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Monthly Archives: April 2016

Joke About No Female Directors at 20th Century Fox

Posted on April 26, 2016 by Joe Toplyn

Setup: 20th Century Fox Announces Slate of Upcoming Films Featuring Zero Female Directors

Punch Line: They should change the name to 19th Century Fox.

Writer: Tom Brady

Joe’s analysis of the joke

Posted in Joke Writing Workshop | Tags: 20th Century Fox, female directors | Leave a comment |

How to Fill the Blank Page

Posted on April 22, 2016 by Joe Toplyn

I’ve heard that some writers get writer’s block when they face a blank page. They don’t know how to start writing. They have no ideas. They get paralyzed.

I’ve never had writer’s block.

A blank Word documentThat’s because I understand that the page is never blank. Okay, I’m exaggerating a little. The page is blank, but only for a few seconds. Here’s what I mean.

To find something to write about, I start by reading. I surf the Internet—news websites, blogs, Facebook—paddling around in an endless sea of stimuli, until an item provokes an emotional response in me.

The response could be any of these:

Emoticons

 

“That’s interesting.”

“That’s dumb.”

“That’s surprising.”

“That’s annoying.”

“That’s weird.”

“That’s hypocritical.”

“That’s disgusting.”

 

 

 

Then I copy the item, open a blank page in Word, and paste the item onto the page. Or I’ll type one or two sentences summarizing the item. Voila—no more blank page.

Because an item grabs your interest, it will probably grab other people’s interest, too. That means it’s probably worth writing about. It’ll probably be easy to write about, too, because you care about it.

Now that the page isn’t blank, all you have to do is develop the item into something more entertaining: ask “what if” about it, put a twist on it, build a story around it. Sure, you’ll have to do some hard work, but at least you got over your writer’s block.

If you have trouble fleshing the item out, go back to reading until a new item jumps out at you. Then copy that item onto your page. So, again, the page is never blank.

Here’s how that process worked recently when I wanted to post a joke on Twitter. I cruised around news websites until this item jumped off the screen:

Gold Toilet to Be Installed in Guggenheim Bathroom

Did the news item provoke an emotional response? Sure it did. A solid gold toilet? Wait, what? That’s weird, surprising, and kinda disgusting.

So I copied the item into a blank Word document, used what I call Punch Line Maker #4 (“Find a play on words in the topic”), and came up with this:

toilet tweet

Take that, blank page."Comedy Writing for Late-Night TV" book

 

To learn more about what makes a good topic for comedy, get my book Comedy Writing for Late-Night TV.

Posted in Writing Tips | Tags: blank page, gold toilet, Guggenheim, writer's block | Leave a comment |

Joke About Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds

Posted on April 18, 2016 by Joe Toplyn

Setup: Scarlett Johansson hints marriage to Ryan Reynolds ended because they were too competitive.

Punch Line: Although Ryan Reynolds claims he hinted that first.

Writer: Candidate XX

Joe’s analysis of the joke

Posted in Joke Writing Workshop | Tags: Ryan Reynolds, Scarlett Johansson | Leave a comment |

Joke About “Real Housewives”

Posted on April 11, 2016 by Joe Toplyn

Setup: Reality TV star compares “Real Housewives” franchise to waterboarding.

Punch Line: Both make you gag.

Writer: Mary Jane Murphy

Joe’s analysis of the joke

Posted in Joke Writing Workshop | Tags: Real Housewives, waterboarding | 2 Comments |

Joke About Ivanka Trump’s New Baby

Posted on April 5, 2016 by Joe Toplyn

Setup: Ivanka Trump gives birth to third child, Theodore James.

Punch Line: When her water broke it was Perrier.

Writer: Tom Padovano

Joe’s analysis of the joke

Posted in Joke Writing Workshop | Tags: Ivanka Trump, Perrier, third child | Leave a comment |

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