My Fourth Week With The Onion – Shock!

Shocking Face
I couldn’t find a good picture of a shocked adult, so here’s a child who just learned her social studies teacher is way into bondage.

Recently I took a writing class with The Onion and started reporting about my weekly submissions.

Click Here For Week 1

Click Here For Week 2

Click Here For Week 3

Throughout the course we were taught the math behind The Onion’s News In Brief articles, the structure and composition of those articles, where to insert jokes, and how to tighten them up for maximum funny. I posted a few weeks worth of homework here, and then stopped. The reason for this is explained below. READ MORE

My Second Week With The Onion – Sophomore Slump

See, because Camel cigarettes have a Camel as their spokesperson, but he prefers the compet...
Confused
The average reaction to my headlines on Week 2

A few weeks ago I started a humor writing class with The Onion.

In this course we are taught about satire and how The Onion approaches comedy. The publication is known for its sharp, pithy headlines and these headlines are the primary focus of the class. Headlines, in fact, are so important, it’s how The Onion selects articles for publication. Every week hundreds of headlines are submitted by editors and five or so articles emerge from that list. Their very best writers only have about a 1 in 50 chance of their headline becoming an article. We are asked each week to bring our ten best headlines and one article to be evaluated by classmates and instructor. READ MORE

Hits (And Misses) From My Writing Class With The Onion

national lampoon vincent van gogh cover

In April 1992 I fell in love with National Lampoon Magazine.

I bought my first issue at a local drugstore and raced home, excited to find out if this would be a worthy successor to my Mad Magazine fascination as a child. I had matured, albeit slightly, and was seeking a more sophisticated type of funny. I found it in National Lampoon. I decided after reading the issue that I would make it a life’s goal to write something worthy of the magazine’s inclusion. The problem was that as a sophomore in high school, I had never written anything. Plus, I was unfunny. Oh, and the National Lampoon quit publishing about a year later. I shelved the dream of being a writer and re-focused my efforts on trying to bone senior Ashley Ripley who once smiled at me in homeroom, to which I assumed meant she wanted this (note – pointing currently at self). She didn’t. READ MORE