Belief 07

Humor

Comedy is structure wearing a funny hat — and the jokes worth keeping are the ones that pay off something.

Novelist · members' unit

Humor is behind a locked door

The Novelist page and Study are open to everyone. The other 9 units are enrollment-only.

What's in this unit · 14 min read

  1. Keystones and confetti
  2. Trivial tragedy
  3. Curve the language
  4. Seven premises that keep working
  5. Inappropriate enthusiasm
  6. A moment of beautiful clarity
  7. Balance, and the roller coaster

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Sources

  • James Scott Bell — The Art of War for Writers
  • R.L. Stine — MasterClass — mixing horror and humor
  • Roy Peter Clark — Writing Tools
  • Henri Bergson — Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic
  • Del Close & Charna Halpern — Truth in Comedy
  • Matt Bird — The Secrets of Story
  • Arthur Koestler — The Act of Creation
  • Herbert Spencer — The Physiology of Laughter (1860), as quoted in The Act of Creation
  • Conan O'Brien & Matt Groening — Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend