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This article is a summary of Laugh Tactics by Patrick King. Universally, everyone wants to make other people laugh when they speak, since it generates a more positive impression of ourselves. Additionally, you make yourself appear easy to approach, whilst not having the personality of a brick wall.

But this is easier said than done.

Generally, finding the opportunities to make jokes within conversations proves challenging enough. Not to mention the added woe of the audience’s reception towards our joke.

Nevertheless, this article was written to help us all in our quests to discover our inner comedian.

 

The Unbreakable Rules of Comedic Delivery

 

On the whole, there is one golden rule in comedy, that is:

Focus on your delivery.

Equally, the contents of your joke can only go so far without considering the delivery.

After you watch professional comics, you realize that they alter the pitch of their voice. Accordingly, they exaggerate specific sentences with respect to the message of the story.  Adding emotion into their delivery supplements the reaction they want from their audience.

Therefore, you should be aware of the emotion you want to instigate.

When you initiate a joke there a matching faces and tones you can assume for maximum effect.

Essentially, you are stating the opposite of what you actually mean. Sometimes there is a contrast between your facial expressions / gestures and what you mean. Similarly, sarcasm involves stating what is simply visible.

Never over-explain the details within the joke. The more tangents you introduce, the more people’s attention goes elsewhere. Hence, you should not convolute the simplicity of your delivery.

In a similar vein, don’t be the first to laugh at your own joke since it demonstrates your insecurities.

A great tip to test the waters of your joke is to:

 

summarize your joke into one sentence.

 

Therefore, we can maintain the key message without bumbling.

 

Create a Mindset for Humour

 

It is imperative that you reorient your mindset into turning ordinary scenarios into a comedy. To clarify, everyone expects daily conversations to flow in a certain direction, however comedians reverse these expectations.

For example, when it is heavily snowing you can remark:

These are the perfect conditions to wear my Hawaiian shirt and flippers.  

Generally, humans make personal jokes with their friends and talk to their colleagues about current affairs. Hence, you are breaking a mental barrier by choosing to make jokes, highlighting a degree of closeness.

Likewise, another reaction to mundane statement is to intentionally misconstrue what the other person is saying. This is illustrated by misinterpreting what the recipient means.

For example, they are speaking of dread if they talk about how tired they are after a gym session. In this case, stating that the other person is showing off goes against what they originally anticipated.

Additionally, don’t be afraid to venture into the inappropriate with the right audience. To disrupt the boring take or topic, you must make a slightly inappropriate remark with honest conviction.

Rather than being rude be shocking.

Consequently, you are now like the cool teacher that swears, as opposed to the strict disciplinarian.

 

Summary of Laugh Tactics – The Don’ts of Humour

 

Here is a list of things to avoid since you know now the basics of conversational humour:

• Do not make common generic jokes. Conversely, you portray your unoriginality and predictability. Thus, people only have negative feelings towards you.
• Pick the wrong audience. First and foremost, know your audience, as this implies the level of professionalism required.
• Rush the punchline. Undeniably, the build up and necessary context are pre-requisites for other people to understand your joke.
• Ignore delivery. As previously stated, inspect how you deliver your joke to avoid reading a monotone transcript.
• Leave out important information. By the same token, make sure all the vital information is communicated during the build-up.
• Avoid assessing people’s reactions. Notably, indicators of engagement include teeth visible or wrinkles near their eyes.

 

How to Appear More Relatable 

 

All in all, relatability is one of the decisive factors in deciding whether we enjoy someone’s presence. Nothing beats the magic of realizing you are both test experiments from Siberia due to the overlap in your experiences.

However, we can trick people into making ourselves look like minded by describing events that are unanimously hated / embarrassing.

To demonstrate, everyone acknowledges the lingering awkwardness when you say farewell to someone. Only to proceed to walk in the same direction instantly afterwards.

There exists fundamentally funny experiences that everyone has witnessed. Begin this process by registering every tiny grievance you have on a daily basis. Then the amount of suffering caused that small thing should be colourfully amplified. Finally, join the grievance to the exaggeration.

 

Emphasizing a Contrast 

 

On balance, a contrast requires joining two things that have no business being together.

To enumerate, one of the last things you expect the farmers of rural Nepal to carry is a loaded gun. This example displays a contrast between our pre-conceptions about a person / place and the reality.

Straightaway, identify the personality of the subject based on the usual stereotypes of the person or place. Following this, what is the last thing you think of in relation to this category.

BINGO!

Therein lies your contrast. Typically, the best contrasts cater towards the imagination of the audience.

Since, I like you all so much here is another example:

A bulky biker who waters flowers.

 

False Importance

 

In brief, false importance entails you responding to little and frivolous issues with expanded significance and emotion to them.

The pettier the better.

Correspondingly act with fury or triumph at these minuscule issues. Alternatively, bestowing misleading significance is to misinterpret something minuscule to be a colossal, misrepresented deal.

With this intention take an irrelevant act and expect to be that it will prompt wealth or ruin.

 

Similarly, you can misunderstand insults and compliments and take it the other way. If someone likes your jumper you can reply with “I see, all my other jumpers are not to your taste”.

Equally, we can reply with “Don’t worry, we’ll go shopping for a shirt that you actually like.” Hence, we misread the original statement as sarcasm utilizing our facial gestures.

 

Mastering Irony

 

In a nutshell, irony envelopes events that bring about the opposite desired effect.

Accordingly, in humour there is a disconnect between the words out of your mouth and your emotions. Once again, we are employing contrasts to spark vivid imagery.

The following contains some examples of the mismatch between intent and tone:

1. “I’M A PEOPLE PERSON! PEOPLE LIKE ME!” You would howl in an enraged and threatening tone.
2. “Currently, I just love life” stated in a grouchy and frustrated tone.
3. “I’m going to kill you. You are so annoying” works with an angelic voice of high pitch.

Also, your facial expressions and body language should be different to the words you espouse.

In addition, incorporate double meanings for when you say something negative about a positive statement or vice versa.

• That person is as quiet as a howler monkey.
• Becoming redundant from work? Best news I have heard all week.
• My receding hairline is of no issue. It is only my entire livelihood at stake.

 

Skip the Middle Step

 

Above all else, structure governs how we deliver a joke.

Normally, a joke is formed within these parameters:

1 – Describe a situation/scenario for the background of your joke. For example, I enjoy working out at the gym.

2  – Comment on the outcome of that scenario. My legs feel like jelly.

3 – Finally, allude to the cause of this conclusion. I outran the person next to me on the treadmill.

As noted previously, we are going to skip step 2 and join steps 1 and 2. In summary, the reason we do this is to try to insert our joke into the conversation.

Given that declaring our joke interrupts the flow of the conversation, it needs to be short and offhand.

Henceforth, we end up making a statement such as :

“Normally, I enjoy working out at the gym, especially when I feel urged to outrun the person next to me. If only he was not a marathon sprinter.”

Ergo, we can visualize how step 2 – the consequence – becomes assumed.

However, please remember that skipping the middle step comes with practice because we are re-arranging the original joke structure.

 

Summary of Laugh Tactics – The Six Questions Approach

 

Usually, the best jokes have enough detail so that the audience is aware of what is going on.

Subsequently, when we think of jokes, we need to think of the event in relation to the 5 Ws. Just a quick recap for all of you: why, what, when where, who. In addition, don’t forget ‘how’.

To start, think of a scenario in your head. Let’s use the example of a friend being late for dinner.

Next, we think of both the expected and unforeseen scenario make use of the 5 Ws. In this instance, we are alone but we could witness unusual surroundings.

Ultimately, we combine the best parts of both. Consequently, we end up with:

“don’t worry about being late for my birthday. I was accompanied by this trusted rat who also had other priorities.”

For the most part, the events should be trustworthy, yet simultaneously stunning and sufficiently uncommon.  

 

The Comic Triple

 

We have saved the best comedy technique for the last. Most of all this technique is easy to slip in during social conversations.

So, what is it?

Generally, the Comic Triple integrates a hilariously negative point within a list of three.

Surprisingly, our brains are more receptive to listening to others when they use three descriptors pertaining to the main topic. During the construction of a joke envision a scenario, using 2 positives to describe it. Add the negative point to the end of the list.

Thereupon, we end up with an example such as:

She’s the perfect girl. Her looks, speech mechanics and the fact that she treats me like I don’t exist.

In spite of the start, were you not surprised with the ending? You can keep the audience on their toes by reversing the anticipated emotions.

 

 

The ‘Help the Introvert’ Scale

Laugh Tactics:  Master Conversational Humour and Be Funny on Command

Rating:  4 Stars 

If you enjoyed this summary of Laugh Tactics and want to read the whole book, then purchase it here.

Meanwhile, if you want to know how to tell a story with your jokes, then read this article.