How To Be Funny

By David Nerehtur

Want to learn how to make jokes? This book will teach you easy principles which if applied and practised will make you funnier. Whether it's with one friend, a group of friends, or that special person, this book can improve your conversations with them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Nerehtur
• Release date: Jan 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393640684

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Having a sense of humor to make jokes is a skill anyone can develop. There are four aspects required to develop this skill: understanding the right tips (or some would call them techniques), developing confidence, observing others who are funny (the best way to do this is by watching videos of comedians or funny shows, and if you have a friend who is funny spend more time with him or her) and practice. Anybody can become funny if they do all four.

In the first half of this book, I will teach some tips used by professional comedians. I call them tips, but they are more like principles or techniques, used by the best entertainers in the world. In the second half, I will give you some exercises to develop your confidence. The other two steps, of watching the right shows in your spare time, and practicing, is up to you.

Let’s get right into it by looking at some time-tested tips used by the best comedians.

SECTION ONE: COMEDY TIPS

Comedy Tip 1  – The element of unexpected and surprise

There are several methods to create humor. But one of the most effective is to use the element of surprise, or saying something unexpected.

This creates humor.

There are several ways to set up the use of surprise.

You can say something that causes the person to think you’re going to say a certain thing, but then say the opposite of it.

Example:

I have a lot of discipline, I train five times a week. Five times a week I sit down in front of my computer and practice my Solitaire skills.

In the above joke, the first sentence creates the expectation that the person speaking believes a lot in hard work. There is the expectation that he’s going to say something that shows how much hard work he does. But instead, he then reveals that his discipline is applied in playing computer games. This is the opposite of the expectation that was created.

Or you can set it up by using the rule of three which you will learn later in this book.

You can also apply the element of the unexpected by using it in response to what someone says, by saying something unexpected in your reply.

Example:

Nicole: "I am planning to have