Tuesday, June 7, 2011

How to be Funny in Three Hundred Words

If I find out, I'll let you know.

Last month, my publicist began the Heavenly Sinners Writing Guild and asked me to assist her. At that first meeting, Bryony got its first reading debut (Hurray!), but I left with an assignment: write a humorous event, short, about three hundred words.

I've been stewing on this all month.

As a family, we laugh a lot. My children are funny. My cats are funny. My life is often a joke. I, however, am not funny.

Needless to say, I've written nothing.

Now, I'm not one to annoy my publicist (at least, not on purpose), so I'll have to produce something. With the meeting exactly thirty-six hours away, I'm not hopeful I'll come up with something sidesplitting in that time, especially since the lord of the jester muses has been silent for the last twenty-nine days (or so).

Yesterday, I read a blog from WriteLife LLC about writing comedy (http://writelifellc.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/writing-comedy/), which I carefully studied. The overall message was not to be contrived, to find your own natural humor.

Although that almost brings me back to square one, it's the best advice I have.

Please, wish me luck.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You can do it! I managed to do it, I think the trick is just writing and starting from the punchline and working backwards.
~Carolyn

Denise M. Baran-Unland said...

I've started several, but they don't sound very funny to my ears. SIGH! Maybe, I should just WRITE it and stop trying to micromanage it?