5 Rules for How to Write a Classic One-liner Joke
I'm a psychologist, not a professional comedy writer (After always, how funny is this premier sentence?). But when, approximately 20 years ago, I took up to an hour every day (and I mean, for 365 days) equitable to write jokes, gags, and one-liners for cartoonists, comedians, and spokesmen, I thought I was smart enough to make it a life-long habit.
It was fun, I academic a lot, and I even sold a few jokes. However, by the end of the year my competence to reserve cranking them out vanished and I burnt out.
The experience taught me 3 things: First, I'm not slit out to be a full-time sitcom author. Second, I developed a lusty appreciation of the professional comedy writers who can do this daytime afterward daytime,
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tods moccasins, I did learn how to put together a one-liner. I have secondhand this perception as yet in lectures, meetings, other writing projects, and social chat.
I have come to the conclusion that it ain't rocket science. If I can do it, you can do it (provided that you have a good sense of humor,
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Before I give you my sorcery formula, I should differentiate you that formulas don't work. A magnificent one-liner, favor whichever go of art, has its own peerless inspiration, follows its own unique rules, and surprises us in its own excellent course. Also, the jokes I will use for samples are aboriginal (not especially comic, but naturally incipient). That's for I don't want to get sued, primarily by some comedian who demands I was pilfering his alternatively her jokes.
So here are 5 rules for creating a one-liner:
RULE 1: Choose 2 topics-1) the content of the joke, and 2) the surprise topic. For example, let's say you've been putting in a lot of overtime at the office. Now,
fitch sale, just for the sake of making this a good mental exercise, let's also say that you incorporate this topic with the fact that you have a dog. Here is one feasibility of combining them: "I've been putting in so many overtime, that I came home to an vacant house last night. I found a memorandum. It said, 'I can't take it any more. I've gone for a long walk in the park to think over our relationship.' It was from my dog."
Ok, so it's not that funny. That brings us to...
RULE 2: Look for opposites, especially preposterous and impossible opposites. Many, numerous great jokes rely above inverse meanings. A few years ago by a Rotary conference in which I finished the year of my leadership, I wanted to mention a few things ahead rotating the club over to my heiress. I began by saying, "Before I formally hand over the reins of powerlessness, ..." It got a good smile.
RULE 3: Build up the joke in a decisive intention, so that the listener is locked into one speculation, and then spring the joke on them. For example, talk as if it is something major, and end with something trivial: "I should like to introduce my business partner, my director, my best friend, and a man to whom I owe five bucks, ..."
RULE 4: Put the opener word or clause, the 1 that changes the signification, at the quite end of the one-liner. You'll notification that the quite last words in the before three jokes ARE the joke (dog, powerlessness, 5 bucks). Imagine a cocktail party. Everyone has a beverage in his or her hands, besides for 1 fellow. His wife turns to him and says, "You understand, George, you truly SHOULD have someone to drink--otherwise people will muse you're an drunkard." This is a lot funnier than, "You don't want people to calculate you're an alcoholic, do you? You'd better drink someone." This second line isn't as funny because the second heading (alcoholism) is introduced before the end. It blunts the surprise and accordingly the comic shock at the end.
RULE 5: Get rid of every needless word and mind. Nothing ruins a one-liner more than even one accessory word. My wife, Christine, is a Paramedic with the Chicago Fire Department (She was my hero long before September 11th). She works a 24-hour shift. Over the years I've adult a stock answer to people who query me if I'm anxious about my wife creature in the firehouse all night with all of those men: "Gee, you're right. I'd better shriek and advise those guys." Is there one unnecessary word in that response? I don't think so.
So there it is. Follow these rules, and you can establish a one-liner. Will it ascend to the level of a Henny Youngman, a Jay Leno, one Ellen DeGeneres, a Bob Hope, a Richard Pryor, or a George Carlin? Probably not, but it's fun, it's creative, it's a agreeable mental training, and--who knows?--you may ascertain that you have a genius for it.
Oh, and one word of remind. If while you are emulating these rules you think of something truly funny, forget the rules. Go for what's funny.
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