McInnis - Finding the funny fast!: how to create quick humor to connect with clients, coworkers and crowds

How to create quick humor to connect with clients,coworkers and crowds

Copyright 2009 by Jan McInnis

Smashwords Edition
First Printing 2009

All rights reserved. Printed and Bound in the UnitedStates of America. No part of this book my be reproduced ortransmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage andretrieval systemexcept by a reviewer who may quote brief passagesin a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on theWebwithout permission in writing from the author. For information,please contact Jan McInnis,

Cover design by SteveDickenson
Book Design & Back Cover by Nikki Ward, Morrison AlleyDesign

Although the author and publisher have made everyeffort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of informationcontained in this book, we assume no responsibility for errors,inaccuracies, omissions, or any inconsistency herein. Any slightsof people, places or organizations are unintentional.

To my family, the people I like tolaugh with the most: Mom, Dad, Debbie, Tad, Dan, Robin,Brenda,

Glenn, Kathy, Frank, Christine andall my nieces and nephews who give me a lot of my comedymaterial!

INTRODUCTION

1 WHY PUT HUMOR IN YOUR COMMUNICATIONS?

2 GETTING INSIDE THEIR HEADS

3 ANALOGIES, STEREOTYPES AND COMMON ASSUMPTIONS, OHMY!

4 PULL OUT THE IRONY

5 SELF-DEPRECATING HUMOR ROCKS

6 JOKE FORMULAS

7 CALLBACKS ARE COOL. TAGS ARE TREMENDOUS

8 FINDING QUICK HUMOR IN OTHER PLACES

9 RESEARCH TIPS FOR FAST FUNNY

10 CRAFTING THE HUMOR SO IT FLOWS

11 RULES OF HUMOR

12 MEMORY TECHNIQUES

13 BOMBING, DYING AND KILLINGHUMOR ISSUBJECTIVE

THANKS! THATS MY TIME

INTRODUCTION

Dont wait for permission fromothers to use humor.

Anyone can addhumor to their communications.

Thanks for picking up this book and having aninterest in being funny or funnier. Regardless of how youcommunicate or with whom you communicate, theres usually room forsome laughs. I dont think people use enough humor. Maybe no onesever said youre funny, so you think you must not be. Maybe youthink it will take hours and hours to craft the perfect line, and,well, who has time for that? Or maybe youre simply afraid the jokeyou craft might bomb. So you take the safe route. Unfortunately thesafe route makes for a boring or ineffective sales letter, memo orspeech. What a waste! We humans may be the only species that hasthe ability to poke fun through language, yet we underuse thisability. Wikipedia, the online dictionary, says that pretty muchevery organism communicates. Even fungus communicates. (Imthinking, what does fungus say? Hey, Jan justcleaned her bathroom. Lets multiply!) But fungus cantmake jokes. We can, but we pass up opportunity afteropportunity.

Sometimes were funny when we dont mean to be. Mymom had a great sense of humor. One time we were watching one ofthose 3-D movies in which you wear those glasses and the stuff popsoff the screen at you. Five minutes in, mom leans over and saysJan, this stuff is coming right at me, switch seats with me!

Well, its time to stop missing out on thefun and start enjoying your communications. Using humor is evenmore crucial now when we hear so much bad news about the economy.So why not stand out from the doom and gloom and find some lighterways to communicate?

I wrote this short book about writing humorfast because, aside from the fact that I dont have patience,thats how I writefast. I got into comedy late in the game (I wasalmost 34 years old!) so I didnt have years to craft jokes. I hadto write fast and get my act on the road quick. And then I startedselling material, and it really benefitted me to write fast. Whyspend eight hours writing 15 jokes every day for radio when I coulddo it in two hours and move on to other projects? I was also ableto connect with corporate and association clients by writing fastjokes about their businesses and including them in my act. Findingthe funny fast is a habit Ive developed, and you can, too. Solets do it more!

Can You Really Do This?

Most people think that youre either born tobe funny or you have to have some sort of comic gift. Oh, Imnot funny like you. I could never do that, is the common linepeople give me for not even trying to spice up their communicationswith some laughs. But humor is not something that only a select fewpeople can do. I was a marketing director for 15 years beforebecoming a comedian. Nobody really ever encouraged me to quit myday job and go into comedy, and I was never the class clownthe oneconstantly cracking all of those jokes back in school. And trustme, nobody ever came up to me and told me I could write a joke. OK,wait. I take that back. One person in high school saw my rawtalent! The only person on the planet who ever told me I was funnywas my friend Judy. Back during senior year in high school, we hadto vote on those superlatives, you know, like the person who isBest Dressed, or Most Athletic or Im Better Than You thoselabels that make the rest of us realize were bland and notpopular. Well, Judy, who Id known since kindergarten, came up tome one day and said, Jan, youve always been making kind of funnycomments on the side, so Im going to vote for you as Funniest.That meant I got two votesmine and Judys.

Fast forward 30 years later to our classreunion and shes the only one who, when I told her I was acomedian, said without hesitating, That is perfect for you! What agreat job. Everybody else looked at me like they were about toblurt out, Oh, youre a comedian? Are still living with yourparents? Even a couple of brave souls commented, I dont recallyour being funny. Oh well.

So I didnt get a lot of encouragement to usehumor, and I didnt wait for permission to try humor. I became acomedian because I wanted toit seemed like a fun career. I startedwriting material for myself and for other people fast because Ineeded toI needed money, I needed writing credits and I needed tobuild my act.

Why Listen to My Advice on HumorWriting?

All the humor writing tips in this book aredistilled from my own experiences and research. And by research Imean I wrote jokes, got on stage millions of times and did my bestto be funny. And after much trial and error, along with watchingother successful comics, I figured it out. Ive made a great livingtelling and selling comedy material for the past 16-plus years.Ive seen and done all the right and wrong things in using humor,which means I know how to help you write and speak funnier,too.

Customized Humor

Topical jokes are a way to writefast humor thats fresh, and Ive sold thousands of them. Just afew examples:

CNN reports that this Superbowlweekend lots of vendors will be selling counterfeit sports itemsthat arent officially licensed by the NFL. An NFL spokespersonsaid that you can tell if the T-shirt is not an official Super BowlT-shirt if you can afford it.

A new experimental drug forlowering blood pressure is close to FDA approval. Scientists say itwill be almost as effective as a good divorce.

Beware at your cookouts thissummer. Bug zappers kill flies and spread their germs up to sixfeet, which means they can contaminate food on your grill. In fact,you can tell if your hamburgers are getting insect germsif theytaste like hot dogs.