Funny stories
often contain an element of surprise.
Funny stories play an important role in social interaction. A humorous story can break the tension in an awkward conversation. Public speakers frequently begin their speeches with a funny story to put their audience at ease. Laughter may also relieve stress and distract people from pain. Creating a funny story, however, takes a little planning. Even comedians and humor writers work at their craft, employing various techniques to come up with entertaining stories.
Everyday Life
Humorist Garrison Keillor suggests storytellers walk around with a notepad and write down what they see and overheard conversations. From this list, select a few items and make up a story about how they might be connected. Humor comes from the unusual ways ordinary things can be connected. The children's nursery rhyme in which a cow jumps over the moon is an example of an unusual connection of ordinary things that results in a funny story.
Imagination
Ask "what if?" This can lead to unexpected and humorous results. For example, what if a child dropped a toy in the garden? That might not seem funny, but the humorist keeps asking: "what if?" until the story becomes entertaining. What if the toys in the garden grew into unusual plants, such as baseball bushes or hockey puck flowers? Funny stories emerge as the writer gradually exaggerates things, moving from believable to unbelievable.
Misfortune
This is a delicate form of humor and works best when someone tells a personal story. In these stories, a small problem is funny when compared to a bigger problem. Comedian Chonda Pierce's mother wore a wig to cover baldness due to cancer treatments. When the wind came along and blew off the wig, Chonda went running after it. People laugh when Chonda recounts running after that wig because, in light of cancer, the small problem of the runaway wig becomes a distraction and funny.
Prompts
Scholastic uses Garfield comic strips in their teacher lesson plans to prompt young students to write funny stories. Students are shown a comic strip featuring Garfield, the cat, and Odie, the dog. The students write whether they think the dog or cat makes a better pet. Next, students write an imaginary conversation between the dog and cat. The students then take the viewpoint of an animal and make an argument as to why that animal should be named "the country's favorite pet." Using prompts helps humor flow.
