Writing Co-Lab

The choices a humor writer makes about heightening – the idea that the beats and moments in a humor piece should be growing/changing/intensifying in an observable way – often determine the difference between a good humor piece and a great one. In this one-shot craft class, we’ll examine multiple forms of comedic heightening: exaggeration, contrast, pattern-building and breaking, runners, and sharpening the unusual element of the premise. We’ll read and dissect a variety of humor pieces to get a good look at just some of the ways that funny writers find to balance clarity with surprise. 

We’ll consider how writers build trust with readers by grounding early beats, when to take wild leaps (and when to show restraint), and how to keep escalation from flattening or derailing the piece. We’ll also think about new or unexpected ways we can heighten a joke or premise, and use some brainstorming and practice exercises to explore different entry points to a short humor piece. By the end of class, students will have several heightening strategies they can use immediately in their own drafts and will walk away with recommended readings and sources they can turn to as they continue their own humor writing practice.

About the Instructor

Riane Konc is a satire and humor writer whose writing can be found in the New Yorker, McSweeney’s, the New York Times, The Cut, Mad Magazine, Electric Literature, The Rumpus, Reductress, and more. She’s also taught satire and humor writing for Second City’s online writing program and for the Erma Bombeck Writer’s Workshop, and she’s served as both a judge for the annual Thurber Prize for American Humor and as the ceremony’s co-head writer.