Have you ever been in a situation like this? You are sitting in a living room with parents or walking around with friends, and someone looks at you and says — Hey! Tell us a joke! Even if you are the funniest person in the family or on campus, at that moment, you will just blankly stare at a person, forgetting all the jokes, funny and not funny altogether. Even knock-knock jokes disappear.
The same happens when you are asked to write a funny essay for one of your college classes. First of all, the essays are not funny. Writing essays is not a fun activity. What can be less funny than a graded, limited in time activity that defines your academic advancement in this semester? If you think just like we do, these tips on writing a funny essay in college will come in handy.
Focus on telling a story
Don’t compare telling a joke with writing a funny essay. A funny essay is almost impossible without storytelling. You can look for the major storytelling principles online before you start writing. There are several visions of how the story is structured according to the numbers of acts. For essay, 3-5 act structures are more than enough. Most of the brief funny stories are told in 4 acts.
Choose between physical comedy and play of words
Of course, you cannot rely on physical comedy to its fullest, because physical comedy should be first of all seen or even experienced. However, your story can be related to some action or event that would be described as physical comedy.
The best choice is to ridicule yourself
Self-irony, ridiculing yourself is the best choice in most of the cases. An ability to laugh at yourself is an admirable quality. Don’t see it as a form of self-humiliation. Choose some trait of yours, and tell a story about how you got in some funny trouble because of that. For example, you have problems with punctuality, and you were trying to catch a bus, and here is what happened.
Read several funny stories written by masters to grasp the twist
If you have time, read some funny short stories written by masters. You can start with O’Henry or Oscar Wilde. Such stories put you in the needed mood. However, if you get carried away by those books and the deadline for your own funny story gets scarily close, it is a wise choice to address legit essay writing services e.g. SmartWritingService for professional help available 24/7 online. Keep enjoying books while someone is working on your story.
Add humor like precious spices
Some things are funny, and some things try very hard to look funny. If you try to add a joke in every abstract, it will spoil the whole picture. The balance is crucial. The entire story maybe even close to tragic, but some funny moments make readers smile. Treat humor as a delicious and very expensive spice that you should add carefully.
Don’t overdo with dark humor
You are not writing a blog for your fellows. A professor will read it. Of course, professors should remain idle and assess the overall quality of your writing, but most of them don’t enjoy dark humor. Education is often about respecting boundaries, so don’t overdo with risky humor in your essay.
Write like a clown, proofread like an editor
Don’t write like a clown, we are joking! However, no matter how funny your essay is, you have to proofread it carefully before submitting it. Use professional grammar checkers, and if possible, give a final draft a day to sit aside, and read it again the next day.
Writing funny is much more difficult than writing academically. However, we believe you can combine these approaches successfully.
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