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Kindle Notes & Highlights
When you write humor, the core concept you’re writing about has to be funny. It is, in fact, the most important part of your writing. So, you need to get it right. The greatest, funniest writing in the world will not save a bad concept. But a great concept written even barely adequately will be met with great success.
A humor writer must be a Clown and an Editor. The Clown is the right side of the brain: creative, subjective, outside the box, and nonjudgmental. To write humor well, you need to be a Clown. You need to write down every idea you have, no matter how stupid you think it is.
Brevity, as we’ve heard, is the sole of wit. Brevity is also the soul of accessibility, which is arguably no less as important than wit.
Satire has something to say—something important—that’s hidden in the literal text.
Comedic structure falls apart after only a couple of pages or 5–10 minutes. Audiences get bored with it.
You can make a joke about anything you want, but the target must deserve ridicule.
