Week 5 of "Breaking into Pro Joke Writing" has occurred. Quick recap for all those who were held back by the hounds of hell from attending:
() We “broke” a news story in a pro joke writer way
- Stay constantly up on the news, across politics, sports, entertainment, crime, cultures, regions, etc (pro joke writers keep a broad, intimate knowledge of what their audience knows, is being told, is interested in)
- Write straight set-ups from the story: “Russia sent between 19 and 23 drones into Polish air space this week.” “This was the first time Polish territory had been violated by a foreign power since Germany in 1939” etc
- Do deeper, broader research on the event, so you have more comic elements to work with; read more stories, use GPT, etc
- Pluck out the main comic elements, especially those that are already pre-soaked with comedy; () Locations -- Russia, Poland, Germany () Characters -- Putin, Trump, Polish people; () Organizations -- Russian Defense Ministry, Polish Defense, NATO;
- Write multiple punchlines on the best angle you find, or use multiple angles
() We practiced a genre of pro joke writing -- Language Work
-- this is a very common format used in pro joke writing, because it’s artful/literary, it’s playful instead of attacking/hostile, so it’s less likely to get bad reactions
-- really good language play works, really weak language play gets groans; but in writing, a lot of the language play will sound stupid, until suddenly something fresh and original suddenly pops into existence
* forms include
() letter replacement -- find a cool or kinetic word, change out a letter so that the original word is still there, but it’s also now different/merged with a new word; (ie, bohemian -- run through the alphabet, changing the first letter -- crowhemian, doughhemian, fauxhemenian -- until you find funny new words that create jokes -- ie, “Austin has a lot of Fauxhemians”_
() rhyme words in the punchline:
() portmanteaus -- create new words by crushing two half-words together
() mondegreens -- “mishear” words, or use mistaken words that reframe the subject (ie, if you want to make kids laugh, ask them their name, and then use a different name than what they told you -- the “mistake” makes them laugh, because they know you do know their name, but are “playing” with language)