Writing a One-Liner: The Anatomy of a Really Short Joke
Jul 13, 2014
A few weeks ago, I posted a one-liner (as I try to do on a daily basis) on Facebook. One-liners are very short jokes; most of the time, one line. This particular post got a lot of likes, one from one of my ex-wives.
The post was: I'm afraid my Restless Legs Syndrome may be kicking in.
Later that day, I got an email from said ex-wife asking me to explain the thought process that led to the above post. So… here's what I told her:
"I was having a little heartburn and my sister handed me a heartburn pill saying, 'This may take a while to kick in.'
So, I started thinking about the phrase "kick in" and wondered what would be an unusual item to have "kick in." The first thing I thought of was Nazi goose-stepping. But Nazi jokes may offend some people and goose-stepping doesn't really "kick in" because you have to consciously start doing it. So I though about RLS (Restless Legs Syndrome) and how it cause people to unconsciously kick during sleep. People with RLS literally kick, in their sleep.
Although I don't suffer from RLS, I generally make the jokes about myself and afflictions that I may or may not have. And that was that. That, ex-wife, is how a one-liner gets written."
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