11 Ways to Make Your Writing More Funny (Scott Dikkers Interview)

Learn more about Alpha School at ⁠https://go.alpha.school/howiwrite Scott Dikkers is the former editor-in-chief of The Onion, the site that brought news satire to the internet. Before the episode, I went up to Scott and said, “I have one goal for this: I want to start writing funny. You know how to do it. Can you teach me everything you've learned?" He’s been doing this for decades, so he was able to take me by the hand and show me what he learned, very concretely. You're obviously not going to framework your way to becoming the next George Carlin, but there are universal principles of comedy that work in any kind of writing, whether it's for a group chat or when you are talking with friends on a Saturday night at the bar. And Scott is about to teach us how to do it. 00:00:00 Introduction 00:00:45 The secret is POV 00:03:41 Biggest mistakes to avoid 00:09:49 Write down 10 opinions 00:15:33 Prompts to get you started 00:18:48 The Family Guy formula 00:21:18 The 11 funny filters 00:24:49 How to hook your readers 00:29:02 Straight person vs joke person 00:31:54 Character archetypes 00:34:44 How to actually use analogies 00:40:17 The right way to use wordplay 00:46:01 What makes satire flop 00:49:13 Clown brain vs editor brain 00:54:19 Give permission to laugh 00:56:52 Rapid fire takes 01:01:23 What makes a hilarious final joke About the host Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible. Follow me Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... YouTube:    / @davidperellchannel   Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSbo... X: https://x.com/david_perell