Fiction - Humorous
Other Resources:
Other Resources:
- Humor Fiction Brainstorming Help - Ideas for Stories:
- Humor From Art - A picture might be worth 1,000 words, but is it worth 1,000 laughs? React to these photographs with your funniest writing.
- Humor from Satire - Use your sharp wit to attack with humor and conviction.
- Humor from Life - Answer the following prompts and make fun of yourself.
- Ten-Step Humor - Complete this exercise and write hilarious ten-step pieces.
- Drafting a Humor Piece:
- Drafting Against Expectations - Humorous writing usually plays against expectations. Follow this exercise to set-up and surprise your reader.
- What if? - Great comedy requires great imagination. Follow this exercise and ask the right questions.
- Drafting a Parody - Parody is playful imitation. Follow this prompt and poke fun at a famous piece of writing.
- Tricked with David Sedaris - Learn to exploit your most embarrassing moments from a master humorist.
- Character Development Resources - Create Strong Characters:
- Master Class: Creating Characters with Flannery O'Connor
- Character Development Questions
- Creating Conflict - Your characters vs. ???
- Conflict Questionnaire - A writing exercise to help you create conflict with your characters
- Drafting Dialogue - How to get your characters to speak
- Getting Your Humor Story Reviewed
- Seeing Humor Through New Eyes - Have someone you trust read your piece and provide you with written and verbal answers to the following questions.
- Handling Feedback - Here are some important tips on how to give and receive feedback from others.
- Humor Vocabulary Review - Talk like a pro. Here’s a list of vocabulary words that every aspiring humorist should know.
- Sandwich Critique - Assemble a peer review response that’s honest and easy-to-swallow.
- Revising Your Humor Story
- Ten Ways to Revise Humor - There are many ways to revise humor. Here’s a list of ten!
- Asking the Hardest Questions - Making people laugh requires you to ask the hardest questions of your humor. Here are some of the hardest ones a comedic writer can ask.
- Back to the Drawing Board - Stuck for where to go? Find the one good idea you’ve had and go back to where you started.
- International Reality Consultants, LTD. - Ideas for revision come from all kinds of places. Sometimes reading other writers’ work puts your writing in perspective. Read Amy Vaughan’s award-winning story and mine it for good ideas. Now apply what you’ve learned to your own piece.
- Editing Your Story
- Grammar Survival Guide - Great resource for editing your piece
- Punctuation Guide - Semicolons and hyphens
- Sentence Structure Guide - Make sense of your sentences
- Publication - How and Where to Publish Your Work
- Submitting Your Work for Print Publication - A guide
- Watch out for Plagiarism! - A guide to help you make sure you aren't plagiarizing when you publish.
Places to Publish:
Places to Publish:
- Scholastic Write It! Literary Magazine - Write It! accepts humor submissions between 600-3,000 words. Remember that all submissions must be school-appropriate. As always, read the full submission guidelines before submitting your piece!