A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #336
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For April 10-16, 2024
Hello and welcome to A Newsletter of Humorous Writing, a roundup of the week's finest short humor pieces and funny articles, and a celebration of the fantastic writers who wrote them. 4/20 is this weekend, which we understand is like Easter for people who are very good at hacky sack. We’re not big weed guys over here at the Humorous Readings Headquarters (HRHQ) since getting high poses too much of a danger to our antique snacks collection, but we do watch The Hobbit/Dopesmoker mash-up all the time, which is very fun to watch sober, too!
What We Enjoyed This Week
How to Do the Monkey Bars as an Adult by Bobbie Armstrong (Weekly Humorist) Buried premise pieces like this, where the real thrust of the joke isn't immediately obvious from the title and the initial set-up, can be tricky. You've got to establish the false set-up, then quickly introduce the real joke. Bobbie introduces “revenge against Amelia” in the second sentence, which tees up the pattern that will carry through the whole piece. This is also a great example of when to break a piece's established pattern: The end of this piece satisfies a big question in a surprising way.
Why Everyone Else’s Cough Is Gross but Mine Is Actually No Big Deal Don’t Worry by Freddie Shanel (Reductress) This is a great premise that gives voice to something I've imagined a lot of people on the subway are using as a justification for coughing real nastily. Freddie's a great writer, and this piece is so well-controlled: The narrator is just self-aware enough to not come across as impossibly dumb, but not so self-aware that the whole piece derails.
Things I Say To My Kidnapper To Humanize Myself by Carly Gibson (Slackjaw) This is a great joke bucket idea, with space for odd, one-off lines, as well as lines that hew closer to the premise and involve subtly negotiating with the kidnappers. Great runners tie the whole thing together.
YOUR AD HERE!
Do you have an ad you'd like to place in the Newsletter? Fill out this form!
And feel free to send us an email if you have questions.
An Old Favorite
This week's Old Favorite is a Brian Agler Selection (TM)--a piece whose accompanying note was written by Brian--from Newsletter #81.
My Girlfriend Tries to Break Up With Me, A One-Off Character Who Needs to Quickly Deliver a Lot of Exposition by Spencer Roth-Rose (Points in Case) This is a fantastic idea executed perfectly. Dialogue pieces can sometimes run into the problem of just being a sketch that really should be on stage, rather than a piece that happens to involve conversation. Not here. Roth-Rose does a great job of using dialogue to add pacing to the piece, and building in pauses to make the jokes hit harder.
Do you have an Old Favorite of your own? Let us know by filling out this form and we may run your pick in a future edition of the newsletter.
Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show
James published a piece in The New Yorker this week about '90s action movies and their depictions of the web, called "How I Use the Internet, According to Nineties Action Movies." Check it out if you're a fan of The Net, Hackers, Johnny Mneumonic, or any movie where the internet is exclusively depicted in bright green hues.
Luke’s got just ONE spot left in his intro to short humor workshop starting on April 30th! Learn the essentials of short humor writing, meet other funny folks, and write a draft of your very own piece in four weeks. (He’s also got spots left in his advanced short humor workshop starting on May 2nd!)
See you next week!
@lukevburns & @jamesfolta
We started this newsletter with our dear friend Brian Agler, and we want it to always honor his memory and his love of all things humorous. You can find our newsletter tribute to Brian here.
This newsletter is free, but if you enjoy it and want to support the work we do putting it together, you can subscribe to our paid tier, or you can send us a tip here. Any amount is greatly appreciated, and 1/3rd of each donation will go to Stand Up To Cancer.
If you'd like to place an ad in the Newsletter, please fill out this form.
If you have any thoughts, notes, wishes, or dreams for this newsletter, please email us or respond to this email and tell us what the score is!