Are you funny?

You probably don’t think you are. Someone asks you to tell them a joke and you get all tongue-tied, or you mess up the punchline. Get up on a stage and try to make people laugh?

Ha! Forget it.

That’s not the kind of funny I mean. That’s joke-funny, and the world doesn’t need more joke-tellers. It needs people who can see life’s absurdities and weirdness and make others see them too.

The internet is filled with funny people. TV sitcoms aren’t. (Pay no attention to that laugh track.)

Unless you’re seriously humor-challenged, like most politicians and that guy in the next cubicle at work, you can build up your funny bone with just a little practice. And you’ll be glad you did.

The ability to use humor is an essential skill for any good writer; not only does it engage and entertain the reader, in a serious piece it can provide needed relief from what would otherwise be unrelentingly grim. The more serious the work, the more your readers need a break.

After writing satire for the entertainment tabloid Weekly World News, contributing to an online humor site and winning several humorous speech contests in Toastmasters International, I’ve learned a few essential guidelines for using humor in writing or speaking.

Totally Serious Tips for Writing Funny

Surprise your audience: Set them up to expect one thing and give them something completely different. I opened a humorous speech on bad drivers with an absurdity and brought it back to the normal: “Teenagers texting, guys shaving, women shaving – their legs.”

Use incongruity: A variant of surprise, this puts two opposites together. The writers at the online humor site Someecards are masters of this. Sweet-looking young women make saucy comments; handsome men make insulting remarks.

Punch up, not down: The weak attack the powerful, not the other way around. A worker making fun of their boss is courageous; a boss making fun of the worker is a bully.

Only laugh at yourself: Unless the other guy is a jerk, in which case you’re punching up.

Be funny, not punny: Wordplay is fun and engaging, but don’t go overboard. Stick to a few well-placed puns for maximum effect. And never – ever – put quotation marks around the pun.

No laugh tracks: Hints and asides such as “haha” and “lol” are the written equivalents of a laugh track. Trust your audience to get the joke.

Use funny words: Short words are funnier than long ones; hard consonants are funnier than soft ones. Walter Matthau’s character in the Neil Simon movie The Sunshine Boys tells us so: “Words with a K are funny. Alka-Seltzer is funny. Cupcake is funny . . . Words with L and M are not funny.”

Finding the Funny

Don’t just take my word for all this. If you’re serious about learning to write funny, follow the work of people who get paid to kid around. Humor is subjective, so you may not agree with my choices but here they are anyway:

• Websites: The Onion, MAD Magazine and Cracked are my favorite funny websites.

• Writers: South Florida’s own Dave Barry and Carl Hiassen are legends of incisive satire.

• TV: The Daily Show on Comedy Central still sets the standard for funny fake news.

Punch Line

Want your writing to get a laugh? Keep your words short, punchy and plain – and never ever say “humorous” instead of “funny.”