Writing Humor Pays You Twice
well, at least once
There was a great old bushman I used to read, he had an observant, pithy, turn of phrase.
He’d write lines like:
If you don’t plant an oak tree today, in 10 years you won't have a wonderful, shady and beautiful tree.
and the classic, which always comes to mind when I chop wood:
Wood warms you twice, when you chop it and when you burn it.
The same could be said of writing humor and satire.
You will be paid once at least, with the enjoyment of mirth as you put word to screen. I often laugh out loud as I write. It’s a naive unplanned action, it rolls and flows where it will.
I catch the sniff of a humorous moment, just listening to others or reading something on any tangent, quite often not funny at all.
Then the mind picks it up and runs with it in amusing, ridiculous and bizarre ways. It’s a form of therapy and release from the serious side of life.
With satire if something has been bugging us, and we want to write about it, it’s important to blunt its edges, otherwise it may get too caustic and offensive, rather than witty and entertaining.
Some people who write only comedy and satirical pieces are very crafted in this art. Apparently there is a writing science to it like any other form of narration.
I will never study that science, otherwise the risk is loss of spontaneity and ending up like my friend Vinny. If it doesn’t flow it doesn’t go.
