Writing Humor?

How do you write something full of humor and wit? I fail at it. Thanks!

Hi there!
I'm Meep!
My favourite genre of writing, just so happens to be humour

What kind of humour are you looking for?
It can be classified into many 'sub-categories'.
There's slapstick comedy, parodies, complete randomness, sarcastic humour, dry humour...and the list goes on.

Maybe you ought to attempt a parody? That's quite easy to do.
For example, make fun of a famous/infamous book.
There are lots of Twilight/Harry Potter parodies in our script and fanfic forum.

I'm not good at explaining how to be humourous.
It's just something that I develop myself, and from reading books.
You can read how different authors have different styles and ideas of humour.

~Perhaps, if you ever post anything hilarious, drop me a PM, and I'll help you out

Hi there ChasingColts,

Welcome to YWS!

Humor is probably the most difficult genre to write. I say this because not everyone shares the same sense of humor, and because being funny is usually spontaneous rather than planned. There are however some really funny writers. Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett and a personal favorite Michael Lewis all manage to achieve humor in their work. Thousands of comedians exist, comedy shows exist. Now how these people achieve their humor is different, but here are a few ways that they do it.

Now the first way, is perhaps what Meep called dry humor. Now this is often obtained by completely under-exaggerating a serious situation. In this instance, it's pretty hard to write this sort of humor unless you are writing an extended piece, as humor in this case often develops from little details that the writer scatters throughout his work. Take the scenario that I am about to invent. There is a guy about to propose to his fiancee. Now the writer narrates this. Except he does not seem to take it seriously at all. Consider the following bit of prose:

Daniel searched around his pocket for the ring. The pocket seemed to grow as if by some magic. Maybe it truly wanted to intimidate him. The woman who he hoped would become his fiancee looked at him with the same funny look in her eye as she always developed when she thought he was behaving strangely. In fact it was how she usually looked at him, now that he thought about it. He let out a sigh of relief as his fist tightened around the ring. He hoped it sparkled like her eyes did.

Now, I doubt whether this is funny, but it hopefully provided a basic understanding of how you do under-exaggerate a serious point.

The second way you can achieve humor is more blatant. Take the same scenario, but completely over-exaggerate it. Like so,

Daniel searched around his pocket for the ring. He hoped she would appreciate it after the money he paid for it! He grew more nervous that this would not be the case as his hands scurried through his pockets like rats. The woman who he hoped would become his fiancee looked at him like he was an alien from outer space. He knew he was green enough to be one. When his hand finally closed around the little ring that he would try to buy his woman's heart with, he breathed a sigh of relief. He looked deeply into Jane's eyes, almost being sucked into her seductive whirlpools, and winked. Slowly, he brought the ring to meet Jane's eyes.

I hope that in the above rendition of the same scene I have successfully illustrated the more blatant humorous piece.

Now, the final way that you can be funny is to create a parody. That is you take something known by the world, and write a piece whose intention is to mock the original scenario. Here you can also write this by over-exaggerating, or creating a more tongue-in-cheek approach, ie under-exaggerating...

Bear in mind that writing humor is really tough, and comes naturally to few. With a lot of practice though, it can be done. Hope the tip helped!

Have a good one!

Humor is impossible to define or quantify. Unfortunately it doesn't really boil down to something you can learn by using the usual channels. It's more of a feel than anything. Basically, if it makes you chuckle, it's comedy. A no-brainer, right? It also greatly depends on what you think is funny. For instance I prefer absurdism as something that has always been tried and true hilarious, to my sensibilities.

"Tragedy is when I prick my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open manhole and die." -Mel Brooks

If you want to get a knack for funny, study some of the greats. They don't all have the same sense of humor, and they might differ greatly topically, but there just seems to be this radiant essence that the masters all share. If you want to write humorous dialogue, then try playing the conversations out in your head first, get the timing down. Timing is 90% of everything in comedy. Also, try to be unexpected, an idea out of left field always hits the funny bone hardest. You never laugh at the same joke as hard as you did the first time you heard it, especially if you've never heard anything like it before. If you're a smart ass, then good! Be a smart ass, this cultivates wit. Um, yeah that's my advice. Just ingest as much comedy as you can, find what specifically makes YOU laugh, and fill your blossoming young mind with it's attitude and essence.

As a student of humor I'll offer some of my favorites, you can look them up on youtube or what have you. Mind you, just about all of these people are crass and vulgar, but that's another thing about good comedy, it pushes boundaries in such a way that people are laughing too hard to be offended. Here are the few that come to mind at the moment:

Steve Martin (he's like a pile of comedy that stole a man's skin)
Bill Hicks (VERY mature, VERY intelligent, can be downright vulgar, he's kind of my messiah)
Richard Pryor (fairly mature, very funny, but you should already know this)
Monty Python (absurdism at it's finest)

As for funny writing, there's Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut, and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. I'd have to say the book that's made me laugh out loud the most out of anything I've ever read is Catch-22. There's also a book called Lamb, by Christopher Moore, if you're not too easily offended by a little poked fun at the gospel.

Hey!
Personally, I think I such at humour. Becuase of this, I know what makes a real funny piece (it's whatever I'm NOT writing ).
The most important thing is to not make your humour sound forced. Even in real life, when someone says a forced joke, it isn't very funny. However, if the same joke is said, in a non forced manner, it is suddenly much funnier. Make the humour effortless, as if it was so amazingly easy to write (even though it wasn't).
Make sure you ask if something is funny. Don't just write something you think is hilarious, and immediately send it to a publisher. What's funny to you might not be funny to everyone else. Even the most accomplished comedians try out a lot their jokes beforehand on different people. Just to test their reaction.

Hope I helped.
xxmimixx