impose the joke on it. The target may be anything such as people, place, things and even yourself. Make sure that your joke should not be an offensive one which hurts the people.
Use decent, short and simple joke over your fixed target. Always look for targets with universal appeal. For example, the target may be a person(funny character) in a story on which you can add your comedy.
Increase The Surprise Factor
Surprise-filled moments are the best ones. Make sure the surprise is one that the audience may not expect. Reverse their expectations and twist them. Practicing it makes the audience engage and forces them to pay attention to your jokes. Twists are made not only in story type jokes as a comic twist is the best one to enjoy no matter the style.
Your joke should come at an unexpected time. As soon as you give the setup to the audience, your next step is to ensure that your joke takes them where they didn’t expect to go.
You can even hide your setups and punchlines in an innocent moment that the audience will never suspect. Exaggeration, twists, surprises and irony are the elements that make your joke funnier.
Add Taglines
Taglines or Tags, are the additional punchlines that build upon punchline. Taglines are used to get extra laughs. You don’t need to write a new joke, instead you can include a tag in the older ones to make it funnier.
Keep It Concise
The joke should be small and precise. Take out unnecessary words and phrases. Always, write the joke forward during the setup. Too many words can divert your audience. So keep your jokes crisp to grasp the audience and keep them focussed on you.
Exaggeration And Use Emotion
Exaggeration and realism are the most important elements to be added in the punchline to create surprise.
Create emotions while writing the story, which makes the people to visualize your story or comic writing. It should indulge them in the situation with eagerness and tension.
Test Your Jokes While Writing
Comedy writers usually tests their jokes in front of their fellow mates and checks whether the joke works. They analyze the count of people who responds to their jokes and then write jokes accordingly.
Always write your jokes by saying it aloud as you write, so that it will help you to identify the errors of sound and any grammatical mistakes in it.
Conclusion
Humor writing is a precious gift possessed by the person. Not all writers can become a comedy writer, because it is a difficult task for one to obtain it, only practice can make them achieve that. Practice makes any writer to do their best. So follow the above steps in order to excel as a best comedy writer and make world feel funny through your writings.
