It Was Funnier When I Told It at Dinner

A story works beautifully over dinner. Somebody puts down a fork. Somebody asks you to tell the part about the neighbor again. Encouraged by this entirely reasonable evidence of literary greatness, you write it down the next morning. The result reads like an incident report submitted by a man who would prefer not to discuss the incident.

The story may still be good. You have changed the conditions under which it has to work. At the table, people could hear your hesitation, watch your face and see the exact moment you realized you were the problem. They also knew who you were talking about. The page receives none of that automatically.

Writing humor means deciding which parts of the performance the language needs to carry. You can keep the conversational ease without keeping every word you said.

The reader was not at dinner

A spoken story often begins halfway through a shared history. You say, “You know how he is,” and six people supply ten years of context. A reader supplies nothing. Give that reader the one fact that makes the person's behavior understandable, then let the scene demonstrate it.

Consider this invented example: “My neighbor is very particular about his yard.” It provides information, but not much of a person. “My neighbor edges his lawn before the lawn knows it needs edging” gives us a particular kind of vigilance. The next sentence can put that vigilance under pressure. We are ready for somebody's inflatable Christmas decoration to cross the property line.

Specificity does some of the work your friends were doing for you. It also helps distinguish a story from a complaint. “The meeting was ridiculous” asks us to accept your verdict. An eleven-minute discussion about whether a seven-minute meeting needs minutes gives us something to judge for ourselves.

Move the surprise to where the sentence stops

At dinner, you can rescue an awkward sentence with a pause. On the page, the reader follows the order in which you supply information. Put the words carrying the surprise near the end, where they have room to arrive.

Here is another invented line in two forms:

“He brought a leaf blower into the kitchen, which was his solution when I asked him to help clean up after breakfast.”

“I asked him to help clean up after breakfast. He brought a leaf blower.”

The second version establishes an ordinary request before revealing an extraordinary interpretation. The kitchen does not need to appear after the blower to explain why it is funny. Breakfast has already done that work.

This is worth testing on your own draft. Underline the words that change our understanding of a sentence. If there is a long administrative tail after them, try cutting it or moving the necessary information earlier. Sometimes the laugh is waiting for you to stop explaining.

A paragraph break can buy a little silence

Longer sentences can build anticipation, particularly when each additional detail makes a situation more difficult to defend. A short sentence can deliver the consequence. The difference creates rhythm. If every sentence is short, the piece begins to sound as though somebody is throwing crackers at a window.

Paragraph breaks can help, but they lose their force when every line demands its own spotlight. Keep the material together while the thought develops. Separate the sentence that genuinely changes the scene. The reader should feel a change in pace because something happened, rather than because the formatting keeps announcing that something might.

Read the draft aloud once to hear it. Then read it silently. If the joke requires a particular funny voice, an eyebrow movement or a pause you cannot reasonably indicate with syntax, revise the wording. The silent reading is the test your eventual reader will take.

Give the callback a second job

A callback brings back an earlier detail after the situation has changed. It rewards the reader for remembering. Repeating the same joke with the same meaning usually offers less reward.

Suppose our fictional neighbor's edging habit appears early in a story. Later, he helps prepare for a backyard wedding. An ending in which he straightens the aisle with a measuring tape develops the original trait in a new setting. Simply announcing again that he likes straight lines does not take us anywhere.

You do not have to plan every return before drafting. Finish the story, then look for an object, phrase or minor concern that can acquire another meaning near the end. Be selective. A detail introduced solely to service a conspicuous final joke can make the entire story feel arranged by a committee.

Let someone read it without a demonstration

Give a reader the page and resist performing it beside them. Ask where they lost track of the situation, where they expected the joke and where the pace slowed. Those answers are more useful than a courteous “very funny.” You are checking whether the language has supplied enough of what the dinner table supplied naturally.

Also look at your own role in the story. A narrator who notices everyone else's foolishness while remaining miraculously untouched by it can become tiring company. Your mistaken assumption, vanity or unnecessary confidence may be the detail that makes the reader willing to follow you.

For more on getting material onto the page before judging it, start with the first draft's one job. My humor collections Wisecracker and Lick the Spoon are other places to spend time with the relationship between observation and telling.

Keep the dinner story. Give it the setup, sentence order and breathing room it needs to work in a room where you are absent. The reader should not have to invite you over to understand the good part.