How to Write Funny, Part 3 (A Write-thing)

Unexpected Is Funny

Here's what's transpired since I wrote that last "How to Write Funny" Writing Whip-it and promised that Part III would be coming up soon:

• I lied (unless "soon" means "a couple weeks" to you, in which case, right on)
• I decided calling these writing nugget blog posts "Writing Whip-its" was lame, almost as lame as when I joined the Homecoming Week committee in 9th grade and tried to get everyone to agree to a school-wide "Turtleneck Day" because that was the only piece of clothing I owned that made me look like I had boobs. Henceforth, these writing nuggets will be called "Write-things," unless if I think of something better. Which seems likely.

All righty, got that out of the way. Back to writing funny. As covered in a previous post, the first rule of writing funny is that specific is funny. What that means to you is that whether writing funny or telling jokes, the more specific your details, the funnier the scene.

Today's tip is that unexpected is funny. In comedy, this is called Incongruity Theory. Here's a famous example:

“Take my wife…please!” Henny Youngman

If it is in the right format, Incongruity Theory is also called the Rule of Three:

“I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.” –Jon Stewart

I'm a big fan of connecting the unexpected, but out of all the "writing funny" tips I'm going to share with you, Incongruity Theory is the most difficult to pull off. It requires more set-up than the others because you must first establish the expected before you can deliver the unexpected. If you watch "Big Bang Theory," for example, you'll know that most of Sheldon Cooper's lines are only funny because he's already been introduced as a socially awkward genius, and because most of us already know the basic rules of social interaction. Much of what Sheldon says is incongruous with expected human behavior, which makes it funny.

It's also a challenge to write incongruous humor because it's the most visual of all the types. A man wearing a tuxedo on the top half of his body and nothing on the bottom is an example of incongruity theory in action, and it's funny because you can picture it in your mind (we call this the "no pants dance" in my house, by the way, and I don't think there's nearly enough of it in the world).

The good news is that you don't have to apply incongruity theory to your writing if it doesn't come naturally. Here's a pinata's worth of tips you can use to inject any kind of humor into your next short story or book:

• Don’t try to be funny. Try to find funny.
• Never lose the focus of the scene in an effort to be funny.



• Be strategic.
• Trust your audience.
• Don’t worry about offending (unless you're a dick who only thinks s/he is funny, in which case, stop it).
• Carry a notebook and save the funny stuff you see, hear, and do.
• Take an improv class.
• Mine your life—tragedy is comedic gold.
• Ask yourself what the funniest/worst thing that could happen in that scene is.

Tune in Fridayish for Tip #4!

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Jessica (Jess) Lourey is best known for her critically-acclaimed Murder-by-Month mysteries, which have earned multiple starred reviews from Library Journal and Booklist, the latter calling her writing "a splendid mix of humor and suspense." She is a tenured professor of creative writing and sociology, a recipient of The Loft's 2014 Excellence in Teaching fellowship, and leads interactive writing workshops (including "Writing Funny") all over the world. <i>Salem’s Cipher</i>, the first in her thrilling Witch Hunt Series, hits stores September 2016 and her agent is currently shopping <i>Better than Gin: Rewrite Your Life</i>, a guide to recycling life experiences into compelling fiction.

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