Day 3: Your Funny Memoir or Essay Title
Blayr Austin on writing your own funny book title
Welcome to day 3!
Today’s prompt comes from comedy writer and teacher Blayr Austin who I also talked to a while back about Twitter joke writing.
Write the title of your future humorous memoir or essay! This is your opportunity to practice grabbing the reader’s attention and making them want to read more of your work.
One technique that may help you is using Self-Deprecating Humor.
In self-deprecating humor, the humor is aimed at yourself and your flaws as opposed to insulting someone else.
If you make yourself the target of the joke, it can endear you to the audience right away and make them feel more comfortable.
You’ll come across as relatable and likable because we all have imperfections.
If you don’t feel comfortable using this type of humor, write whatever kind of title you like!
Usually, it’s the worst thing you can admit about
yourself that most people can relate to. Right?
—David Sedaris
The title of Sarah Silverman’s memoir is Bedwetter. It alludes to her trouble with bedwetting throughout her childhood. Her willingness to be vulnerable and use self-deprecating humor puts us at ease because we’ve all had embarrassing childhood experiences.
Below are some more examples of titles of different comedic memoirs/essay collections. You’ll notice that some of the titles from the list use self-deprecating humor.
Examples of Titles of Memoirs/Essays
Almost Interesting (David Spade)
Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea (Chelsea Handler)
A Very Punchable Face (Colin Jost)
Bossypants (Tina Fey)
Dad is Fat (Jim Gaffigan)
I Feel Bad About My Neck (Nora Ephron)
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns) (Mindy Kaling)
Quietly Hostile (Samantha Irby)
The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell: Tales of a 6' 4", African American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-Leaning, Asthmatic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama's Boy, Dad, and Stand-Up Comedian (W. Kamau Bell)
Unreliable Narrator: Me, Myself, and Impostor Syndrome (Aparna Nancherla)
Weird But Normal (Mia Mercado)
The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl (Issa Rae)
I can’t wait to see what you come up with!
Blayr (BlayrAustin@gmail.com)
Blayr Austin is a comedy writer and a teacher at The Second City. She created the classes Writing Sadness Through Humor and Writing the Humorous Personal Essay. You can follow her on Twitter @BlayrAustin
Hope you are getting some good lines in! I feel like having people comment on lines both here in comments and in the chat was potentially causing some confusion, so I’m going to try turning off commenting on this post and just using the chat function today since I think it works a bit better for sharing/reacting/conversing.
I may end up switching things up again but will try it for now!