How It Took Me Only 9 Months to Write a 500-Word Humor Piece
Behind the scenes on my most recent humor piece
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I’m not like a regular writer, I’m a slow writer.
I know other humor writers who are very good at writing great short humor pieces very quickly (which I am kind of jealous about) but I generally take longer to write a piece.
One example is my most recent humor piece that ran in McSweeney’s this month: “We Are the Babies of the World, and We are Keeping Track of People Who Are Being Jerks About Us.”
In looking back at my Google Docs, I wrote the first draft of this piece nine months ago. So how did I write a less than 500-word humor piece in nine months? I’m glad you asked…
Initial Idea
I think the basic idea for something on this topic is something I had been mulling for a while — that people complain about babies and kids in public spaces in a way that makes it seem like they forget they are just people. I think I tried to think of some ways to turn these thoughts into a humor piece in the past but it didn’t quite materialize.
Then last spring I got an idea after there was a new round of complaining about babies on airplanes over some incident that I forget the details of now.
My initial idea was to write from the point of view of a baby on a plane. The title in the early draft looks like it was: “I’m a baby on a plane, and I’m keeping track of people who are being jerks about me.” It was told from one baby’s point of view in the opening of the piece but then later in the piece started speaking about all babies with a “we” point of view.
Feedback
After I had a decent draft I sent it out for feedback to a couple of writers I frequently trade feedback with. At this point, I don’t send 100% of the pieces I write out for feedback, but I frequently do and I always get good revision ideas from it.
If you don’t have people you regularly trade with I think taking classes, participating in online writing groups, and attending conferences can help to find good feedback partners.
I also think it can take a while to find people who are a good fit for your work/what you need from feedback. When I was first starting out, I sometimes got feedback that was not that helpful for me, so it may take some trial and error to find critique partners who are a good fit.
Some of the feedback I got on the babies piece made me realize it was probably better to just focus on the point of view of all babies rather than just one and it helped me decide what other parts of the piece to tweak/cut/keep.
Letting it sit
Sometimes after I get feedback on a piece I decide the piece may not be working and I set it aside (for a few weeks to forever). I thought the baby idea was still good but there were other writing projects/papers to grade/life events that I was prioritizing so it got set aside for longer than I initially intended.
Earlier this year I got some time to look at it again and still liked it/thought it was working, so I did a round of edits on it and then brainstormed several different titles.
Letting something sit for a long time is often a good thing for me when a piece is evergreen because I can come back to it with fresh eyes and see what is working/not working better.
A note on titles
I think titles for humor pieces (and really most writing on the internet) are really important. The past couple of years I’ve tried to get better at writing humor titles because they can help make it clear that a piece is humor, get someone to actually click on (and ideally even read) a piece, and they can help me crystalize what the piece is about.
Here are some of the titles I brainstormed for this piece:
An open letter from the babies of the world
An open letter to the jerks of the world from us, the babies of the world
An open letter from the babies of the world to people who complain about us
We, the babies of the world, are keeping track of who is being a jerk about us
It’s us, the babies of the world, and we are keeping track of people who are being jerks to us
Just a reminder that we, the babies of the world are going to take over the world
A lot of the titles were similar with just slight tweaks to wording, which I think can make a difference. I often look at the titles of pieces on humor sites when I am trying to come up with my own titles and also often ask for feedback on different title options from my feedback partners.
For this one, I landed on a title that hopefully conveyed the point of view without giving away too much.
After I had the piece in pretty good shape I submitted it to New Yorker Shouts and they rejected it (womp) and then to McSweeney’s and they accepted it (woot!).
Closing Takeaways
Writing slowly can be good sometimes. I do sometimes write humor pieces faster (like this one I did for Frazzled). Tying something to an upcoming holiday or recent event can motivate me to prioritize something (having more ideas than I have time to write is a frequent problem of mine), but the downside of timely pieces is there is a shorter window to find a home for them and I think letting things sit for a while can also help me to improve them.
Writing slowly can be bad sometimes. I have another piece I started working on last summer that I think is a good idea but I recently saw two pieces on the same general topic go up and now I’m wondering if my take on it is different enough. I may need to find another angle on it or just let it sit some more. Taking time in the short humor world does run the risk that something similar may go up first.
Don’t mess with babies — they are going to take over the world.
Need a gift book for the new or expecting parent in your life? I’ve got just the one.
9 months to write a piece about babies seems perfect
Thanks for sharing this, Julie! I’ve always struggled with writing non-timely pieces — without the forced deadline, I often find my idea fizzles out and I never get around to finishing it. I may need to revisit some of my half-baked pieces and try to see them through!