How to Write a Funny Rambling Style Post: Diesel of the Mattress Police
Posted on January 10, 2008
Filed Under Writing Humor | 23 Comments
This is a guest post by Humor-Blogs.com founder, Diesel.
Since I started MattressPolice.com about a year and a half ago, I’ve written a lot of different kinds of humor pieces.
It’s been sort of an ongoing experiment, and I’ve gradually settled into a more-or-less consistent style, which is the Essay that Pretends to Have a Serious Point But Really is Just a String of Bizarre Digressions That Somehow Ends Up Basically Where It Started.
There are certainly a lot of other ways to write funny stuff, but I thought I’d try to write a primer to writing a Diesel-esque post for those of you who wonder how you might go about writing something like that.
Of course, if you’ve never visited my site before, you may want to read a couple of my posts to find out whether I even know what that hell I’m talking about. Some good examples of this kind of post are:
Ok, so hopefully you read a couple of those and you’re thinking, “Gosh, those are hilarious. I’d love to write crap like that.”
Or not. Whatever. Anyway, here’s the process, more or less.
1. Come up with a couple of funny one-liners or jokes.
I know, this seems like a semi-retarded bit of advice, but you’d be amazed how many people write a “humorous” post without any jokes in it. They come up with what they think is a funny idea, and then they stretch that into a post. Booooring.
You should have at least 2 jokes.* It doesn’t even matter if they have anything to do with each other, because of the magic of Point 2.
2. Devise a narrative.
This is the “story” that you’re telling with your post. How the hell do I do that? You ask. Simple, I respond. Put your first joke at the beginning of the story. Put your second joke at the end of the story. Now write some semi-coherent drivel that gets you from Joke 1 to Joke 2.
If Joke 1 and Joke 2 are completely unrelated, your post will be even funnier, because you’re going to have to write some really weird stuff to connect the two. If you’re lucky, Joke 3 and maybe 4 and 5 will spring up magically while you’re trying to connect 1 and 2.
3. Write an ending.
Now you’ve got 2 jokes with some weird stuff in the middle. Great. The problem is that if you end the post there, people will feel like they’ve just read 2 jokes with some weird stuff in the middle. You need to tack on an ending that somehow ties the rest of the post together.
The best way to do this is to reiterate joke 1 in a slightly different way. For example in my Human Inertia post, the last line is a reference to a joke that I made at the beginning of the post, about my boss’s love for PowerPoint presentations. In comedy, that’s known as a callback, and it’s pure gold.
It magically gives a point to any string of semi-coherent drivel you throw together. To your reader, it will seem like your whole post was leading up to that conclusion. Also, it’s a cue to the reader that the post is over. If you don’t provide a satisfactory conclusion, it won’t matter how much the reader enjoyed the first part.
It will be like 45 minutes of hot sex that ends with you watching an episode of the Golden Girls.
4. Smooth out your transitions
So that it’s not quite so obvious that you stuck 2 jokes together and then re-told the first one. Make it feel like a story. Don’t fill it with all kinds of unnecessary (boring) detail; just make sure the jokes don’t feel forced.
In fact, your goal should be to make the jokes not feel like jokes. We’re going for subtlety here, people. If you say something completely insane and then follow it up with the statement “I know, I’m so CRAZY!!!”, you just sucked all the laughs out of your joke.
But if you say 2 completely normal things, one spoon-bitingly insane thing, and then another normal thing, BAM! Instant humor. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel, but not nearly as stupid because – Hello, they’re fish! Just knock the barrel over and you’ll save bullets.
5. Edit for punch.
Ideally a joke comes from out of nowhere and hits the reader in the gut before they have a chance to even see it coming. Fast is funny. The punchline should be as far to the end of a sentence as possible, and use as few words as possible. For example, in my Human Inertia post I wrote:
Human Inertia was my direct supervisor, which meant that I spent a lot of time explaining my job to him and walking around him.
Which is a pretty decent joke. A lousy joke, expressing the exact same sentiment, would be:
Human Inertia was my direct supervisor, which meant that I spent a lot of time walking around him and explaining my job to him.
Can’t you just feel the humor potential leaking out of the sentence as you stumble through that second dependent clause? It’s physically painful. And don’t telegraph your jokes. For example:
Human Inertia, my direct supervisor, was always getting in my way in one sense or another. I spent a lot of time explaining my job to him and walking around him
If a reader sees a joke coming, it’s like waiting for a bus. Dammit, when is that joke getting here? Oh, here it is. Ha ha. Friggin’ hilarious.
I know you’re probably wondering, “Is this really the process Diesel goes through to write one of his posts?” Honestly? No. There’s no process. But this is as close to a process as I can come up with.
It’s really more of a way to avoid some of the common mistakes of humor writing. If I can keep one person from stretching one halfway decent joke into a 500 word post, or telegraphing a joke three sentences in advance, or writing a post that ends with me beating off to Rue McLanahan, then this has been worth my time.
*Hopefully you’ve got a couple of funny ideas floating around your head. Funny stuff that your kid said, lyrics that you misheard, wacky product ideas you’ve come up with, quips, one-liners, whatever. If you can’t come up with 2 funny ideas, you should probably go knit a sweater or something.
Thanks to Diesel for writing this outstanding entry. Don’t forget to buy his book, Antisocial Commentary: From the Secret Files of the Mattress Police.
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23 Responses to “How to Write a Funny Rambling Style Post: Diesel of the Mattress Police”
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So in the case of this article, you started off knowing you wanted to end with a joke about beating off to Rue McLanahan? Oh-kay.
No way, Diesel! Sophia is the hot tamale of the show.
Nicely done, sir. Now, I’m off to test your so-called “Fish Barrel” theory…
Jeff – See, you fell for it. That was the joke I tacked on as a callback to the Golden Girls reference. And now that I’ve explained it, it’s not funny any more. Damn.
Oh, I didn’t think it wasn’t funny… just disturbing.
Jeff – Well I can’t deny that. I actually wrote this not intending to put any jokes in it. You can see how well that worked out for me.
hehe you probably have been waiting to use the Rue McClennan joke.
Nice article. Never thought of the two-joke concept. Good idea.
Hey, I like finishing up my 45 minutes of hot sex with a nice episode of Golden Girls. Hearing Rose talk about St. Olaf is very relaxing post-coitus. And when Sofia’s Sicilian temper flares up, ho boy, that really gets ya ready for Round 2.
Case closed.
I can think of no better way to bask in the afterglow than checking out what that crazy Rue McClanahan is up to.
Fiar – I think we have the next topic for your Sunday retarded argument….
I have to think of two jokes… awrh man!
Thank you for your service to humanity, Diesel.
Humor abuse is swiftly moving up Amnesty International’s right leg, but I think with your post and some ointment, it might clear up.
Sooooooo, Diesel’s Place requires a two-joke minimum? That’s good to know.
“If you can’t come up with 2 funny ideas, you should probably go knit a sweater or something.”
But what if my two funny ideas are 1) to knit a humourous jumper and 2) to adorn said jumper with a big picture of the Golden Girls lapping at each other like thirsty cats?
Ok, so I know this is a great post and all, but maybe you could post something else now?
So THAT is how it is done. I’ve been doing it all wrong.
Tyler, you do blogging in general wrong. It’s good to see you around again though.
[...] Top notch writers, like Diesel from the Mattress Police, and Clay Pigeon Humor Magazine, who wrote a guide on How to Write Funny. [...]
Great advice, Diesel…I like how you broke this all down in to easy-to-digest sections. That’s another huge part of having a successful blog, funny or not – make your content ‘easily consumable’.
ill consume you ryan humper o.0…. just kidding i agree … me likey
nice site…..
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