Content

• Steps
• Tips

Being funny may be difficult, but being witty is even more difficult. To be witty, you have to be sharp, smart, and resourceful to fight back. Your wit and sense of humor should make people laugh until they can, or smile at themselves. Whether you're already witty and hoping to hone your skills or want to learn how to develop a witty sense of humor, just follow these simple tips and you will succeed.

Steps

1. 1 Learn from witty people. The easiest way to improve your wit is to learn from other people who have a great sense of humor. There are many ideas to learn how to do, from movies to your close, hilarious friends. Here's how you can learn wit from others:
   • Spend more time with people you find especially witty, family members, close friends, or just acquaintances you would like to get to know better. Write down what they say when they make people laugh. Watch their facial expressions, their delivery, their timing.
   • Read literature written by witty people like Shakespeare, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, or even comedians like Garfield or Dilbert. You can learn a lot from witty people (or animals) of any generation.
   • Watch TV shows or movies that feature witty people. Woody Allen's films are always witty characters.
2. 2 Be confident in yourself. Before you start wowing people with your mind, you need to show a confident feeling that you are comfortable telling jokes. If you are confident in yourself, people will believe more in your abilities, including your ability to charm people with your mind. Namely this way:
   • When telling a joke, the gestures should be positive. While you don't have to do the show in front of an audience, just stand upright, speak clearly, and look in the eyes as you finish the joke will help you in the end.
   • Be confident in who you are. If you love yourself for who you are and what you do, people will appreciate you and your sense of humor.
   • Show confidence in your jokes. Tell your jokes intelligibly and show that something you are telling seems funny to you. If you demonstrate confidence in your sense of humor, people will be more likely to agree with it. This does not mean that you have to laugh at your jokes, but you should just show them that you care about what people think because you know it’s funny.
3. 3 Be an original thinker. Part of being witty is being able to think outside the box and see the world differently than others do. Being a thoughtful and intelligent person will improve your chances of seeing the world differently. Here are some tips for being original:
   • Read as much as you can. The more you know about the world, the more likely you are to have an objective and unique perspective on the things that surround you.
   • Don't be afraid to be corny. If you are free and open, your sense of humor will make people laugh. For example, if your girlfriend asks you to go to the store for pears, you might say, "I'll do it mentally."
   • Come up with new words. For example, if you and your friends gossip all the time about a girl named Emily and you’re tired of it, you can say, “I’ll show you Emily-Bamily!” Although people may roll their eyes, they will appreciate this silly concert of yours.
   • Find new uses for traditional phrases. For example, if you are walking out of a public toilet and a person of the opposite sex comes up to you and asks, "Is this a girls' toilet?" And you can answer, "How girly do you need a toilet?"
     • For example, the question "How would you spend one million dollars?" implies all possible creative thinking responses. Answering "Happily enough" is a humorous form of response.
4. 4 Immerse yourself in your audience. Understanding your audience is the key to success. While you need to work on developing your humor, you should always be aware of the type of people around you and the specific things they find funny or offensive. Here's how:
   • Never forget to listen. By listening to the people around you, you can understand what they think is funny, what they find a pure insult because it's a subtle topic, or how to comment on something later in a humorous manner.
   • Be sensitive. If you are surrounded by people who are very sensitive to religion, for example, then try to avoid jokes about this topic. Not only may they not appreciate your wit, but they also may not want to communicate with you anymore.
   • Tailor jokes to your audience. Tell dirty jokes to a more hippie, younger crowd, and keep innocent jokes for grandparents unless they can laugh at anything.
   • Get a feel for when people are not in the mood for humor. While wit should be appreciated under any circumstance, if you are around someone who is very upset or sick, telling a joke can cheer them up, or that person may become even more upset. Be carefull.
5. 5 Know how to present correctly. Even the best joke can fail if you misrepresent it.The pitch is something you can practice in front of a mirror, or even with a tape recorder, before showing your joke in front of an audience. But even if your jokes are spontaneous, there are some tips that can help you improve your presentation.
   • Speak clearly. Make your jokes clear and confident. If you mumble, people may ask you to repeat and the humor will be lost.
   • Remember - the moment is everything. In part, being witty is being sharp and quick, so don't hesitate for a long time or people won't understand how your comment relates to the conversation.
   • Try a deadpan presentation. If you're really confident, tell the joke in a flat tone and wait for people to laugh. You shouldn't sound like you think you said something incredibly funny. Part of being witty is being a "I don't care if you're funny" person.
   • Don't shout down to everyone. There should be no nonsense, many good jokes lose their meaning if a person tells them when someone else speaks. Wait for the right moment and join the general conversation.
6. 6 Do not overdo it. By going through all the steps you have taken, you can become witty and increase your chances of being funny. However, you shouldn't overdo it to make people laugh, or they will feel sorry for you instead of thinking you are funny. Here's how to avoid overdoing it:
   • Relax. Even if you are showing new poignancy, be relaxed. Stay calm when you tell your jokes, and don't raise your voice unnaturally or look around to check your listeners' reactions.
   • Don't tell a lot of jokes in one sitting. Being funny several times a day is more effective than trying to tell a joke every five minutes and expecting nine out of ten jokes to be funny.
   • Rest assured if your jokes fail. If no one is laughing at the jokes, just shake it off and say, "I'll finish them next time" or "Oops - not the right audience." If it’s too obvious that you’re upset, or that you’ve been silent for an entire evening, people will see that you are too concerned that they weren’t laughing.
   • Take a break. If you've already told a few jokes, take it easy for the rest of the evening and keep an eye on the cheerful people around you. If you're too fixated on being funny, you may be missing out on something important that might help you in the future.

Tips

• Being witty is one thing, but if you are sarcastic all the time, it would be wise to reduce that level of sarcasm, otherwise people will not take you seriously.
• Remember that you can make a mistake, but still remain witty in the eyes of other people. Even the best comedians can't make people laugh with their jokes all the time.
• Repetition is the death of humor. Don't hit a dead horse with your endless "That's what she said!"