<aside> 💡 Note from Vikra: Nirmit is one of my earliest friends on Twitter. I’ve known him for two years, and whenever I think of him, the words jokes and humour pop into my mind. Humour is one of the toughest nuts to crack in writing because if you don’t land your joke, things get awkward. But this guy made people laugh on soooo many occasions with his one-liners, and he is here to share how he does it.

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| What do you call a writer working in the marketing department of a law firm? Copy-righter.

What took a writer so long to come out of the bathroom? They went busy reading the copy from all the FMCG product descriptions.

*Spiritual Guru: “Silence is in peace; not words – go beyond words.” Copywriter left the chat.

Hello writers, freelancers, creators, and everyone interested in content marketing!!

When Vikra reached out to me to write a few words on humor, I went blank with ‘how’d I explain?’

Hence, I wrote the above few jokes to start with.

When it comes to humor in writing, I’d like to replace the word ‘humor’ with ‘witty.’

Why?

Because there’s ‘more’ in hu’more’.

Haha I know, I’m kidding!!!

No, I mean seriously, humor is subjective and I can’t measure whether you liked all the jokes I tried above. But wittiness? Yes, I can bet on it.

So let’s focus on wittiness more than humor in writing. There is no facial expression, voice volume clearance, or body language.

Only words. Only visualizations. Then how do we make readers smile, if not laugh?

Let me share three important practices that I’ve been doing for the last one year:

1) Connect random to random

Go back to three different sentences I wrote at the start of this excerpt. In the first, there’s a copywriter and law firm connection. There’s a copywriter and bathroom connection in the second. And in the last, it’s with the spiritual Guru.

Noticed something? You almost got it right. Think of what comes first in your mind and connect it with what you essentially want to make a part witty about. Choose the funniest part (you think is the funniest) and go ahead.

Human brains are wired to laugh at what is breaking the societal settings. Do it by connecting from random to random.

Example: Imagine a copywriter is a lawyer handling an advertising agency case about copyright issues. How’d you think of it?

2) Decode what makes you laugh

Saw how we decoded the first three sentences?

Go back to memes you shared with your friends, the comedy show you attended a part that made your day, and a movie scene you rewatch again and again.

But how to decode Nirmit, you may ask?

Read like a writer. Like how we as writers break down how famous writers Ruskin Bond or Murakami describe a particular scene. Or how people write hooks on social media. The fundamentals are the same in humor writing.

3) Practice