Making people laugh is not as easy as you think. The challenge with telling jokes is timing. When you say the punchline and how you say it matters as much as what you say. The same principle applies to humor writing.
One thing that freelance humor content writers must learn quickly is the art of finding what amuses their target audience. It is a simple enough idea to inform your readers on a particular subject. Breathing extra life into the content with a dose of humor is slightly more complicated.
Adding humor to your content helps you connect with your target audience on a more personal level. Humor makes your readers feel at ease and lightens the mood. It enhances the readability of your content because they will gain greater enjoyment from reading it.
Writing good humor does not require enrolling in specialized classes to obtain an advanced degree in jokeology. The best strategy is to develop good observational skills. Pay attention to what strikes a chord in your content with your target audience. What relates to the circumstances in their lives? What among the information you present provokes an emotional response? Humor is most effective when it draws laughs from situations a person can relate to in their own life.
One important thing freelance humor content writers should remember is to let humor develop naturally. Humor works best when you resist forcing the joke. This is where timing comes into play. If you try too hard to make your reader laugh, they will notice. Reality television shows have not completely destroyed this element from their minds. You will not get a good reaction from forced humor. Bad humor could cause your target audience to reject the rest of your content in the same spirit a heckler interrupts the act of a terrible standup comedian.
Humor can be a powerful tool for conveying the information you want to share in content writing. It breathes new life in a sentence and paragraph. It helps readers relate to the content writer as a real flesh-and-blood person. Most importantly, it makes the content and the ideas expressed in the content feel fresh and vibrant.
Capturing humor in your writing takes skill and practice. You can turn to websites like Writer’s Digest to get advice on how to mix humor into your writing. Once you sharpen your funny bone, you can use websites such as humorwriters.org to find markets looking for humorous content.
John C is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.