Some people are natural-born phrase twisters. The rest of us will likely need some help.

Want to write twists of phrase that are as clever as puns in literature? Can you write the corporate equivalent of Oscar Wilde’s play, “The Importance of Being Earnest”? Could you pull off a compound pun, twist a list, or list, rhyme and twist?

Here’s a process for hunting down the muse:

1. Identify your topic word.

What’s the key word in your story?

2. Find related words.

Create a list of synonyms, antonyms, rhyming words, homophones and other related words. Find words and phrases that sound similar to your topic word. These tools should get you started:

• Visual Thesaurus. This thesaurus presents search results as a series of three-dimensional maps of connotative associations.
• OneLook Reverse Dictionary. It’s like a thesaurus on steroids.
• Google “homophone for (your topic word).” Find words that sound like your key words so you can sub a soundalike.

The best words to play with are fluent words — that is, they’re short (one syllable’s best), sweet and easy to pronounce. “World,” for instance, is going to give you a lot more options for wordplay than “international.”

Finding the right word is the first step toward better wordplay. These tools can help you get there faster.

Don’t try to keep these words in your head. It’s easier to play with your words if you get them down on paper or on the screen.

3. Find familiar phrases to twist.

There are lots of great tools out there to make this easy. Among them:

• Phrase Thesaurus. This searchable database of the largest collection of English-language phrases and sayings available on the web is like an online sound bite generator.
• Internet Movie Database. Find movie titles to twist.
• Lyrics.com. Find song titles and lyrics to twist.

4. Play twister.

Take your list of phrases and start substituting words.

Sam Horn, author of POP! The Art and Science of Creating the Next New Thing, is the goddess of developing creative book titles. She uses these techniques to come up with twists of phrase:

• Reverse phrases.
• Replace words.
• Try different spellings.
• Substitute your key word for words that start with the same letter. (“Movers and shakers,” for instance, could become “mothers and shakers.”)

Here’s how it works …

.. in an IABC Southern Region Silver Quill call for entries:

Nothing Entered. Nothing Gained.

.. on a Men’s Health headline about how chocolate may be even more healthy than previously thought:

Avoid Death, Buy Chocolate

… atop a business-to-business review of a marketing book:

Life’s a pitch … and then you buy

Avoid stupid word tricks.

The Poynter Institute’s Roy Peter Clark once asked, “What value is there in a story of a renegade rooster that falls back on “foul play,” or, even worse, ‘fowl play’?”

Wordplay is great. Unless it’s not. Then it can be awful.

How can you create wordplay that’s witty, and not a joke?

• Have a process. Don’t just sit waiting for inspiration to slap you across the face.
• Go beyond the surface of the story. Be specific. Get past the topic to the angle. Your phrases for “money” are going to be a lot shallower than those for “managing your unexpected inheritance.”
• Throw away your first three ideas. Push past “Making ‘cents’ of your medications” to something more sophisticated and original. If you spend no more than 45 seconds coming up with a concept, is it any wonder that it’s a groaner?
• Remember, a little alliteration goes a long way.
• Don’t twist overused phrases.

When Molly Ivins wrote a piece about a chicken-killing festival, she didn’t fall back on:

Fowl play

Instead of the late, great columnist famously described the event as a:

Gang pluck

The post How to write a pun appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

When edible marijuana consumption spiked, the Omaha World Herald came up with this headline and deck:

Baking Bad

Police say edible forms of pot hit new high

List, rhyme and twist is just one way to come up with a stellar twist-of-phrase headline. Here are four techniques to try:

1. List, rhyme and twist.

Call it list, rhyme and twist:

• Start with a list of keywords from your article. Baking, maybe.
• Find words that rhyme with your keywords. These rhyming dictionaries will help. Maybe you’ll come up with Breaking.
• Find familiar phrases that include those rhyming words. See the phrase resources below. Breaking Bad.
• Twist the familiar phrase by subbing in your original key word. Baking Bad.

When a shortage of telephone numbers required that Colorado residents use area codes on local calls, the Rocky Mountain News newspaper headline substituted a rhyming word into a 1948 movie title:

Sorry, long number

This headline from a New York Times “DataBank” piece covering a blistering (and bearish) week in August played off a familiar phrase:

It’s Not the Heat, It’s the Economy

And eMarketer editors used this approach to create this line to head a story covering Playboy.com:

Silly Rabbit, These Clicks Aren’t For Kids

How can you list, rhyme and twist your way to a winning feature headline? Of course, you’ll avoid groan-worthy punny headlines. But when you use words that sound similar, you can come up with a good pun that’s worthy of the front pages of the New York Post.

2. Switch a vowel.

Copy editors for The Los Angeles Times dropped an “o” from a word to create this headline, an ACES award winner:

A circuit bard for Silicon Valley

Computerese isn’t the only language in the capital of high tech. Today, the ‘Hollywood for engineers’ unveils its first poet laureate

Want to write an award-winning headline yourself? Play with the English language. Try switching, dropping or adding a vowel.

3. Flip a phrase.

When a former aspiring governor from Virginia shifted gears, The Washington Post copy editors came up with this headline:

Now, the oyster is his world

Ken Cuccinelli has shucked off the sting of his Virginia gubernational defeat to find a new venture: Bringing a sustainable source of jobs to Chesapeake’s Tangier Island

One easy way to twist a phrase is to shift the order of the words. When New York magazine covered the story of angry residents calling the MTA’s removal of 81 trees “arborcide,” editors twisted the title of a best-selling grammar book for this headline:

MTA kills shoots and leaves

The Washington Post’s Jim Webster flipped and switched for this headline:

The man who put the mettle in the petal

A basement botanist helped revive the rose

How can you create a new phrase just by flipping the words in a familiar one?

4. Find phrases to twist.

How do you write an award-winning headline like this?

Party like it’s $19.99

Local decorator shows you how to entertain on a tight budget

Adapt titles or lyrics of popular songs, movies, plays, TV shows, ads, company slogans or product names.

And here are some resources to get you started. Plug your key words into these databases to find familiar sayings that include your terms:

• Common phrases: PhraseFinder
• Movie titles: Internet Movie Database
• Music lyrics: Lyrics.com

Get more wordplay resources.

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