"You'll be a great essay".

How to write six types of personal essays by finding the funny in your life.

- ELISSA BASSIST

To demystify the funny personal essay, let’s break it down into its parts:

FUNNY comes in many forms, including but never limited to: observational (comedy in daily life), dark (comedy in tragedy), satirical (weaponized comedy via criticism of bad actors and institutions to change minds/ the world), surreal (comedy about the 5th dimension), and anecdotal (comedy in your personal life).

Funny personal essayists get to/must live the anecdotal life. Sometimes I’ll do something just because it will make a good essay. My niece dated a “Survivor” cast member who was voted off first, and when I met him, I said on accident, “You’ll be a great essay.”

PERSONAL. Your experiences, expertise, feelings, opinions, insights, problems, embarrassments; your perspective, and your voice—all of this is your superpower. It’s what sets you apart from every other essayist, and you want to set yourself apart. As The Rock says, “Don’t be the next me; be the first you.” Also, comedy is about eliciting an emotional reaction, which you need your own emotions to do.

ESSAY, in which your experiences, expertise, feelings, opinions, insights, problems, embarrassments, perspective, and voice come together to illuminate subjects other than you and your exes/parents. A journal entry is not an essay and reproduction is not “writing” and your humiliations alone do not make you poetic (sorry).

Everyone always asks me: “Will you marry me, and what does every funny personal anecdote need to be a publishable funny personal essay?” My answers are “no” and “jokes, scenes, and actions; to be about something and to have an original take; to transcend the personal (via theme or history or culture); and to give readers something they didn’t know or feel before.”