The Fabulist Flash

Issue 69

Fabulist Flash Mousepad

In This Issue:

1. This Week
2. Add Humor to Your Writing
3. Humor Writing Tools
4. Overcoming Public Speaking Myths
5. About The Fabulist Flash

1. This Week

Wow! We've made it through to the New Year. Good for all of us.

There are a few new changes here at The Fabulist Flash. First, The Fabulist Flash has a great new logo. In addition to enjoying it in the weekly newsletters, you can also add it to your daily life by getting a logo mouse pad, coffee mug, T-shirt or sweatshirt. Get Yours Today! Second, I've added a new reference on The Fabulist Flash website called The Fabulist Flash Recommends. Many of you have asked what sites I recommend, and what software I use, especially for autoresponders, online sales, and website building. All of this information has been combined and will be updated as I discover new, helpful tools.

I read an interesting quote last week:

"No one and nothing else owns your time. It's yours. You are now doing with it as you choose to do."

That statement had a profound effect on me. I spent some time looking at how I was expending my time. The past few months, I've been traveling through a learning curve connected with book promotion, professional speaking, and learning to sell myself. These are important tasks for new authors. My publisher is offering lots of support, but the job of selling the book does fall to the author. And, while my efforts in selling the book will be a large part of this coming year, I realized that I haven't been balancing my time to include new projects and ideas. I miss the creative process. So, it's time to move into new directions and begin some new projects.

One of those new directions is learning about the internet sales wave of Information Products. I recently attended two seminars, one by Fred Gleeck and another with Yanek Silver. Information products are something writers are already creating: books, articles, essay collections, how-to pieces, special reports, etc. Where many of us fall short is not looking for different methods to sell our work. We fall into the article query/rejection trap even when we know our idea is a good one. Why not take that idea directly to the public? The great thing about information is that it's always desired and, with the internet, it can be sold and distributed cheaply, but profitably. The key is finding niche markets that are interested in topics you're passionate about and then creating a product, such as an eBook or special report, to sell to that group. As I learn more about this new-to-me world, I'll share my experiences with you.

When was the last time you had a good laugh? When was the last time you helped your readers or audience chuckle and smile? Humor in writing is one of the most difficult tasks to achieve for most writers so we're starting off the New Year with a little humor, well, a few humor tips and techniques. John Kinde, an exceptionally funny speaker, offers 7 Tips to Add Humor to Your Writing and David Leonhardt offers up Top Ten Tools for Writing Humor. Also in the mix this week, Doug Staneart explains that Everything You’ve Ever Learned about Public Speaking Is Wrong.

Until next week,

Gregory
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Gregory A. Kompes (www.kompes.com) is a writer, photographer, professional speaker and author of the bestseller 50 Fabulous Gay-Friendly Places to Live and The Endorsement Quest.

2. Add Humor to Your Writing

7 Tips to Add Humor to Your Writing
by John Kinde

Humor brightens the written word. That's no surprise. The good news is that the ability to create humor is a learned skill. There are ways of thinking and there are certain writing structures that make the funny lines resonate with your readers.

1. A great place to start is by focusing your humor radar and learning to think funny. Expose yourself to humor books, tapes, movies. Visit toy stores. Hang around funny friends.

2. Keep a journal of funny things that happen to you. Your best source of humor is your personal stories. Stories are the best way to touch your readers and the easiest way to create humor.

3. When creating humor for a written piece, keep in mind that coming up with a funny line is a numbers game. If you want two funny lines for a piece, write 20 lines. Or maybe 40. Just when you think you've burned out on funny ideas, you'll write your best line.

4. At the core of nearly every joke (especially true for written jokes which do not have the physical delivery factor that enhances spoken humor) is a relationship between two things or ideas. The relationship usually connects two previously unrelated items. For example, Gary Larson cartoons often connect animals with human characteristics. A car is driving down a country road. In the front seat is a cow and a bull. In the back seat a calf. They pass a group of people standing in a field. The calf sticks its head out the window and shouts "yakity, yakity, yak."

5. To make humorous connections, use the shopping-list technique. If you're writing a piece on how nurses have a challenging job, you might start with the premise that working in a hospital is like working in a combat zone. Then you create two lists. One list for hospital-related things. Another list for military-related things. And then you look for similarities and contrasts between the two lists. You might come up with lines like: "Nurses, like soldiers, see a lot of privates." "Soldiers take orders from people with gold and silver on their shoulders. Nurses take orders from people with gold and silver in their wallets."

6. Keep in mind that the element of surprise, one of the key elements that make humor tick, demands that you keep the punchline and punchword (the word that triggers the joke) at the end of the joke. If you fail to place the punchword at the very end, you run the risk of smothering it and hiding the humor.

7. Practice writing jokes to a theme. For example, what if Hillary Clinton were elected President. Or ten reasons why Las Vegas is like Disneyland. Or by writing captions for cartoons. The practice is like going to the gym. The more you write, your writing skills become stronger. That applies to humor writing too. Jest wishes for fun writing and many laughs.

About the Author
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John Kinde is a humor specialist who speaks and writes on teambuilding, customer service and presentation skills. For two Special Reports: Show Me The Funny and When They Don't Laugh as well as other humor-skills articles and the Humor Power Tips Ezine visit www.HumorPower.com.

3. Humor Writing Tools

Top Ten Tools for Writing Humor
by David Leonhardt

Ever want to write a funny book or a humor column? Or add spice to your newsletter editor or web page so that people read beyond the typical drivel that sends otherwise eager-to-spend customers into a boredom-induced coma?

Here are my top ten favorite humor tools for you, along with real live examples from my own humor column.

Threading a theme through the text

Are you into practical jokes? Try sewing a single thread of bright red wool across Uncle Henry's new green golf shirt. Or sew a thread through your text.

My Parenting Pumpkin Cheesecake Recipe is actually a delicious recipe. But I assumed there is a little helper around, and I threaded her through the text, making for sort of a running gag.

OK, time to up-tempo the laughs. Mid-way through, I run a second thread, renaming the cake with each mistake. The thread within a thread multiplies the humor.

See http://thehappyguy.com/pumpkin-cheesecake-recipe.html

Contrast what should be with the obviously deficient reality

I use this technique in Home Of The Year. Most people will agree that a home is more than just a house.

I contrast the reality of my I-survived-the-hurricane home with the Martha Stewart image of how a home should look -- the old little-miss-perfect Martha Stewart image, not the new-and-not-improved, scandal-defying, corporate shark image.

Notice I also use the threading tool in this piece – the drawings on the wall -- and bring it together at the end to reinforce the main point.

See http://www.thehappyguy.com/home-of-the-year.html.

Build on a ridiculous notion

Consultants call this thinking outside the box and charge you for it. I call it humor and give it to you for free.

I had a bad hairdresser day. I held my hairdresser accountable for my thinning hair, a ludicrous idea that works.

Let's up-tempo the laughs. Mid-way through, I compound the humor with another ludicrous notion: growth formula making my scalp taller rather than my hair thinner.

See http://www.thehappyguy.com/hairdresser.html .

Mock a public figure

This is possibly the easiest humor tool to use. Public figures are just so mockable. They naturally rise to their own level of mockability. I wrote a column mocking Michael Jackson – and the media's over-fascination with his arrest. That was one of my worst columns, so I won't show it to you. Hey, I said it was easy, not funny.

Don't see.

Act like a clown

I start off my Vulture column, based on a true news story, by playing the fool, saying silly things and displaying a general ignorance. This gives my uncle the opportunity to set me straight. In classic Laurel and Hardy style, the straight man makes the comedian funny.

See http://www.thehappyguy.com/humor-vulture-value.html .

By the way, this also allows a humorist to be funny on touchy subjects, without offending.

The heckler

I love to inject a heckler into an already silly situation. I applied a news story about a law suit over cow hormones to my "New York Times best seller". It was actually a bit like mocking a public figure, but what made this column exceptional is how Ruby Red kept interjecting her own slightly out-of-context comments into what was already a silly situation.

See http://www.thehappyguy.com/best-seller.html .

Give human characteristics to non-humans

This is a great tool for laughing at human foibles. It is at the very heart of Gary Larson's Far Side cartoons. I offered leadership lessons from six penguins who were helping the other penguins live up to their full "penguinhood". This is also based on a news story, although some of the penguin dialogue had to be contrived.

See http://www.thehappyguy.com/penguin-leadership.html .

Build laughs upon laugh

My favorite column is where I try so hard to be a giver, but everybody makes me out to be a taker. I start with the simple premise that givers sleep better at night.

The whole column is a play on words, but what makes it one of my best is how I react to people calling me a taker. You can feel the desperation, and almost picture me running away in horror. This is the same tool every stand-up comedian uses; as your laughter subsides, a new punch line builds on the previous one.

See http://www.thehappyguy.com/give-sleep.html .

Give funny names to things

I itemized a whole series of customer service styles. One of them was "do-it-yourself extortion". Need I say more?

See http://www.thehappyguy.com/customer-service.html .

Funny faces and weird sounds

"Oh no, waa-aah ... boom ... ouch! ... bump ... yikes! ... crash." "Bhrhrthrpt." Those are just two of the sound effects I use to describe extreme fatigue. Words or not-quite-in-the-dictionary sounds can paint a pretty funny picture.

See http://www.thehappyguy.com/extreme-fatigue.html .

There are many other well-known humor tools available, such as exaggeration, playing deaf, reversing roles and throwing cream pies. If you figure out how to do that last classic in a humor column, please let me know how.

About the Author
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David Leonhardt writes the Happy Guy humor column:
http://www.thehappyguy.com/positive-thinking-free-ezine.html.
and A Daily Dose of Happiness:
http://www.thehappyguy.com/daily-happiness-free-ezine.html.
He also wrote Climb Your Stairway to Heaven: the 9 habits of maximum happiness:
http://www.thehappyguy.com/happiness-self-help-book.html.
and The Get Happy Workbook:
http://www.thehappyguy.com/happiness-workbook.html
Info@TheHappyGuy.com

4. Overcoming Public Speaking Myths

Everything You’ve Ever Learned about Public Speaking Is Wrong
by Doug Staneart

Many myths about public speaking have been passed along from person to person over the years, and the one thing that is consistent about these myths is that the people who pass them along are still nervous about speaking. After facilitating over 200 public speaking classes and never having a single person fail to significantly reduce his/her fear of speaking, I had a dramatic realization. Just about everything I was taught about public speaking while I was in school and from well meaning peers and coworkers – WAS WRONG!

Below are the top three myths that we have identified, and some simple tips that will help you reduce your fear or nervousness.

Myth #1: If you write out a talk and memorize it, you’ll be more comfortable. This is the fastest, easiest way to make your presentation boring and canned and to make you more nervous. When you memorize a talk word-for-word, any slight hick-up or distraction can throw you off track. That can increase your nervousness. Instead, write out just a few key points and practice giving stories or examples to back up each point.

Myth #2: More facts/details will better clarify your topic. Most of us believe that a little is good, more is better, and a whole bunch is just right in public speaking. If I can give you 10 reasons why my topic is true, then that is obviously better than two or three reasons, right? Well in public speaking, the more points we offer, the more confused our audience can become. A good rule of thumb is five or less. So, after you decide on your topic, narrow down the key points that support your topic to around five key points or fewer. If your talk requires more than five points, then it would be best to divide the presentation into two different talks.

Myth #3: Nervous habits make you a poor speaker. Most people think that “Uhms,” talking fast, and nervous gestures are bad, but in fact, these things can make you very relatable to your audience. “Uhm” is a normal word in the English language. We say this word all the time in normal conversation. When it’s not there, the speaker can sound phony and forced. Plus, I’ve found that if you try to get yourself to stop saying “Uhm,” you’ll probably just start saying it more often anyway. Also, when people speak fast and move more, they show energy and enthusiasm. I’ve had many speakers come through my classes who were scared to get up and speak at the beginning of the program, but when they did speak, the audience thought that they were excellent speakers. The audience saw the nervousness and assumed it was enthusiasm.

Realize that speaking well is like learning to play golf. If you get a group of hackers together to coach each other, you’re just going to get a group of people very proficient at a bad golf swing. However, if you get a good coach, he can shave strokes off in no time. If you really want to get good at public speaking quickly, get a good coach who doesn’t buy-in to all the speaking myths.

About the Author
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Doug Staneart, doug@leaderinstitute.com , is CEO of The Leaders institute® (http://www.leadersinstitute.com). His classes focus on overcoming the fear of public speaking, building confident and autonomous leaders, and improving employee morale. He can be reached toll-free at 1-800-872-7830.

5. About The Fabulist Flash

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