Gene Perret is a master of classic humor, and in Comedy Writing Step by Step he coaches the reader from a blank sheet of paper all the way to developing a standup routine. We’re going to adapt a few exercises from the book, and today’s exercise is one of them.

For today’s ten-minute writing exercise:

Select a topic that you would like to write a humor piece about, or just any topic you know well. E.g. the post office.

Write 20 factual statements about that topic. The price of stamps has gone up to 73 cents.

Now, treat each factual statement as the setup to a punchline. Write at least one punchline for each setup sentence. The postmaster had to raise the price of postage so he could afford to send out the new stamps.

Our themes this month are:

• Love in all its forms
• Dialogue
• Comedy Writing Step by Step by Gene Perret

We will also write a complete work of flash fiction together in a week from Feb 17 – Feb 23. No pre-work needed, and as always, zero homework outside of our ten minutes a day. This month we’ll use Dan Harmon’s story circles method to plan out our stories.