Tag: daily fix

Want Your eBook to Sell? Read On.

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[found on inboundpro.net; by ]

“14 Invaluable Tips For Writing Ebooks That Sell

1. Lisa from Niche Website Success says:

“Take the time to survey your core audience to ensure your book meets their needs.  We often assume we know what people want, but you never really know unless you ask.

Prior to writing my eBook, I used my email list to survey my subscribers.  The feedback was invaluable and inspired much of the content in the book. Not to mention, it’s a great way to win over your readers.  They ask.  You deliver.”

2. Steve from Steve Aitchison says:

“Ask your audience what type of ebook they would like before writing one word of your ebook.  I have made the mistake of writing an ebook, thinking, this is a great idea my readers will love this, only to find that they didn’t love it.  The ONLY way to find out what type of ebook your readers will like is to ask them.  You can do this in a blog post, an email to your subscribers, or use social media  better yet ask them using all three.

Another thing is, make your ebook look fantastic.  Presentation is everything and you want to give a professional looking ebook with a great cover.  A lot of ebook creators write their book in a word document and turn it into a pdf without much thought for presentation.  In this day and age of information overload, you need a great cover to catch the readers eye, a great title to capture their imagination, and a great presentation on the inside.  It’s well worth spending a few hundred dollars to get a professional to design your ebook once you’ve written it.

One last thing, get someone to proof read your ebook.  Again, I’ve made this mistake of not getting an ebook proof read only to find I get lots of emails pointing out errors in my book.  If you don’t get it proof read it shows you’re not willing to invest that little extra to make it look and read great, and this will come across to the reader.””

To see more excellent advice from InBoundPro.net, click HERE. 

[found on http://www.inboundpro.net/how-to-write-ebooks-that-sell]

What Real Authors Use For Tools

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[found on flavorwire.com; by Alison Nastasi]

“It’s no secret that writers can be quite particular about their writing tools. Some might call it an obsession or fetish, but the pens, pencils, notebooks, and other implements that authors have used to create their most famous works endlessly fascinates us. After reading an ode to the beloved Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602 pencil, adored for its smooth, firm graphite, we had to find out more about the tools of the literary elite. Take notes, and save your pennies to purchase these writing instruments for yourself.”

To see these incredible writing tools listed from Flavorwire, click HERE.

[found on http://flavorwire.com/410384/the-writing-tools-of-20-famous-authors]

Need A Writing Prompt?

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[found on dailywritingtips.com; by Simon Kewin]

“Where To Find Writing Prompts Online

The internet is a wonderful source of writing prompts. There are sites dedicated to providing them which a quick search will turn up. Examples include :

There are also numerous blogs that offer a regular writing prompt to inspire you and where you can, if you wish, post what you’ve written. Examples include :

There are also many other sites that can, inadvertently, provide a rich seam of material for writing prompts – for example news sites with their intriguing headlines or pictorial sites such as Flickr.com that give you access to a vast range of photographs that can prompt your writing.

If you’re on Twitter, there are users you can follow to receive a stream of prompts, for example :

Another idea is just to keep an eye on all the tweets being written by people all over the world, some of which can, inadvertently, be used as writing prompts.

How To Make Your Own Writing Prompts

You can find ideas for writing prompts of your own from all sorts of places : snatches of overheard conversation, headlines, signs, words picked from a book and so on. Get used to keeping an eye out for words and phrases that fire your imagination, jot them down and use them as writing prompts to spark your creativity. You never know where they might take you.”

For more great information on writing from DailyWritingTips, click HERE.

[found on http://www.dailywritingtips.com/writing-prompts-101]

Finish Your Book…Already

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[found on josephfinder.com; by Joseph Finder]

“1. Just write it. Fix it later. That means: don’t worry about word choice or grammar. Don’t worry about getting your facts right.

2. You do have time — if you really want to do it. You have a full-time job? A family? Carve out an hour or two early in the morning before the rest of the house gets up, or before you go to work. Or at night, if you’re not too wiped out to write. Try to make this a regular time slot — do it at the same time each day, for the same amount of time. Make it a habit. I know a number of writers who finally started making enough money from their writing to be able to quit their day jobs, only to discover that, as soon as they started writing full time, they suddenly became far less efficient. All that time stretching before them in the day — the two hours of writing per day they used to squeeze in here and there now took them eight hours. There’s something to be said for not having a lot of free time to write. It tends to make you more efficient.

3. Writing is a job. Treat it like one. I don’t work at home; I have an office, and I go there to write. If you don’t have an office, you should set aside a place that is just for you and your writing – the attic, the basement, a corner of the laundry room with a screen around it. If you treat your writing like work, your family and friends should do the same, and be more respectful of that writing time. No one thinks twice about interrupting a hobby, so make it clear that it’s not a hobby; it’s work. It’s your time.

4. Be ruthless in managing your time. This is the biggest problem most writers have. I have a big old hourglass on my desk for use on those days when I’m tempted to check my Facebook page. I upend it and don’t let myself get up until the sands of time have run out.

5. No e-mail! E-mail is truly our modern curse. It interrupts our attention span, fragments our concentration. Sign off. Do not let yourself check your e-mail or go online. Use an hourglass or a kitchen timer (if the ticking doesn’t drive you crazy) for 30 minutes or an hour, during which you may not do anything but write. In order to write you really need to get into the zone, and to get into the zone you need to be distraction-free. I love e-mail — but it’s the enemy!

6. Set interim goals. A full-length novel can be anywhere from 75,000 to 150,000 words, or even longer. If you think about having to write 75,000 words – 200 pages – you’ll freak yourself out. But if you write 1,000 words a day, you can finish the first draft of a novel in less than three months, even if you take some weekend days off.

7. Work toward a deadline. Everyone needs deadlines. Parkinson’s Law says that work expands to fill the time allotted; among my author friends, I know only one who regularly turns in manuscripts before they’re due (she was probably like that in school, too). The rest of us need deadlines. My publisher sets mine, but even before you’re published, you will find that your own life gives you natural deadlines: finish that draft before you leave for your next vacation, before you turn 40, before your next high school reunion.

8. Reward yourself. In The Fine Art of Feedback, I write about the challenges of getting and processing feedback – but while you’re writing, it’s not unusual for your brain to second-guess everything you’re doing. Override this by promising yourself rewards for getting work done. “When I hit 5,000 words, I’m going to the movies,” or even, “When I finish this paragraph, I can have another cup of coffee.” It worked in kindergarten and it works for me now.

Go to it, and good luck. Next time someone hears you’re writing a novel and tells you that they have a great idea for one, you can just smile and nod and think to yourself, Yeah, but I’m actually writing one . . .”

For more excellent information on writing from Joseph Finder, click HERE.

[found on http://www.josephfinder.com/writers/tips/just-write-the-damned-book-already]

Emotions…even in the REAL

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[found on freelancewriting.com; by Catherine Franz]

“You have completed the draft of an article, but it seems flat and lifeless, even to you. It needs to have the spark that ignites that all important emotional connection to your readers but you are at a loss as to how to spruce it up. Breathing life into a nonfiction article is tough, especially if it doesn’t include a character or an emotional storyline….

…Why would you even want to add emotion to a nonfiction article? Adding emotion to your writing, any type of writing, fuels the reader’s attention, helps them connect with the action. It gives the reader an experience. Experience is why people go to the movies or watch TV. More importantly, it keeps them reading.”

To learn the steps on how to emotionally charge your writing, with tips from Catherine Franz, click HERE.

[found on http://www.freelancewriting.com/articles/article-write-nonfiction-with-passion.php]

Too Weak To Write? Take Two Adverbs, and Don’t Call Me In The Morning

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[found on darcknyt.deviantart.com]

“The real question to ask isn’t whether Mrs. Swingingjowls was right or wrong in teaching you to modify your sentences with adverbs.  The question is, why are you modifying your verbs with adverbs?

This is an easy one to answer, when you think about it:

Because your verbs are weak.

Mark Twain once said, “Adverbs are the tool of the lazy writer.”  Amen, Mark.

See, what’s going on is, you’re using a word that doesn’t really convey the sense, the feeling, the mood or whatever, you’re hoping to get across to your reader.  “Walk” isn’t a very exciting word, and it doesn’t get across the antsy feeling you’re trying to portray in your description, so you make it “walk quickly” or “quickly walked”.  You want your reader to see the force, the power in your characters’ argument, so instead of saying “they shouted across the table” you say “they shouted angrily and vehemently across the table.”

The problem is, the verbs you’ve chosen aren’t doing the job you wanted them to do in the first place.  You don’t want your character to walk, you want your character to hasten, hurry, quick-step.  You don’t want your characters shouting, you want them spitting words through clenched teeth, veins throbbing on reddened necks, molars locked and spittle misting between them.

The reason you’re reaching for adverbs to tell the story is because the verbs you’ve chosen are too weak to do it for you.  The adverb isn’t the solution, however.  Strengthening your writing is.

Think about this: If the verbs you’re using to describe the action in your story are weak and flimsy, the action description may be weak and flimsy too.

You wouldn’t be writing something with the intent of being flimsy or weak, would you?  The reason you’re grabbing adverbs in the first place is because of discontent with what’s being said without them, right?

Why bother with modifiers for words that aren’t cutting it in the first place?  The real crux of the problem is finding the right actions and descriptions for those actions, so that modifiers — adverbs AND adjectives — will be needed with rare and prudent infrequency.

When you’re writing adult fiction, the need to limit — if not eliminate — adverbs altogether becomes pretty obvious.  What adult wants to read a grade school type of book?

No, adults want to be pulled into the story, and be engaged by it.  The use of adverbs won’t get the job done, and loses the reader early on.

Show, Don’t Tell — Adverbs are NOT Good Description

With the evil adverb dragging your writing down, it’s now safe to say that using adverbs isn’t a way to make a lousy description good.  It’s a lazy way to make a weak description obvious.

What adverbs do, in a nutshell, is tell the reader what’s going on in the story.  That’s NOT what you want to do.

“But — I thought I was TELLING a story here?”

No.  You’re not.  If you’re a serious writer, you’re not “telling” a story, you’re SHOWING a story.

Don’t be lazy.  Be specific.  Use specific nouns and verbs to do the bulk of the work in your writing.  By letting good, descriptive words do the heavy lifting, the occasional adjective and adverb aren’t the problematic, amateur-flagging beacons common in weak writing.”

For more great tips from DarcKnyt, click HERE.

[found on http://darcknyt.deviantart.com/journal/The-Use-of-Adverbs-in-Fiction-Writing-214175181]

How To Write Historical Fiction

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[found on caroclarke.com]

“…The realities of the everyday things in your chosen time period will shape what your characters can and can’t do. This will constrain your own plot choices. It’s part of the challenge and joy of writing historical fiction to share with your characters the real problems, the real world, they live in. It stretches your imagination. If you aren’t fussy about your details, if you think it’s all right to have Willem know latitude and longitude or for Maria Dolores to carry a purse, then you aren’t up to the demands of historical fiction. Your characters will not be real, your story will have no life, and you will have failed your readers. If you’re that kind of writer, you’ll have stopped reading this essay as soon as you hit the word ‘research’. But you’re that other kind of writer, the historical novelist, the one who cares. You’ll have done your mountain of research both for the love of it and for the love of your story. What to do with all those cherished, hard-won facts?

…Once you’ve created your plot, you begin to write. Knowing the realities of the small, everyday things of your time period now allows you to conjure an authenticity into Willem’s and Maria Dolores’ lives. Long skirts swept the floor. Willem knows she’s hiding in the courtyard because he sees the lines her skirts have made in the sand his sister sprinkles on the paving tiles. Maria Dolores seizes a tankard to brain him – it’s leather, not metal, and her escape attempt collapses in laughter. When a Calvinist mob, incited by Willem’s sister, bays for the blood of the Catholic woman hidden in their midst, Willem and Maria Dolores are able to escape across the ice in the harbour, for this is the time of the Little Ice Age, when broad rivers froze.

Notice that the sand on the paving tiles, the material of the tankard, the unusually cold winter, are only included because they help propel the plot. As much as you’d love to discuss the construction of the typical Dutch house or the rise of Calvinism in the Netherlands, these aren’t pertinent to the actual events in the story. It’s pertinent that the leader of the mob has skates, it’s pertinent that the gunpowder in Willem’s pistol cakes when soaked with ice-water, it’s pertinent that the woolen skirts of the time were thick and heavy enough to stop a bullet. But if a beloved fact (the wheat for their bread came from Poland) doesn’t propel the action of the story, it doesn’t belong. You’ll use less than 20% of the facts you’ve researched in the events of your story, but the other 80% filling your head will give you a heightened understanding of the period, illuminating your characters and their world for you so that what the reader sees is the distillation of your sympathetic imagination, a richness condensed….”

For more great insights about historical fiction from Caro Clarke, click HERE.

[found on http://www.caroclarke.com/historicalfiction.html]

Do You Have A Daily Writing Schedule?

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[found on menwithpens.ca; by Kari]

“Successful writers write NO MATTER WHAT.” — Kelly Stone

“I’m not a self-schedule-oriented person. It’s far easier to stick to someone else’s schedule than your own. Self-discipline can be HARD.

So when James told me that I need a daily writing schedule, I balked.

I don’t want a schedule! I can’t guarantee where I’ll be at any single time. What if something else comes up? What if my child is home sick from school one day and I can’t write at my scheduled time? What if I’m not inspired at that time but get inspired later on?

Every excuse imaginable went through my head. I set a schedule anyways, just to be dutiful – I kept it for two days and then I quit.

James can’t be right all the time. What works for her may not work for me. Everyone does things differently, right? I need to find my own writing path…

Three months later, how much had I written? Well, let’s not talk specifics, but it wasn’t nearly as much as I’d wanted to achieve.

In fact, I was really embarrassed — even though no one knew about this but me.

I’m a writer, and a writer WRITES, but it’s pretty hard to believe you’re a writer when you lack proof to reinforce the claim.

Then James – damn her – sends me a book out of the blue. Ironically, it was Time to Write by Kelly Stone.

Sigh. FINE, I thought. I’ll read it.

Stone’s book discusses why writers need a writing schedule. They need to create a habit, and creating a writing habit means writing on a regular basis. By setting a particular time of day aside to write, you’ll practice your craft and reaffirm your belief that you are, indeed, a writer.

You reaffirm your commitment to yourself.

Stone says, “A schedule gives [writing] the same importance as your other must-do activities. Just like grocery shopping, picking up the kids from daycare, and putting in hours at your job, writing will become part of the natural flow of your day when you schedule it.”

My problem was that I wanted to wait for the “right time” to write. I waited to be inspired or to have “enough” time, a nebulous amount that changes depending on the situation. Occasionally I’d discover time to write, here or there, but instead of writing, I’d find myself staring at a blank page feeling like I’d forgotten the entire English language.

“Waiting for the right time to simply appear in your busy day is a guaranteed way to ensure that you won’t write because something else will come up… Suddenly it’ll be time for bed and you discover that another day has passed and you haven’t written.”

You said it, Kelly. Many nights I’d go to bed without having written at all that day, and I’d mentally beat myself up about it.

Fortunately, a little further in the book, Stone talks about how different authors use different types of writing schedules. She interviewed over 100 professional writers, from fiction authors to freelance journalists, to reveal their methods of incorporating writing into their lives.

What she discovered was that writers tend to choose one of these methods – which one fits you?

    • The Early-Morning Writer:  Rick Mofina, a crime novelist, considers writing in the early mornings a key to his success because his creativity was in top form. Waking up and writing before work was easier than writing after work, when he felt exhausted from his day.
    • The After-Hours Writer:  Carmen Green, author of Flirt and What a Fool Believes, begins after her job and childcare duties are over. She writes from about 7:30 to 10:00 pm and then gets ready for bed.
    • The Office Writer:  Novelist Steve Berry takes his laptop to work with him and writes before his co-workers arrive for the day. He also writes during scheduled lunch breaks and stays late at the office to write after his co-workers leave.
    • The Blitz Writer:  C. J. Lyons, author of Arrivals, says, “As a pediatrician I worked part-time, which was forty hours a week. Time to write was obviously scarce, so I would let my stories ‘ferment’ until I had a day off, and then the words would just flow.”
    • The Mini-blocks Writer:  Kathryn Lance, author of over fifty fiction and nonfiction books, balances her writing time and personal life in mini-blocks. “I used to write a minimum of one fiction sentence every night before going to bed. Or actually, before going to sleep — I did this in bed. I recommend that to people who just can’t find time to do their fiction.”
    • The Commuting Writer:  Rick Mofina also uses his commute time to help achieve his early morning writing goals, which is perfect for writers who use public transportation to and from work. “I use the commute to make notes, usually critical notes to myself, so I know where I’m going.”
    • The Any-Opportunity or Combo Writer:  Physician and bestselling novelist Tess Gerritsen wrote whenever she wasn’t on duty. “I would write on my lunch breaks, as well as after I got home. I’d write whenever I could — weekends, early mornings, and late nights. After I got home, as soon as the kids were put down for the night, I’d start writing.”

There were all types of writers! Inspired and repeating my new mantra (“successful writers write no matter what!”), I set up a schedule. A proper schedule I wanted to stick to. Finally.

Yeah, yeah, I know — James was right. Just don’t tell her I said that.

As a bonus, Time to Write also addresses problems that different writers have in sticking to their writing schedules, providing solutions and practical advice that work.

From needing more motivation to actually sitting down at your scheduled time to the issues that prevent you from being able to write in the first place (writer’s block) to gleaning inspiration from your daily life, she’s got it all covered, with backup: published authors who’ve lived through that exact situation attest to each solution. That way, you know that it works – and if it worked for someone else, it can work for you.

Now that I have a proper schedule, with clear goals, I accomplish far more each day than ever before. I’m not leaving my writing up to chance.

And my writing schedule is set in stone. I don’t schedule anything in that time because I need to build respect for my writing.

I’ve made my writing goals fairly easy to achieve, of course. That way, I can reach my daily goal quickly and then either stop or continue a little further. But I fully intend to change up my goals and make them more challenging as I build my writing habit and become comfortable with it.

One other thing James keeps reminding me — and yes, she’s definitely right on this one — is that my writing time needs to end on a positive note. If I’m exhausted at the end of my writing time stopped writing because I was stuck or ended thinking, “Well, that wasn’t great,” then at some point writing will become a chore. I’m simply not going to want to do it anymore.

By ending on an upbeat note, I feel good about what I’ve just achieved and look forward to writing the next day. It makes it a breeze.

What about you? Do you have a writing schedule you follow on a daily basis? How do you stay motivated to write consistently every day? What advice worked best for you when you started to incorporate writing into your daily schedule?”

[found on http://menwithpens.ca/writing-schedule]

How to Choose a Story…

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 [found on writersdigest.com; by Courtney Carpenter]

“Which Story Should I Write?

The first editing question you need to ask is, Which story do I select to turn into a whole novel? To write from start to finish?

You’re going to be spending a long time with your novel. Months. A year. In some cases more. I don’t want you to wake up twelve weeks from now and chuck all that work.

So here are a few keys to self-editing in the story selection phase:

1. GET LOTS OF IDEAS. The key to creativity is to get lots and lots of ideas, ironically without any self-editing at all, then throw out the ones you don’t want.

It’s a little like how lawyers choose juries. In reality, they don’t select jurors; they deselect them. The potential jurors who are seated in the box are drawn randomly. Then, through a questioning process called voir dire, the lawyers probe and ponder, then exercise challenges. They try to get rid of those jurors they believe will not be favorably disposed to their case.

So, too, you as a writer face your box of ideas and, through probing and pondering, toss out the ones you won’t be writing about.

But first you gather, and as you do, let your imagination run free.

2. LOOK FOR THE BIG IDEA. A novel-length story has to have a certain size to it. Not length of words, but potential for a large canvas of emotions, incidents, and high stakes.

This is something you need to feel in your writer’s spirit. Think about the novels that moved you most. What was it about them that got to you? If it was an unforgettable character, what made her so? If it was a turning, twisting plot, what were the stakes?

If it was a quieter novel, it had some simmering intensity about it.

Think on these things as you look at ideas to nurture.

3. WRITE YOUR BACK COVER COPY. There are several questions to ask yourself about your idea, but at some point you need to see if it holds together, if you can get it in a form that both excites you and will excite publishers and readers.

One of the best ways to do this is to write your own back cover copy. That’s the marketing copy on the back of the book (or on the dust jacket) that’s intended to get readers to buy it.

When you do this, concentrate on the big picture. You’ll need to write and rewrite this several times, but doing so will serve you well for the entire writing project.”

[found on http://www.writersdigest.com/tip-of-the-day/how-to-choose-a-story-to-write]

Humorless? No. Humor more!

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[found on writersdigest.com]

“Humor is an integral part of our everyday interactions, whether we’re trying to navigate a bookstore, make conversation with the barista at our favorite coffee shop, or talk a police officer out of a ticket. Our inherent desire to laugh motivates us to share funny YouTube videos and respond to text messages with an LOL or the iconic smiley face. Many of us even choose to get our daily news with a heaping side order of comedy from outlets like “The Daily Show,” “The Colbert Report” or The Onion. When push comes to punch, we’d rather laugh than lie facedown, weeping into the carpet.

You may think that when it comes to writing, humor is best used only in fiction or satire. But while we think of comedy in terms of exaggeration or fabrication, effective humor can be just as much about creative misdirection—engaging readers by taking them someplace they don’t expect to go—and subtly choosing metaphors and words that make readers giggle without even knowing why. And a smiling reader is one who’s paying attention and eager to read on.

Sociologists, linguists and biologists say that our ability to laugh and desire to do so isn’t all fun and games, but actually serves two essential life functions: to bond with members of our “tribe,” and to lessen tension and anxiety. Both of these are also excellent reasons to incorporate humor in your nonfiction. As a communication tool, effective use of humor can humanize you, cementing your bond with readers. It can also help your work stand out in a crowded market. And as advertising studies have shown, humor enhances how much we like what we’re reading and how well we remember it afterward.

I’ve been teaching humor writing for 16 years, and have used my funny bone in writing everything from self-help books to feature articles to essays to cookbook content. I’m convinced that learning to effectively use humor can not only enhance your work, but can make the act of writing more enjoyable, too. Trying to find the funnier side of things reduces the loneliness, rejection and stress of the writing life—and it boosts your creativity by challenging you to approach your craft in new ways.

Even if your subject is a serious one, the subtle use of humor can both ease tension and provide a respite from difficult moments. I was recently hired to provide freelance assistance on a book about pornography-related problems. The authors felt I could make the subject less uncomfortable for readers by lightening things up here and there. As Eric Idle once wisely said, “Levity is the opposite of gravity.”

So how can you use humor to write better? Read on to find out.

Learning the Basics of Subtle Humor

Let’s be clear: The goal in adding some humor to your nonfiction project is not about becoming the next Erma Bombeck or David Sedaris (unless that’s your dream). The goal is to improve your writing by using all the tools available to you, including comedy. Imagine where the original authors of the For Dummies book franchise would be today if they hadn’t decided to take a lighthearted approach.

Whether or not you consider yourself a funny person, it’s not as difficult as youmight think to put humor to work for you. I’ve found that the easiest and best ways of doing so boil down to five simple comedic tools.

1. THE K RULE

It may sound strange, but it’s true: Words with the k sound (Cadillac, quintuplet, sex) are perceived as the funniest, and words with a hard g (guacamole, gargantuan, Yugo) create almost as many grins. This may be because much of what makes Americans laugh today has roots in Yiddish humor, the language of which includes many guttural sounds—and the k and hard g are as close as English comes. The K Rule is so widely used by comedy writers that Matt Groening’s team once referenced it in an episode of “The Simpsons” when Sideshow Mel explained that Krusty (note spelling) the Clown had laryngitis from “trying to cram too many k sounds into a punch line.”

The K Rule is a good convention for naming things and making word choices that will subconsciously or subtly amuse your readers. This tool is especially handy in crafting attention-grabbing titles or subheads. Consider this memorable section heading in the book You Staying Young: The Owner’s Manual for Extending Your Warrantyby Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz: “Your Memory: Don’t Fuggedaboudit.”

2. THE RULE OF THREE

Writing comedically usually requires establishing a pattern (with the setup) and then misdirecting the reader (with the punch line). One simple way of doing this is to pair two like ideas in a list and then add a third, incongruent, idea. The reason we use a list of three, and not five or 27, is that three is the number of things we can most easily remember (two if we haven’t yet had our coffee or been tasered awake by our boss). Here’s an example of a sentence using the Rule of Three: Losing weight is simple: Eat less, exercise more and pay NASA to let you live in an anti-gravity chamber.

This is one of the most flexible ways to naturally incorporate humor into your narrative. It’s particularly useful in crafting catchy article ledes, like this opening paragraph from Jean Chatzky’s “Interest Rates Are Going Up. Now What?” in More:

Let me predict a few things that will happen in the next year. Brad and Angelina will add another baby to their brood. The day you spend $175 getting your hair done is the day it will rain. And the variable-interest rates—on your savings account, mortgage and credit card—will go up.

Here she uses two amusing, less important ideas as the pattern and throws in her point at the end, as the “punch.”

3. THE COMPARISON JOKE

As writers, we’re comfortable with metaphors, so think of comparison jokes as simply metaphors chosen specifically for comedic effect. Here’s an example from the late Robert Schimmel’s memoir Cancer on $5 a Day* (*Chemo Not Included):

… this stupid hospital gown is riding up my ass. I try to pull it down and it snaps right back up like a window shade. I cross my legs and suddenly I’m Sharon Stone.

To craft a comparison joke, simply brainstorm metaphors and then choose the one that is funniest and makes the point well. For example, if you want to convey that quitting smoking is difficult, you might first mentally list things that are tough, such as reading without your glasses, flossing a cat’s teeth, getting a teen to tell you about his day, getting a cat to tell you about its day while flossing its teeth, etc. Then, simply choose the comparison that makes you laugh. In comedy writing, we’re always our first audience.

4. THE CLICHÉ JOKE

If comedy relies on misdirection, what better way to achieve it than with a phrase your readers already know? If you write, “You can lead a horse to water …” every reader will assume you’re going to finish with “… but you can’t make him drink.” Taking the cliché elsewhere can be both attention-grabbing and amusing. Take the title of Sarah Snell Cooke’s Credit Union Times article about a credit union initiative dubbed THINK: “You Can Lead a Horse to Water But You Can’t Make Him THINK.”

Don’t limit yourself to old idioms: Cliché jokes can work with any widely known catchphrase, title, lyric or piece of literature (say, Dr. Seuss). Lyla Blake Ward’s book How to Succeed at Aging Without Really Dying, for example, is titled with a play on the well-known musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. You also don’t need to confine your creativity to just replacing a word or two. Taking a cliché and expanding upon it is another useful approach. For example, on Lauren Kessler’s companion blog to her latest book, My Teenage Werewolf, she writes:

I will always, always have your back. That’s the one message above all other messages (even the I love you message) that I want Lizzie and my two sons to hear. … How do I manage to send that message and not simultaneously send this one: I am available, at your beck and call, 24/7. Don’t even think about what else I might have on my plate or who I am as a person in addition to being your mother. I have no life other than to serve you.

5. FUNNY ANECDOTES AND STORIES

Most of the things we laugh at in real life are true stories, sometimes exaggerated for effect. In fact, experts say we laugh far more at these types of everyday happenings than at “jokes.” It makes sense, then, to use them to help illustrate your points as you write. When Your Money or Your Life authors Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin wanted to demonstrate the importance of changing the way we think about money, they did so by telling the story of a young girl watching her mother prepare a ham to bake for dinner. As the mother cut both ends off the ham, the daughter asked why. Mom replied that her mother had always done it that way. When the daughter still insisted on knowing why, a quick call to grandma revealed the reason: “Because the pan was too small.”

Putting It Into Practice

Now you’ve got five basic comedic tools in your arsenal, and you’re ready to put them to use in your work. As with trying anything new, you don’t want to overdo it and come on too strong, but you don’t want to stifle your creativity, either. Here are five ways to effectively apply what you’ve learned to any kind of nonfiction work:

1.    BE STRATEGIC. Don’t scatter jokes willy-nilly; instead, think of humor as parenthetical information. Many nonfiction writers find the best places to integrate humor are in titles, sidebars, visual illustrations or cartoons, and anecdotes to illustrate their points. For a great example of the use of visual humor, see Roizen and Oz’sYou Staying Young.

2.    USE IT SPARINGLY. Unless you’re writing about an inherently funny topic, you should limit the humor you use to selective references. Its purpose is to grab the reader’s attention and help you make points in creative ways. Don’t confuse the reader by coming across as a comedian.

3.    KEEP YOUR FOCUS IN MIND. Be sure your use of humor doesn’t distract from or demean the true purpose of your project. Have someone read your manuscript and then give you a candid critique with this in mind.

4.    LET YOUR READERS KNOW YOU’RE LAUGHING. When using humor in writing about a difficult subject—your own illness, for example—your first responsibility is to give your readers permission to laugh. Find subtle ways to let them know that not only is it OK to laugh, but you want them to.

5.    STEER CLEAR OF SARCASM. This humor style may work in some arenas, but many readers find it hurtful and mean, and because it often relies on tone, it can be especially hard to pull off in writing. Sarcasm is a tool most of us pick up at a young age as a way of feeling better about ourselves by putting others down. I recommend leaving it there.

As writers, it’s up to us to use everything we can to make sure we lasso our readers and keep them in the corral. Don’t let fear of being funny on the page hold you back. After all, I wasn’t class clown in high school. In fact, had there been such a category, I would have been voted Most Likely to Depress People (Sylvia Plath and Edgar Allan Poe were my role models). But I’ve learned that an old saying is true: “If you can get them to open their mouths to laugh, you can get them to open their hearts to learn.” And that makes for effective writing.”

[found on http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/how-to-mix-humor-into-your-writing]