Elaine Ambrose

Bestselling Author, Ventriloquist, & Humorist

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#Erma Bombeck

How to Write Humor – The Outline

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(Here’s my outline for “How to Write Humor.” I give this presentation for workshops andpresentations at various conferences.)

 

 

  1. Risk to Writing Humor
    1. What if they don’t laugh? What if they do?
    2. Do you laugh or cringe at your own sentence?
    3. Improve humor writing skills by reading, writing, and analyzing what makes you laugh.
  2. Elements of Humor – Choose a topic that combines at least two:
    1. Witty, clever, new twist
    2. Surprise, spontaneous, unexpected
    3. Bizarre, odd, absurd, not routine
    4. Ironic, shocking, mock frustration
    5. Naughty, obsessive, titillating
    6. Satirical, spoof, roast
    7. Self-depreciating, but don’t overdo it or audience will believe you’re a loser

  1. Writing Humor is Serious Work
    1. If you’re not funny, don’t write humor. Please.
    2. Don’t throw every gimmick and hope it works.
    3. Be original and creative. Find your niche.
    4. Edit, again and again. No one likes a long joke.
    5. Remember what makes you laugh as you write.
    6. Profanity is similar to hot spice: use it sparingly.
    7. Tie the end of the story or anecdote back to the beginning.
    8. Read your work out loud.
    9. Know your audience. Midlife humor won’t work for male teenage science students.
    10. Read other comedy writers: David Sedaris, Jill Conner Browne, George Carlin.
  2. Erma Bombeck – Still Funny, Twenty Years after Her Death
    1. I don’t ski because of all the ambulances.
    2. I would jog to hear heavy breathing again.
    3. He who laughs…lasts.

Examples of Humor in My Books

  1. Menopause Sucks – Quotes
    1. It’s a crying shame you could live to be 100 but only 20 of those years come with youthful vigor, shiny hair, smooth skin, multiple orgasms, and a flat stomach.
    2. Estrogen is the chemical commander-in-chief. Imagine a teeny tyrant running through your brain yelling, “Grow pubic hair now!” “Make that boob bigger.”
    3. After perimenopause – “Attention all sectors. Estrogen is leaving the body. Farewell party at noon in the pituitary gland.”
  2. Midlife Cabernet – Quotes
    1. I never intended to be divorced in my forties, but it happened. If love is blind, I need a white cane instead of a wedding dress.
    2. Unless your mother-in-law is a convicted felon or a pole dancer at the Kit Kat Klub, you should spend quality time with her.
    3. There are more than 250 million adults in the US, and each one started as a baby. They grew up and moved out, so there’s a high probability yours will, too.
    4. I used to feed my little ones with a spoon shaped like an airplane. Now they open their mouths every time they hear a plane.
  3. Establish Your Humor Identity
    1. Name, title, blog, logo, key audience
    2. Join and participate in online humor writing groups.
    3. Find speaking opportunities
    4. Exploit success – viral and award-winning blogs
    5. Be active on social media sites
    6. Create humorous memes to promote your brand
    7. Middle-aged women – my target audience – will appreciate this meme:

  1. Explore Opportunities to Expand Your Reach
    1. Collaborate with another author on a book.
    2. Apply to speak at conferences.
    3. Weekly test public reaction to your posts
  2. Keep Learning new Technologies
    1. Use various apps to copyright and date. Use Enlight app to distort photos.
    2. Know how to create and insert photos and videos.
    3. Save and recycle samples of your best writing.
    4. Keep a notebook for jokes, spontaneous ideas, people-watching, personal incidents, and funny quotes.
  3. Make Laugher, Make Money, and Make the World a Happier Place
    1. Sell on the popularity of your sparkling, creative wit.
    2. Give paid speeches and sell products at full retail after the speeches.
    3. Makes notes and evaluate after every presentation to improve experience
    4. Remember to keep laughing because the world needs humor.
    5. If all else fails, use a prop: Finger Puppets

 

Elaine Ambrose uses and distributes finger puppets in some of her keynote speeches.

Elaine Ambrose, Bestselling Author, Syndicated Blogger, Humorist

Website: elaine@elaineambrose.com, Email: elaine@elaineambrose.com

 

©ElaineAmbrose2018

Laughing with Erma Bombeck and Friends

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(Note:  This is my 600th blog post, and it’s dedicated to Erma Bombeck.)

Erma Bombeck was the original Mommy Blogger – without all the alcohol and swear words. I thought I was doing great with 600 blog posts, but that pales in comparison to her 4,000 newspaper columns. Also, she got a regular paycheck for her humor and earned $1 million a year. I eagerly publish free essays on my website and hope someone likes them enough to consider paying $17 for my latest book. I’m just like Erma, but different.

Erma Bombeck’s columns were read twice a week by 30 million readers of 900 newspapers throughout the country. I don’t have quite that many followers, but I did achieve a few viral syndicated posts that attracted readers around the world. The esteemed subjects were about farting, my mother’s casket getting lost, and why politicians resemble braying animals. I think Erma would have liked them.

I try to emulate the famous wit and wisdom she used to transform ordinary family life into hilarious scenarios. My target audience is middle-age women, but that’s now a shameless exaggeration unless I live past 132. I’ve passed the expiration date for midlife and am stumbling beyond the precarious matron category into full-blown senior citizen status. But, I continue to write because she would want me to do that. Her light on earth was cut short at age 69, and I’m in my sixties, so there is no time to waste. I daily grease my wrinkled fingers, squint through my high-intensity eyeglasses, hunch over my large-type document, and focus on adding one more paragraph. “What would Erma do?” is my mantra.

The Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop

The Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop in Dayton, Ohio, created in 2,000 at the University of Dayton, is the largest national workshop for humor writers. It endures because the world is too crabby, and people want to laugh again and be with funny, positive friends. Attendees hope to belong to that unique club designated for readers and writers of humor. Laughter is the best medicine, and we come on a sacred pilgrimage for the healing power of another belly laugh.

I attended my first EBWW in 2014. I didn’t know anyone and resembled the proverbial goofball in a world of Elite Comedic Thespians. But, they allowed me into their playhouse and we laughed until we cried. I was chosen to perform in the Stand-Up Comic Night show, and I loved the experience. I gained numerous friends, and even the cool kids talked to me.

For the 2016 Workshop, I was honored to present two workshops: “How to Turn Your Blog into a Book” and “How to Write Funny.” The importance of the opportunity became almost too much for this shy farm girl from Idaho, but I plugged in my Power Point and took the stage as if I knew what I was doing. I imagined Erma in the front row. I think she laughed at some of my jokes.

I recently returned from the 2018 Conference, and my body is still sore from all the laughter and bear hugs. The schedule was packed with excellent sessions, enlightening presenters, and some of the best speakers I’ve ever heard. The main conference started on Thursday, April 5 with a dinner at the Marriott. Keynote speaker Liza Donnelly, award-winning cartoonist with The New Yorker magazine, delighted the audience with humorous cartoons and clever comments. She introduced a world of humor writing many of us hadn’t considered.

On Friday morning, I learned advice from bestselling authors through Jessica Strawser’s excellent session. The next workshop featured my friends Anne Parris and Tracy Beckerman as they discussed website productivity. Even for an old crone, I was able to learn new and productive ideas for my site.

Faye Griffin provided the highlight for Friday afternoon with her inspirational session about writing with humor and heart. I want to be BFFs with her. Friday evening I was delighted to participate in a book signing as an author in the new book, Laugh Out Loud – 40 Women Humorists Celebrate Then and Now…Before We Forget. I sat beside Michelle Poston Combs and considered adopting her.

Saturday’s workshops included the memoir writing session and an excellent presentation about branding from Cindy Ratzlaff. I participated in the Pitchapalooza and received encouraging advice from publishing expert Jane Friedman.

In my opinion, the keynote speakers were the highlight of the Conference. Liza Donnelly, Rita Davenport, Karen Walrond, John Grogan, and Monica Piper provided a lineup that will be difficult to equal. Davenport and Piper had me gasping for breath between punchlines. I also appreciate the participation of Erma Bombeck’s sons, Matt and Andy. Unfortunately, Anne Bardsley and I couldn’t convince them to travel on a comedy tour with us.

I have pages of notes to read, links to follow, and action items to complete, but the EBWW 2018 has renewed and energized my determination to write and finish a few more projects. It’s my goal to balance negative complaints with some cheerful chuckles. My mentor Erma encourages me to keep writing and not have a single bit of talent left at the end of my life. So, that’s what I’ll do.

One of the best compliments I’ve received for my writing is from Foreword Reviews: “Elaine Ambrose’s Midlife Cabernet: Life, Love & Laughter after Fifty is an Erma Bombeck-esque tribute to women who are over fifty and ready to explore life on new terms.”

I don’t want to be -esque to anyone else, ever.

Create Your QR Code for a Conference

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I’m traveling to two important events in April: the prestigious Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop in Dayton, Ohio, and the Wayfinding Women excursion to Ireland. My latest bestselling books are too heavy and cumbersome to carry and many people don’t want to haul them home, so I have the next-best marketing tool: a QR Code. QR stands for “Quick Response” and allows any URL to be scanned for instant access. To make a free QR Code from any website, go to several options including QR Code Generator. I have codes for my books and for my website.

To use the QR Code, download and open a QR reader on your smartphone, take a photo of the QR Code, and open the website. Most smartphones will automatically connect to the website after “seeing” the black and white squares embedded in the QR Code.

This QR Code allows potential clients and friends to instantly access my website without storing business cards or scribbling website addresses. Other marketing materials include the code to each book so it can be found and ordered on Amazon. I strongly advocate selling through local bookstores over Amazon, but the choices are different at a conference. Here are two examples of how I use the codes on my book marketing materials.

Midlife Happy Hour remains in the top 100 bestselling books for Midlife Management on Amazon.

Midlife Cabernet earned hundreds of positive reviews on Amazon.

  • Silver medal for humor, Independent Publisher Book Awards
  • “Laugh-out-loud funny!” – Publishers Weekly
  • “Erma Bombeck” – Foreword Reviews
  • #1 Bestseller in Humor on Amazon
  • Available in Paperback and eBook

I printed the QR Code on postcards to distribute at conferences. It’s more convenient that hauling books. There is one downside: Authors can’t autograph or personalize the books ordered through a QR Code. Maybe there’s an app for that!

What Would Erma Do?

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featured on erma bombeck

How do you write humor in a crabby world? It’s difficult to be funny when the mood of the country is worse than the temperament of a pack of hungry junkyard dogs, strangers are yelling at each other on social media, and even my usual cheerful friends are picking fights, taking sides and stomping their feet. In the midst of the angst, I ask the redeeming question: What would Erma do?

 

Erma Bombeck’s talent propelled her above rancorous debate and petty sniping. She pounced on an important topic and turned the issue into a teachable moment or a silly punchline. Even those who may have disagreed with her were delighted by her creative wit and profound wisdom. Through 4,000 newspaper columns written from 1965 to 1996, she became America’s favorite female humorist and the best friend to more than 30 million readers. She is my hero.

erma bombeck

What would she say about the current climate of chaos? In my opinion, she would offer an anecdote that portrays the weaknesses of our hectic, self-centered lives. For example, in her book If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What am I Doing in the Pits?, Erma writes about how she was trying to take advantage of some rare time alone to read a book in an airport waiting room. An elderly woman sitting next to her started a conversation, and Erma was irritated. Then she learned that the casket with the woman’s deceased husband also would be on the plane, and they had been married 53 years. Here is what Erma wrote:

“I don’t think I have ever detested myself more than I did at that moment. Another human being was screaming to be heard…All she needed was a listener…It seemed rather incongruous that in a society of supersophisticated communication, we often suffer from a shortage of listeners.”

erma bowl of cherries

The book was written in 1978, and the message remains the same. Why are people so angry, and what are they demanding? They want the right to be heard. They want to matter. They want the rest of us to put down our business, look them in the eyes (through the magic of the Internet, if necessary), and say, “I’m listening.”

In Chapter 14 of the same book, Erma notes that life is not all fun and blue skies.

“There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt. And how do you know laughter if there is no pain to compare it with?”

Erma was a member of the national Presidential Advisory Committee for Women and supported the Equal Rights Amendment. Her advocacy was criticized by conservative groups, and some bookstores removed her books. The ERA failed, but Erma did not. She continued to amuse her readers with books titled, When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It’s Time to Go Home and A Marriage Made in Heaven…or Too Tired For an Affair.

speaker erma podiu

Erma Bombeck’s writing endures because she didn’t dwell on the negative or criticize others. Through all the problems of life, she continued to provide relief with humor and wit. I need to remember that as I’m sifting through the debris of dastardly discourse and wanting to fire off a curt comment. Through making jokes about stress, motherhood and life, Erma left us laughing. One last line: “The only reason I would take up jogging is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.” Thanks, Erma.

erma speaker 2016 (1)

 

Originally published on HumorWriters.org on February 14, 2017