The Serious Guide to Joke Writing: How To Say Something Funny About Anything

Well written little reference and guidebook. I refer to this often to help me brainstorm ideas and remember processes for how to write funny material. Very glad this little manual is on my shelf and it’s very useful. One of the better reference books on this subject and really quite excellent for stimulating a variety of different types of creativity not only just humor.

It has a lot of useful techniques to use when looking for jokes

This book is a fantastic launch pad for point blank beginners learning how to write jokes. I went out and did two minutes worth of jokes at an open mic using techniques in this book to crank them out, and now that I get how joke writing works, I plan to get up there and do many more. That said, there are a few caveats IMHO to the book. - The book was written A) nine years ago by a B) straight C) white person D) in another country. This results in: - The slang and celebrities references that many of the jokes in the book depend upon have to be googled in order for the humor in the examples to be understood to understand the exercises. - The author is extremely easily titilated by queer people. There are at least four jokes in the book that revolve around, "I just mentioned queer people- I'm so outrageous!!" for their humor. - On a limited level, this applies to ethnic groups. I think that there were about two examples of stereotype based ethnic jokes (one, I think, regarding Arabs) that were not derogatory per se in terms of the nature of the joke, but relied heavily on a white person's incorrect stereotypes for humor (and lacked the consideration that people belonging to these groups are a part of her audience). - Bizarrely, she has several misogynistic jokes (usually written by her students, and inexplicably included by her). On the plus side, I can't say enough great things about the comedy writing techniques in the book. It's a fast and easy read, but for me, it was written by someone too removed in time and space (nine years and an ocean) for me to find most of the jokes funny. Your mileage may vary.

I'll start with the positive. The author lays out some very helpful joke writing methods, most notably the "joke web". These won't write the jokes for you, but they will give you lots of very relevant information to create jokes. The book was easy to follow, and a overall a good quick read. Negative. I think perhaps because the author is British and I'm American, there may be a bit of a cultural gap in regards to what is funny. For example, the first chapter is about how to construct puns. I will admit that occasionally a pun is funny, but for the most part they should be avoided. She keeps coming back to puns throughout the book, which for me was a bit like literary nails on a chalkboard. I basically took her methods and removed the bits regarding puns, and that worked better for me. Also, I thought this book was a tad overpriced. I bought it new for $18, I think given the length of the book something closer to $12 would have been more fair.

I've written some bangers in last couple years using these techniques and exercises.

I am a professional humorist and storyteller. For years I have struggled with the need to continuously develop and deliver new material. I have read dozens of books on the subjects of humor and joke writing, but The Serious Guide to Joke Writing by Sally Holloway is by far the best. Ms Holloway writes in a conversational and engaging style. Her prose is concise and boy, does she ever deliver! The chapters on Joke-Webs, the Hadron Joke Collider and the Surrealist Inquisition are gold mines. A longtime user of mind mapping, I was immediately able to put the joke web and Hadron Joke Collider ideas to use with excellent results. Not to worry though, if you are not familiar with mind mapping Ms Holloway's clear instructions and trouble-shooting guides will have you using both techniques in no time if you are willing to put in the work. The Surrealist Inquisition is proving to be a challenging technique, but one that I will spend more time with since I can easily see its ability to help come up with wildly funny ideas. The book flows, pulling you along and guiding you through each exercise. If you are interested in writing jokes, humorous essays, monologues, or simply adding some punch to your presentations, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

We all know that good comedy is work. What we don't know is where to start. Sally takes you step by step through 6 different techniques that let's you find humor anywhere. There's also a strong link between comedy and creativity so great book for anyone also looking to associate new ideas from a variety of different sources.

I found this book a useful resource in generating jokes ideas. Not sure about the hard copy, but a Table of Contents would have been useful in the Kindle Edition