Humor in Writing

by Kathy Foust

I can write for SEO. I can write medical facts and lesson plans for all ages. What I really love to do though is to make people learn and laugh at the same time through my writing.

A short while back, I found myself getting a bit burnt out on writing factual articles and doing research. It happens to the best of us. A lot of other things were bugging me too. In fact, I started to wonder if I had PMS and if it was having an impact on my writing. That led me to an entirely new train of thought. I thought about my writing and I thought about PMS. It was only natural that I should mix the two.

I really had not done much in the way of humorous writing, but humor and sarcasm are what gets me through the tough spots. In fact, it's not unheard of for me to get a phone call in the wee hours of the morning with a request from an upset friend to make them laugh. It occurred to me that using humor in my writing would be an excellent way for me to create my own signature style and have a bit of fun with my work.

I started at the top, by writing about how to recognize PMS. It's a humorous way for people to recognize the signs of PMS. There are actually decent tips in it, but it's quite funny as well. I realized that part of the problem is that women themselves have a hard time dealing with PMS. Naturally, I had to write an article on that as well. The funnest one was the one that tells men how to survive PMS. After all, those poor guys don't have a clue and tend to just try to ride it out, making possibly fatal mistakes as they do so.

The key to writing humorous articles like this is to take a serious topic and turn it into something that can be laughed at or with. After all, I became a writer to share important information with people, but that doesn't mean that I can't entertain them with my writing as well!