How to Write Funny: Add Humor to Every Kind of Writing

Book Overview

Writing humor is subjective and challenging - thankfully, there are many ways to create it. "How to Write Funny" provides advice, insights and humor from more than twenty writers with a gift for... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1582970548
• ISBN13: 9781582970547
• Release Date: July 2001
• Publisher: Writers Digest Books
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 0.8" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

A Very Good Book

This book is essentially a lineup of authors who have been recognized for their ability to write humor, authors who are recognized for their skill in writing and authors who agreed to fill out the rest of the book. The is book does about a good of a job dissecting humor and describing what it is as any book can. If you read the book, you will find that some of these writers do no come across as funny. When trying to describe humor it often loses its ability to make people laugh. What one person thinks is funny another person will not, so we all may have different thoughts about which writers are funny and which are not. And some of these guys just aren't funny. Don't let that keep you from reading the book. Some of these guys offer some very good insight into what makes writing funny. They talk about things like timing, delivery and the use of jokes. They talk about humor versus jokes and how characters should deliver their lines. They talk about how a person who can deliver a humorous performance may not be skillful at humorous writing. There is a lot of information to absorb in between those writers that don't know what they are talking about. I got a few laughs from the book, but mostly it is a serious book about How to Write Funny.

Offers A Variety Of Viewpoints From Successful Writers

Am really enjoying this book. Every chapter is written by or about a different author and their individual perspectives really come through. The writing and editing are top-notch, whether reading straight from the beginning or jumping around to different chapters. One of my favorites is an interview with Sherman Alexie, a Native American humorist. It's wonderful to discover that someone so uniquely funny can influence my own aspirations. Of course with all the writers come different opinions as to what's important in humor writing. (If they didn't, now that'd be funny.) For me, that means I'm getting the big picture, insightful tips, and a great read rather than the usual "There's Only One Correct Way" stuff. I have dog-eared about 1/3 of the pages and yellow highlighted (if that's a word) much of the rest. It is not a Step 1-2-3 sort of book, so if you're looking for that, save this book for later. But if you want a broad perspective from successful writers, consider this book.

Many Peoples' Takes On Humor Writing

The negative review earlier about how many of the authors sound like one another is correct but misleading. To me, though most of the commentary is similar, that's because they are shared impressions of comic writers, rather than an indication that this is a poor selection. As proof of the variety, just think: in addition to Barry and Bryson, you also get writers of comedic fantasy, children's books, romance, a Hawaiian-Asian ethnic humorist, newspaper writers and so on. You even have the guy who wrote a "comedic" story about a man who chopped up his mother and put her in the fridge (not ever going to be on my reading list). The biggest reason to read the book is that variety of voices, which contrasts strongly with the usual book on comic writing: I'm a comedian, here's my take. If eighteen different writers say "comic fiction writers get no respect", "teaching humor is impossible", and "family history is important to my work", I'm inclined to think they're probably truisms of the field.

Not what I expected

I thought this book was going to offer more insight into how to write comedy, but it didn't. This book does a nice job of disecting the humor markets and experts give you tips on how to aim your writing at each market, but I found the "interviews" written by respected humor writers to be pretty boring and repetitive. They talk about how their senses of humor developed and why they write what they do, but they all basically said that humor can't be taught and it's up to each individual writer to dedicate themselves to writing, which I guess is good advice but doesn't offer any real answers. Some of the writing in this book to me came across as arrogant, as though some of these humor writers thought their work was the funniest stuff ever and could never be topped by an aspring comedy writer. They seemed to feel bitter about something.

A must read for anyone who wants to write humor!

This 228-page trade paperback offers an excellent index and is divided into three sections. Part I covers the basics of writing comedy. Part II discusses writing comedy in the context of numerous genres, including general fiction, literary fiction, science fiction, romance and various non-fiction forms such as columns, articles, fillers and books. Part III includes interviews with multiple humor greats, ranging from Dave Barry to Peg Bracken to Denise Duhamel. The writing in each of the 30 articles of this collection is wonderful. Every contributor--these are humor experts, afterall--writes in a style that is so lively, you can laugh your head off and have a ball while learning absolutely terrific inside tips on comedy. What a coup for Writer's Digest to add this fabulous book to their lineup of writing-instruction books! It's a gold mine of information for every type of writer, fiction and nonfiction, long and short format. Whether you simply want to occasionally leaven intense drama with humor, or you plan to write all-out, belly-busting comedy, this book is for you.