The Punchword
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 5:00AM When it comes to humor writing, writing anything that approaches instruction is a dicey proposition. When a joke is analyzed, it tends to die. At the risk of killing some funny, however, I have a few thoughts on the subject that I'd like to share.
Humor -- whether it appears in a longform comic or in a four-panel strip -- often follows the principals of tension and release. In the set-up, tension is built -- a conflict is introduced, for example, and is allowed to strengthed. Think of it as a balloon being inflated. By the time we reach the punchline, there should be a satisfying release of that tension -- the popping of the balloon, if you will.
You may choose to build up tension quickly or slowly -- and, yes, tension can be built slowly in only a few panels. But much of the humor in the comic is dependent upon your ability to build a significant amount of tension on the way to the punchline.
Of course, there are as many ways to build tension as there are to write punchlines, but here's a concept that I think has helped to maximize my tension-building...