RedStart with something you can see
You don’t need a grand subject to start writing. Sometimes you need a small interruption that makes you look at an ordinary object and say, “Really? Now?”
Here’s a made-up example: you want to print an address label, but the printer asks for a software update. Give the scene two concrete details: the screen says “Update required,” and the page contains just one address. All that machinery. One address.
Keep those details in view. “Technology is annoying” could belong to anybody. A printer holding one address hostage gives you something to work with.
Turn the same moment five ways
These are five prompts for this exercise. You’re looking for possibilities, so let the rough versions be rough.
1. Take it literally
What if “update required” means the printer wants news about your life? “Still renting. Knees are worse. Can I have my label?” Follow the wording somewhere it wasn’t meant to go.
2. Exaggerate
Make the delay bigger, then bigger again. “I waited so long for the address label, the parcel started paying rent.” Let one image grow rather than piling on unrelated absurdities.
3. Reverse the viewpoint
Give the printer a complaint about you. “He’s had three coffees and forgotten the postcode. Somehow I’m the one who needs an update.” Now the supposedly sensible narrator is part of the problem.
4. Find an unexpected comparison
What else makes a simple request feel like an application? Perhaps this printer is a tiny customs office. Your parcel is ready to travel; its address is awaiting clearance.
5. Give the speaker an unreasonable attitude
Make the response comically out of proportion. “Nobody in this house gets to improve themselves until my parcel leaves.” The target becomes your ridiculous little rule, as well as the machine.
Choose one angle. Try three endings.
Take the tiny customs office. It gives the printer far too much authority over a very small job. Keep one setup and test three different ways out:
“I wanted to print one address label. The printer said ‘Update required.’ Apparently it’s running a customs office.”
- “My parcel can leave. The address is awaiting clearance.”
- “It wants a supporting document. That’s the document I’m trying to print.”
- “I’d feel more patient if the label wasn’t for returning the printer.”
These are alternatives, not a compulsory three-joke queue. Choose the ending that makes the setup worth hearing.
Let your mouth edit it
Read the setup and one ending aloud. Notice where you explain something the listener already understands, or where the sentence sounds borrowed from an instruction manual. Cut there.
Try the ending with less introduction. Leave a small pause before the surprise. If you stumble over a phrase twice, say it the ordinary way you’d tell a friend.
You’re choosing what to try next. A line that pleases you on the page still has to earn its place when you say it.
Try it with your own small annoyance
Pick a tiny irritation from your day and write down two concrete details. Set a one-minute timer for each of the five angles: literal interpretation, exaggeration, reversed viewpoint, unexpected comparison and unreasonable speaker attitude.
Choose one angle, write three possible endings, then make a three-line bit: what happened, your comic take, and your chosen ending. Read it aloud and revise the clumsy part.
Keep the detail only you noticed. That’s usually more useful than finding a fancier way to say you were annoyed.
Over to you.
Which angle surprised you, and what detail made the idea feel like yours?
Discuss this article on RedditThis opens the discussion for this article on Red’s Reddit profile.
The practice prompts on the Red Blog are original editorial exercises. Red’s Studio has its own exercises in the private preview.