Writing Tips
- Tap into a jarring thought, a complex emotion, a contradictory behavior, an absurd scenario, or a general societal observation - however rude, embarrassing, or illegal. Try to not make your card as overwrought and pretentious as the previous sentence. Make every word count. The key is that your sentiment rings true, but also feels like something people haven't quite heard before.
- Let the image help tell the story - a glance, outfit, time period, unexpected pairing, odd gesture, or age can do wonders to elevate a well-crafted dick joke.
- Keep your card to one sentence with no question marks or exclamation points. This is a general rule of the site for the sake of compactness and consistency. Rules can be fun!
- Do a gut check on whether it's "sendable." Would someone want to receive your card? Will they "get" it? Will they read too much into it and think the sender is desperately unhappy in his or her job or relationship with them? If you answered "yes, "yes," and "I'm an unemployed loner" then it's probably fine.
- If you love your card right away, something may be horribly wrong. Take a break, then come back to reevaluate. Is your card clear in its intended message? Is it a mind-blowingly profound insight on the human condition? Is it sort of funny? Maybe run it by a few friends to check. Then edit the words or image for a long enough time span that you can't even remember what you're doing or why. Continue this until you confidently admire your card or start feeling incomprehensibly alone in the universe. That means you're done!
-Brook Lundy, co-founder & head writer
The key to a good someecard is to be able to access all the experiences where you felt anxiety, embarrassment, humiliation, anger, loathing, self-loathing, social awkwardness, fear, overwhelming fear, schadenfreude, rage, loneliness, anhedonia and perhaps even mild hunger. Then make sure you have a burning desire to spend hours with those horrifying moments to reduce them into a pithy humorous sentence with the hope of mildly amusing a bunch of strangers so they can somehow get through another bleak day at work.
-Andrew Kosow, contributor with overwhelming anxiety the create-your-own section will result in the founders finding much better contributors
- It's usually not enough to just observe some ridiculous piece of news. Some of the most successful cards take a current event or trend and add a personal twist.
- A good way to test a card's effectiveness is to read it aloud in your office without any introduction. If three or more people laugh or gasp, you're golden. If someone files a complaint with HR, take heart - your card is almost guaranteed to make it onto the most emailed list.
- A someecard is like a long, stream-of-consciousness email to an ex-boyfriend: Sure, you can write it late at night after four glasses of wine. But wait until the morning to decide whether it's still worth sending.
- When in doubt...blue balls, drunken debauchery, and inadvisable sex never cease to be funny. Bonus points if you can get all three into one card.
-J. Courtney Sullivan, contributor/token vagina-haver
So the multitude of ecards I've painstakingly slaved over for your enjoyment suddenly aren't good enough anymore? You want to write your own? You think you're better than me? You think it's easy to do online research without having to stop every few minutes to indulge in virus-spewing porn that slows down my computer and makes that research even more difficult? You think it's a walk in the park to not get sidetracked on Facebook by friends of friends' ex-girlfriends' friends which eventually leads me to virus-spewing porn which slows my computer to a snail's pace for very important research? Well, good luck to you, friends. I hope you and your disgusting porn addiction know what you're in for.
-Justin Laub, contributor and big part of the problem
- Try to find just the right combination of real and ridiculous.
- Use this opportunity to hit on someone you otherwise wouldn't because of your terrible social skills.
- Send your card and then face the devastating paranoia it's not nearly as funny as you thought.
- Create another card that apologizes for the one you just sent.
-Danny Palmer, contributor always open to reconnecting with exes
Let your actual relationships be the catalysts for your ideas. In other words, what do you actually want to say to a friend/colleague/superhot-but-
morally-bankrupt boss? If your idea doesn't reflect a real impulse to communicate something, it might be too contrived. For example, I have an elderly neighbor who always takes the garbage can from my driveway and uses it. After my vicious retaliation, I needed a message that would apologize but also warn him to keep a safe distance. That relationship now inspires most of the cards I write.
-Matt Cheplic, contributor who's one trash day away from a rampage
Write what makes you laugh. The Web is vast enough that odds are good somebody else out there will laugh, too. If not, congratulations on making yourself laugh.
-Sandy Dietrick, contributor/titlephobe
