© 2025 Glenda Ferguson

Even if you’re not a stand-up comic or don’t possess the natural gift of wit, you can write with humor. Think of the process as if you were a skilled builder constructing a home. Here are three tips for creating your own house of humor.

Construct a solid foundation and framework.

• As with every piece you write, make sure you’ve written a sound narrative arc. Comedy writer Alan Zweibel advises writers, “Don’t try to be funny. Get a beginning, middle, and end—build a tree and add the ornaments later. The tree is the story, the ornaments the jokes.”
• Read the publishers’ submission guidelines, topics, and suggestions for a humor story or essay. An idea may remind you of a personal incident.
• Start with action.
• Tell your reader the topic right away through a confession or lesson.

Add colorful elements.

• Spark your creativity with a warm-up by taking a nature walk, writing a silly caption for a photo, or composing in a different genre.
• Try a twisted title by perusing various genres and children’s books.
• Write a beginning that will hook your readers.
• Choose words that sound funny. For example, instead of “slacks,” use the word “trousers”; not “cheated” but “bamboozled.”
• Add witty dialogue between the characters or recall as best you can conversations that led to your own funny situation.
• Take a true incident and exaggerate parts of it.
• Create a series using the Rule of Three with “normal, normal, unexpected.” For example: I ordered a salad with low-calorie dressing, no croutons, and a generous helping of guilt when I indulged in the chocolate dessert.

Nail the building with curb appeal.

• Close out your story with a memorable ending by solving a problem, wrapping up the theme, or teaching a lesson.
• Be brief.
• Summarize your main point by adding a phrase the readers weren’t expecting. Humor columnist Erma Bombeck said, “Leave ‘em with a quip they won’t forget. I like zingers and surprises at the end.”

To write with humor, do your research. Take notes when you experience an embarassing moment, which may prove to be funny…later…or much later. Read a humorous book. Watch silly pet videos.

Go ahead and try it. You have my permission.
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Glenda Ferguson, a retired teacher and member of Dr. Burton’s Writers Forum, has contributed stories to Chicken Soup for the Soul: Laughter’s Always the Best Medicine and Short and Sweet: Growing Older with Grace (And A Bit of Humor). In 2024 Glenda performed stand-up comedy at the Erma Bombeck Writers Workshop. Her devotions for animal lovers are in Guideposts’s All God’s Creatures (2023-2026). Glenda, her husband, Tim, and their cat, Scrappy, live in southern Indiana.