Humor feels so effortless when you see it in movies and TV

[JoshRaed]

Like my sister is watching Steven Universe for the first time, and in one episode Steven escapes a simulation of beach city and bites Garnets arm to see if she's real, and Amethyst gets excited and bites pearls arm just because she can. It's a really funny joke and just emerges naturally from the events of the episode.

Or Cinderella 3, when prince Charming is about to go find Cinderella but the king wants him to marry Anastasia, and forbids him from taking another step down this staircase, so he jumps out the window instead. That's also a really good natural joke.

Or when Morticia Addams announces her pregnancy and then just casually says she's giving birth right this second, smash cut to her being ran down a hospital bed. It's such a good simple joke.

Even Shrek the Third, a famously bad comedy, had Shrek snarking on prince charming in a way that felt natural to the situation he was in and even funny.

I can't imagine these jokes took high effort to think up, but when I write for my own story it just doesn't happen. Every time something even vaguely humorous happens it's actively forced in there by me because I wanted there to be humor, and it's never any good. Like I cannot imagine a situation where a character I write would naturally say something that causes a joke to naturally emerge from it. But stories like these, I could easily see these jokes not happening despite the setup still existing, because the situation feels so natural. Like if you had told me that all three of these jokes came from the writers just imagining a funny thing that could happen in this situation without planning for the joke to happen, I'd believe you. But I just cannot find any humor in the things I write somehow, not even bad humor. Even trying to describe the jokes I found in my writing I just describe things that are supposed to be jokes but aren't because I could not find a joke in the situation this character exists in.

This is not an advice thread I just wanted to vent slightly about my lack of ability to write jokes for fiction.

[moontokkym]

The thing is: some probably did.
You know how if you watch sports competitions like say horse riding, or gymnastics the athletes make it look seamless? Like you can see it's impressive, but it barely looks like they broke a sweat galloping through those trees or swinging from that pole? Yeah that stuff HURTS and took YEARS to practice so that they could get to the skill level where that is just a low-level difficulty to them, and even so they still have to make the effort to do the thing regardless of their current skill.

Comedy writing is hard, but when it's done well it looks like it almost happened accidentally. This isn't advice on how to write jokes, this is saying that you're holding yourself up to a standard you think other people are at, when this standard is totally imaginary. Especially at the start of your writing journey jokes are going to be difficult, so put the effort into them. It's not a sign of failure that you have to think hard or rewrite them.

[Lensing]

IMO writing humor is the hardest thing to write.
Writing timeless humor is really rare, a lot of humour is outdated very
quickly and not funny any more. After a short time most humour seems
awkward to watch and hard to imagine that people used to laugh about it.

Like in other genres it´s very individual what someone finds funny, scary, romantic etc.
And I think it tells a lot about a person what they find funny.

That being said you are not alone with the lack of ability to write jokes which are funny
to others

[DokiDokiTsuna]

I can't imagine these jokes took high effort to think up,

WHOA THERE--

...I'll admit, for some writers it may actually be that easy. A lot of people are just naturally funny, and can say and come up with entertaining things on the fly.

But there are also people who need 3 weeks or 3 months to come up with a good joke, and I can say that with confidence because I'm one of them. ^^; Many times I've wished I was "naturally" funny or "effortlessly" funny, but I'm not and that's why I'm a writer with the freedom to take my time. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, and the audience won't notice or care.

Like @moontokkym said, the whole point is to make it look easy. If you're a writer or any other kind of entertainer, it's your responsibility to make your job look easy, so your audience can relax and have fun with your work. Your peers are the ones who are supposed to think "man, this must have been so difficult; props to them for putting in the effort"...if most of your audience is thinking that, (a) you likely didn't do a good job, and (b) they're probably not adding the "props to them" part. :T

Conversely, if you're watching media and thinking that it looks really easy to make the writing funny and good, congrats; you're getting the intended experience. But, y'know, as a peer (I assume) you should be able to see past that intended experience and understand how much went into it without looking down on yourself. Even if the initial act of writing the joke was easy, whole teams of directors, actors, storyboarders and animators collaborated to make those jokes work.

[Caro]

Humor comics are my bread and butter and I also write and perform comedy on the side.

I promise that if something appears to be effortless then chances are there is actually a ton of effort going on in the background whether its in the actual construction of the joke or in the years of experience in comedy writing it took to have that level of comedic instinct.

Comedy is a skill that people practice and hone over time just like anything else.

[NickRowler]

Some writers are known as being comedy writers. Some may even be ghost writers who punch up the script. I also notice a lot of comedian writers have a history in improv or theater.

The reason why people can think up jokes so fast is they had training in it. Some might just encourage voice actors to adlib and write the scenes around that. Like the “I am so smart” song from the Simpsons misspelling smart. “SMRT” was not in the original script but got kept in because it was funny and fit the character.

[kyupol]

Ask yourself the question "what kind of stuff do I find funny?"

My answer: politically incorrect, mockery, sarcasm, stupidity, when someone can't get anything right, trolling, slapstick, etc.

Then run with it.

[Leyelle]

Most people put effort into their humor writing, even when their jokes are really good. Humor is a skill you have to develop. Most people make a LOT of really not funny jokes before they make funny ones. It just takes time. Plus TV shows and movies have tons of people working on them and screening jokes to make sure they're really funny before we ever get to see them. I brainstorm my jokes with my siblings before releasing my comics, and though many of the jokes we just come up with by talking as my characters, they still get refined before the end product. So, humor takes work, believe me

[MelancholicOtaku]

Nothing is effortless, the best way to improve any form of writing including humor takes time and practice.
Also you may find some readers who find your humor cringe and others who find it funny.

[jwabeasley]

I can't imagine these jokes took high effort to think up, but when I write for my own story it just doesn't happen.

I know you said it's not an advice thread, but I hope you'll excuse me for offering some.

Writing jokes like that flows from having great characters. It takes a long time to get characters right, but you know you've got it when no matter what situation they're in, the humor or drama just flows naturally. Of course, the technical elements take practice - timing, spacing, funny facial expressions and poses, the works. Keep chipping away at your characters in the design phase until the vibe you want proceeds naturally from the characters.

Take this comic:

Veronica is an extremely earnest character, and her father reserved and serious. It might be difficult to come up with jokes with these two 'straight man' archetypes - but their relationship and the specifics of their personalities are such that they can still spark off each other.

Get yourself a great cast, and you'll have my issue instead - having way more jokes and fun scenarios in mind than you can possibly produce. My sketchbooks are full of them.

Steven Universe is a great example of this - you can look up the pilot and see the unfinished version: not nearly as funny, even though the production is all seasoned professionals. It took extra character and design work to bring it out to the perfect vibe.

[Amalockh1]

As someone once said: “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.”
Also humor is pretty subjective, and sometimes ideas that might seem incredibly funny to an author aren't so funny to readers.
I once considered doing a gag-a-day comic strip , but I found it very difficult to think of many jokes, so I ended up discarding the idea.

[JoshRaed]

Sometimes I think of hypothetical jokes I think would be funny, but have no way of fitting into my own writing. Like all the jokes I have thought of in my past that I thought were clever just did not fit it into a piece of fiction, to the point that I think a lot of them would be genuinely obnoxious in the mouth of a fictional character we're rooting for, like when I made a tumblr post with the phrase "Media Literussy" and then read it back a few months later and died laughing at the realization that I wrote down the phrase "Media Literussy". But I can't give that line to a fictional character and also it only makes sense in the context of the exact post I wrote, where I was doing this whole bit that "Media literussy" was just a part of.

[Lensing]

that´s a good point to consider when writing humor.
It´s always context and the person who says it which makes it funny

[kyupol]

Try watching lots of funny movies, stand up comedy, and YouTube has a ton of funny videos of all types of comedy.