Category: Writing Tips
-
How Can I Write a Joke with AI?
By themselves, AI language models can’t write good, original jokes. But an AI system can if it’s explicitly told how to structure a joke. Enter Witscript, an AI-powered web app that combines a large language model with professional joke-writing techniques.
-
If You Wish to Be a Writer, Write. Right? Wrong!
Aspiring writers often hear the poor advice of the Greek philosopher Epictetus, who is quoted as saying, “If you wish to be a writer, write.“ For example, this blogger states, “If you want to be a writer, then all you have to do is write. That’s all there is to it, just start writing.” I think…
-
Should You Include the End in a Movie Synopsis?
An early step in selling a movie script you’ve written is often to send a brief synopsis of the script to a reader. If the reader likes your synopsis, he or she may ask you to send the entire script. It’s a big mistake to give away the ending of your movie in your synopsis.…
-
How to Write a Roast
A roast is a series of insulting jokes about a particular person, the roastee. You write each roast joke using the same techniques that you’d use to write a joke about a topic in the news. The only difference is that for a roast joke, the topic is “I’m paying tribute to [Name of…
-
Can a Computer Write a Joke?
Before long, a computer will write jokes as funny as those created by professional comedy writers. I’m no expert in computational humor, but I am the author of Comedy Writing for Late-Night TV. It’s possibly the most practical guide to writing jokes and other short-form comedy ever written. I’ve also been reading up on the…
-
How to Fill the Blank Page
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. That’s because I understand that the page is never blank. Okay, I’m exaggerating a little. The page is blank, but only for a…
-
How to Write a Funny Caption
Say you want to write a funny caption for this cartoon, which was the subject of Caption Contest #447 in The New Yorker. You write funny captions for uncaptioned cartoons the same way you’d write jokes about a Found Photo, which is an unaltered photo that wasn’t originally intended to be funny. Examples of Found…
-
How to Write a Desk Piece
That’s an example of a joke in a Desk Piece, a type of short-form comedy that’s popular on many comedy/talk shows. A Desk Piece is a segment of fully-scripted comedy that the host performs by himself while sitting at his desk. Here’s how I wrote that joke. The process was very similar to that of…
-
How to Pick a Good News Item for Writing Jokes
Some news items are easier to write multiple jokes about than others. Monologue writers like those news items because cranking out several jokes about the same news item takes less time than hunting down other promising news items and then writing jokes about those. So what makes a news item a good candidate for multiple…