5 Ways to Improve your Joke Writing

Learning how to write good jokes is a skill that can improve every aspect of your life. Beyond trying to make a living writing jokes, thinking more creatively and finding the humor in everyday situations will make you better at speaking to people, improve your relatability in job interviews, and help you deal with difficult times.
Joke writing starts with ideas and practicing your craft. You can get ideas by observing the world around you, but that can often lead to writing about the same topics over and over again (parents talking about parenting, office workers talking about how much they hate working in offices).
That’s why Comedywire was started. A group of comedians founded the website because there wasn’t a great place online for aspiring writers to practice their craft. Daily practice on Comedywire allows you to think outside of the world you inhabit. Our topics cover politics, entertainment, and also prompts that get you thinking about things differently.
Here are a few ways Comedywire can improve your joke writing and prepare you for a funnier future.
1. Build a portfolio in one place
Writing out jokes in a notebook is a fine morning routine, but can get cumbersome. When you want to find that great joke you wrote, you’ll have to dig through pages and pages of (sometimes terrible) writing.
Comedywire adds every joke you write to your portfolio page. You can easily search for keywords using the “Find” function on your browser, and you can sort the highest voted lines to the top.
2. Keep your writing concise
The biggest struggle when you start writing jokes is editing yourself. A notebook of stream of consciousness thoughts can help you come up with ideas, but punchlines should be sharp and concise. Comedywire topics help you practice coming up with good lines in the shortest amount of space.
3. Test your jokes out with an audience
It’s fun to try out jokes with your friends and family, but this is one time where you don’t need unconditional love. To put it simply, when you’re trying to be humorous, you don’t want someone to humor you.
Comedywire’s voting system allows you to get feedback from the community right away. A joke that gets a few votes could have potential in a set or chatting in a social situation. If your joke doesn’t get votes, maybe you should wait before using it out loud
4. Try different angles
Joke writing doesn’t end with the first punchline. Good writing takes practice, and sometimes the best lines come after your second or third punchline. Comedywire allows you to post up to two jokes on every topic, and you can write an unlimited number of jokes in the Open Joke section.
5. Learn what works (and what doesn’t)
An excellent way to improve your writing is to read and listen to jokes that work. Many of our writers have a weekly routine where they check out the best jokes of the week and see what landed best with the other writers on the site. By creating a meritocracy, Comedywire has helped aspiring comedians move on to paid opportunities.
If you want to get started, sign up for Comedywire. If you’d like to start with a couple of exercises a day, sign up for our daily $25 contests. Who knows? While you’re practicing, maybe you could get paid for a good line, too.
