Humor in Writing
Written humor is a different beast from spoken humor. You don't have timing, tone of voice, or facial expressions to help you. Everything has to be on the page. But written humor has its own advantages: you can revise endlessly, control pacing through sentence structure, and use the reader's imagination to your benefit.
Sentence Structure as Timing
In writing, timing is sentence length. Short sentences create abruptness. Long, winding sentences that meander through multiple clauses and subordinate phrases and parenthetical asides before finally arriving at their destination create a different kind of rhythm entirely. Use the contrast between the two for comedic effect.
The Unexpected Word
One of the simplest techniques in written humor is placing an unexpected word where a predictable one would go. "He gazed lovingly at the spreadsheet" is funny because "lovingly" doesn't belong with "spreadsheet." This is incongruity at the word level.
Understatement and Hyperbole
These are the twin engines of written comedy. Understatement treats something enormous as trivial ("The eruption was somewhat inconvenient"). Hyperbole treats something trivial as enormous ("I would literally rather eat glass than attend another meeting"). Both work by creating a gap between reality and description.
Show, Don't Tell
"He was clumsy" is not funny. "He walked into the room, tripped on the rug, caught himself on the bookshelf, which then fell on the cat" is funny. Specific, concrete details create comedy. Abstract descriptions do not. This applies to observational humor, storytelling, and every other form of written comedy.