David Sedaris’s Tips for Writing Humor

One of America's preeminent humor writers, David Sedaris is known for his incisive social critiques. He writes about his own life in essay collections and non-fiction books, from his childhood in upstate New York to his high school years in Raleigh, North Carolina. He often weaves in hilarious anecdotes that include his parents and his five siblings—Paul, Gretchen, Tiffany, Lisa, and Amy Sedaris—or his partner Hugh.

Sedaris’s writing career has spanned almost three decades. He’s been nominated for five Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word Album and Best Comedy Album, and received the Thurber Prize for American Humor. He and his sister, Amy—a writer and performer—write plays under the name The Talent Family that run at the La Mama Theater in New York City. Their shows include The Book of Liz, Incident at Cobbler’s Knob, and Stump the Host.

David is one of the funniest observant writers, often writing about the human condition vis a vis his own life experience. Here are the works for which he is known:

1. 1. Barrel Fever (1994)
2. 2. Naked (1997)
3. 3. Holidays on Ice (1997)
4. 4. Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)
5. 5. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (2004)
6. 6. When You Are Engulfed in Flames (2008)
7. 7. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary (2010)
8. 8. Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls (2013)
9. 9. Theft By Finding: Diaries (1977-2002) (2017)
10. 10. Calypso (2018)

With his self-deprecating style, David Sedaris will often poke fun at himself and his point of view of the world. Here, he offers writing advice on how to add humor when crafting a personal narrative or story:

1. 1. Quote funny people. When the people around you are funny, you can bring them into your work. They know they are being witty, and you are taking them with you into the essay as part of the humor.
2. 2. Test a story out in a casual situation. If you're at a dinner table and you tell a story and someone laughs, and then they ask you some follow-up questions, that's a pretty good indication that that story might be a good thing to write about.
3. 3. Stretch the story just a little. Stretching a scenario into the most ridiculous version you can imagine can be another way to get a laugh. “Exaggeration is a way to get laughs,” David says. “When you're writing humor, it's just right there in your tool box. And you're entitled to use it.”
4. 4. Read your work out loud. Reading aloud is another layer of David’s editing process—kind of like live workshopping. In fact, he’ll make notes on his pages as he reads. “When the audience laughs, I make notes,” he says. “And when the audience coughs, it’s like they’re throwing skulls at you. They’re telling you that if this was on the page, they would be skimming now. At the end of the night I’ll lay my story out on the hotel bed and look at my notes, and I’ll notice the flow of the laughter. I want there to be a rhythm to it. I want it to be like a roller coaster that the audience is strapped into.”
5. 5. Don’t build an essay around a laugh. All writers become intimately familiar with the phrase “kill your darlings” sooner or later. At some point you may have to sacrifice particularly self-indulgent lines or passages for the greater good of the piece. For a humorist, this means that you’ll inevitably have to let a laugh go. You might have crafted a really good line that makes people laugh, but that line alone isn’t enough to carry an entire essay. If you try to work around that one laugh, you will lose the audience before you even get to that line.
6. 6. Portray yourself with honesty. When you’re writing a scene in which you’re a main character, deploy one of David’s most trusty humor tools: Be harder on yourself than any other character in the story. When you make yourself a relatable character, your reader will feel connected to you. Let go of thinking about how you come across and just try to be honest—learning how to laugh at yourself is crucial.
7. 7. Deliver humor on a deeper level. When David started writing, he wanted to make his reader laugh. He learned how to do that well. Then he wanted to do more—he wanted to suffuse comedy with tragedy. When sorrow is attached to humor, an essay has more gravitas and is more memorable. The sadness can’t be forced or formulaic, but it’s important to always look for a way to move people, to add meaning, with more than laughter. David can make you laugh and cry all within the confines of the same 12 pages (consider essays like “Now We Are Five,” about his sister Tiffany’s suicide, or “Why Aren’t You Laughing,” about his mother’s alcoholism).
8. 8. Be yourself. After many years of reading on a stage, David has a sense of who his audience is, which makes it easier for him to connect with them. But he never goes for the low-hanging fruit by making a joke that appeals to a particular audience’s sensibility. Sacrificing cleverness for something people will applaud and agree with will never be the most satisfying laugh.

You don’t need to be a stand-up comedian or even a professional comedy writer to make people laugh in your writing. Even Mark Twain, an icon of American literature, was known for his funny stories. Here are a few tips and tricks to add humor to your writing:

1. 1. Employ the rule of three. Use a three-beat joke. The first two beats build the setup followed by an incongruous punch line to create an element of surprise. For example: “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Doughnut? A better attitude?”
2. 2. Become a great observer. There are funny things all around you. Often, the humor writing that makes people laugh out loud is based on real life.
3. 3. Watch a funny person. Watch someone you know who is inherently funny, or watch a comedy show. See how they deliver humor in their stories.
4. 4. Choose funnier words. One of the simplest humor writing techniques is word choice. Sometimes fine-tuning your phrasing a bit to make it funny comes down to what words you use.

Whether you're just starting to put pen to paper or dream of being published, writing demands time, effort, and commitment to the craft. In award-winning essayist and humorist David Sedaris's MasterClass, learn how to sharpen your powers of observation, how to translate what you see, hear, and experience in the real world into memorable stories, and how to grow as a writer.

Want to become a better writer? The MasterClass Annual Membership provides exclusive video lessons on storytelling, character development, and the path to publication, all taught by literary masters, including David Sedaris, Malcolm Gladwell, Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, Judy Blume, Dan Brown, and more.

One of America's preeminent humor writers, David Sedaris is known for his incisive social critiques. He writes about his own life in essay collections and non-fiction books, from his childhood in upstate New York to his high school years in Raleigh, North Carolina. He often weaves in hilarious anecdotes that include his parents and his five siblings—Paul, Gretchen, Tiffany, Lisa, and Amy Sedaris—or his partner Hugh.

Sedaris’s writing career has spanned almost three decades. He’s been nominated for five Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word Album and Best Comedy Album, and received the Thurber Prize for American Humor. He and his sister, Amy—a writer and performer—write plays under the name The Talent Family that run at the La Mama Theater in New York City. Their shows include The Book of Liz, Incident at Cobbler’s Knob, and Stump the Host.

David is one of the funniest observant writers, often writing about the human condition vis a vis his own life experience. Here are the works for which he is known:

1. 1. Barrel Fever (1994)
2. 2. Naked (1997)
3. 3. Holidays on Ice (1997)
4. 4. Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)
5. 5. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (2004)
6. 6. When You Are Engulfed in Flames (2008)
7. 7. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary (2010)
8. 8. Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls (2013)
9. 9. Theft By Finding: Diaries (1977-2002) (2017)
10. 10. Calypso (2018)

With his self-deprecating style, David Sedaris will often poke fun at himself and his point of view of the world. Here, he offers writing advice on how to add humor when crafting a personal narrative or story:

1. 1. Quote funny people. When the people around you are funny, you can bring them into your work. They know they are being witty, and you are taking them with you into the essay as part of the humor.
2. 2. Test a story out in a casual situation. If you're at a dinner table and you tell a story and someone laughs, and then they ask you some follow-up questions, that's a pretty good indication that that story might be a good thing to write about.
3. 3. Stretch the story just a little. Stretching a scenario into the most ridiculous version you can imagine can be another way to get a laugh. “Exaggeration is a way to get laughs,” David says. “When you're writing humor, it's just right there in your tool box. And you're entitled to use it.”
4. 4. Read your work out loud. Reading aloud is another layer of David’s editing process—kind of like live workshopping. In fact, he’ll make notes on his pages as he reads. “When the audience laughs, I make notes,” he says. “And when the audience coughs, it’s like they’re throwing skulls at you. They’re telling you that if this was on the page, they would be skimming now. At the end of the night I’ll lay my story out on the hotel bed and look at my notes, and I’ll notice the flow of the laughter. I want there to be a rhythm to it. I want it to be like a roller coaster that the audience is strapped into.”
5. 5. Don’t build an essay around a laugh. All writers become intimately familiar with the phrase “kill your darlings” sooner or later. At some point you may have to sacrifice particularly self-indulgent lines or passages for the greater good of the piece. For a humorist, this means that you’ll inevitably have to let a laugh go. You might have crafted a really good line that makes people laugh, but that line alone isn’t enough to carry an entire essay. If you try to work around that one laugh, you will lose the audience before you even get to that line.
6. 6. Portray yourself with honesty. When you’re writing a scene in which you’re a main character, deploy one of David’s most trusty humor tools: Be harder on yourself than any other character in the story. When you make yourself a relatable character, your reader will feel connected to you. Let go of thinking about how you come across and just try to be honest—learning how to laugh at yourself is crucial.
7. 7. Deliver humor on a deeper level. When David started writing, he wanted to make his reader laugh. He learned how to do that well. Then he wanted to do more—he wanted to suffuse comedy with tragedy. When sorrow is attached to humor, an essay has more gravitas and is more memorable. The sadness can’t be forced or formulaic, but it’s important to always look for a way to move people, to add meaning, with more than laughter. David can make you laugh and cry all within the confines of the same 12 pages (consider essays like “Now We Are Five,” about his sister Tiffany’s suicide, or “Why Aren’t You Laughing,” about his mother’s alcoholism).
8. 8. Be yourself. After many years of reading on a stage, David has a sense of who his audience is, which makes it easier for him to connect with them. But he never goes for the low-hanging fruit by making a joke that appeals to a particular audience’s sensibility. Sacrificing cleverness for something people will applaud and agree with will never be the most satisfying laugh.

You don’t need to be a stand-up comedian or even a professional comedy writer to make people laugh in your writing. Even Mark Twain, an icon of American literature, was known for his funny stories. Here are a few tips and tricks to add humor to your writing:

1. 1. Employ the rule of three. Use a three-beat joke. The first two beats build the setup followed by an incongruous punch line to create an element of surprise. For example: “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Doughnut? A better attitude?”
2. 2. Become a great observer. There are funny things all around you. Often, the humor writing that makes people laugh out loud is based on real life.
3. 3. Watch a funny person. Watch someone you know who is inherently funny, or watch a comedy show. See how they deliver humor in their stories.
4. 4. Choose funnier words. One of the simplest humor writing techniques is word choice. Sometimes fine-tuning your phrasing a bit to make it funny comes down to what words you use.

Whether you're just starting to put pen to paper or dream of being published, writing demands time, effort, and commitment to the craft. In award-winning essayist and humorist David Sedaris's MasterClass, learn how to sharpen your powers of observation, how to translate what you see, hear, and experience in the real world into memorable stories, and how to grow as a writer.

Want to become a better writer? The MasterClass Annual Membership provides exclusive video lessons on storytelling, character development, and the path to publication, all taught by literary masters, including David Sedaris, Malcolm Gladwell, Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, Judy Blume, Dan Brown, and more.