The Angle of Attack

As we’ve already discussed in the Chapter about Topics, a topic on it’s own is neither funny nor interesting. What is essential is your perspective, your approach towards it. Or as my literature teacher used to say: You have to find the Angle of Attack - the one angle that makes it easiest for you to crack the problem.

LET’S DEFINE: Angle of Attack

An Angle of Attack is how you approach a Topic or a Joke Problem.

It is the answer to the following questions: How do you feel about it and what is your attitude toward it?

How do you feel about it?

The emotion with which you attack a Topic can dramatically change what kind of jokes you are going to end up writing. If you love or hate cats will give you completely different angles to think about your Topic. Or do cats make you feel uneasy? Why is that? Or what about if you don’t like cats, but you admire them? Different emotions will lead to different questions. I suggest you print out an emotion wheel and keep one in your notebook and hang another on a wall in your designated writing space.

The same goes for the attitude.

What is your attitude towards it?

The attitude in this context is different from how you feel about a Topic. The attitude is how you present or frame your emotions in your writing.

For example: Yes, cats make you feel uneasy but you pretend they don’t. Naturally your pretending has to be obvious to your audience. This will result in a different set of jokes as simply stating the reasons why you don’t like them.

Or what about an accusing attitude à la “I don’t like cats and I can’t understand why you like cats. They lick their asses in front of you!”?

So ask yourself: What is your attitude presenting it?

Are you high status or are your low status?High or low status refers to how you and other people see your position in a group. Are you at the bottom of the pecking order or at the top?

Are you calm or angry, ironic, sarcastic, exuberant or cocky or, or, or…?

Also: What is the opposing attitude to the emotion you have towards your topic?

For example can you express your love for cats in an angry way? What would that look like?

What jokes will you be able to write when you exchange them one for the other? Lovingly expressing that you hate cats?

I have an Angle of Attack, what now?

If you already have an Angle of Attack you look at your gathered information and search for combinations which support your Angle of Attack. You are looking for answers to: How can I express my feelings and attitude toward the topic with the information I have gathered?

Or differently put: How can I combine the elements I have to express my Angle of Attack in a funny way?

Supercharge your process

Now I told you about the Angle of Attack as a way to search for the Joke Idea. But you can already think about the emotion and the attitude before you even begin gathering the information. This will supercharge your process and probably get you results faster because you will be looking for information that already fits your Angle of Attack.

But you might miss out on different avenues of information a search without an Angle of Attack could have led you to. Naturally after you decided on an Angle of Attack you can always go back and gather more information with it in mind. Just try both and and find out what serves you best.