: Re: Tips for humor writing Are there any techniques you can use while brainstorming to find humor to include in an article?

@Carla500

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1) Pick any one item and take it to an extreme.

"Organizing is good."

Okay, can I alphabetize my spices?
(bad example. I actually do that.)
Uh, can I sort my vegetable drawer by
size and then by color?
How about putting the living room furniture in rainbow order?
Where do I file the cat, under P for
Pet, F for Felix domesticus, or O for
Ollie (his name)?

2) Slip in some judicious puns. For example, if you're comparing shredders, you might write that you don't want to get snippy, but Brand X is really a cut above, and anyone who doesn't think so simply isn't all that sharp. (Caveat scriptor: your mileage may vary.)

3) Take a metaphor and run it off a cliff of absurdity.

"Okay, so imagine that your desk is an elephant, and you're going to eat it one bite at a time. So first you start with a foot, represented by a desk drawer. The file folders are the toes, and the tabs are the toenails. Any punched-out holes, lost post-its, orphaned notes, or faded fax cover sheets would be elephant toejam. That's probably kind of nasty-smelling, but don't worry; just crumple the whole thing up and make a toejam football out of it, and throw it into the nearest wastebasket."

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