CHAPTER 1
What Are Youâa Comedian?
Have you ever watched a comic on stage and thought, âI could do that!â Have you ever watched a television comedy sketch and thought, âYou know, a better ending would have been . . . â Do you tell funny stories that are so great people pass them on to others? If you have, you just might have what it takes to make it in the field of comedy writing.
The Best Job in the World
Being able to write comedyâand get paid for itâis a dream job. You can make a living by doing the very thing you are driven to do. When you work with other comedians, you have a great time and write some great comedy in the process. If you respect your job and your talent, everything else is just icing on the cake. Just be warnedâmost people wonât get what you do. Youâll be at a dinner party, and someone will ask what you do for a living. If you say, âIâm a comedian,â their next question will likely be, âWow, thatâs great, but what do you do for a living?â
Society craves comedy yet dismisses it as a career. But thatâs not important. You will be doing something that makes a big difference in peopleâs lives. Being a comedian is also one of the most important jobs in the world. And itâs a blast! If you have a high opinion of yourself and love what you do, it wonât matter what others think.
âNo Respect, I Tell Ya!â
The late great Rodney Dangerfield spoke for all comedians when he said, âI donât get no respect!â Beginning in grade school, comedians get a bad rep. âStop kidding around!â âStop acting like a clown!â âWhat are you, some kind of comedian?â Comedians and comedy writers tend to be treated by society as second-class artists. What comedians do is fine, but itâs not that important. A comedy movie isnât as important as a drama. A stand-up comedian isnât as important as a poet. A comedy writer is never as important as a âseriousâ novelist.
What people donât realize is it that comedy is just as important as the âseriousâ arts. Where would we be without humor? Comedy is what gets us by, and the world needs more of it. If there were no one around to make fun of all the stupid things that happen everyday, weâd just be stuck with, well, the stupid things that happen every day. If people in authority couldnât be taken down a peg, weâd have to (gasp!) take them seriously.
Respect Yourself
Remember, in the Middle Ages, only the jester could call the kingâs actions into question. Today, comedy can do more to make a change in public opinion than most people realize. Think about it: Do politicians care about what Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report say about them? You bet they do.
A barrage of jokes can bring someone down faster than an editorial in the New York Times. Comedians tend to be prosecutors for the people in the court of public opinion. Itâs serious stuff, this comedy thing. And, while it struggles to get artistic respect, itâs always in high demand in film, TV, comedy clubs, novels, and just about any form of entertainment the public consumes.
Then why doesnât comedy writing get its due? Itâs because good comedians make it look easy, effortless, like theyâre not even trying. People donât see the workâthe writingâinvolved in what comedians do, if they do it right. And comedy writing is workâhard workâbut guess what? Itâs a blast! When you write a joke that works, thereâs no better feeling in the world. It makes all the work, and the second-class status, worthwhile. Maybe Rodney got no respect, but he respected himself, and he could make an audience laugh until they cried. That was all that mattered. If you respect yourself, thatâs all that should matter to you.
Everybodyâs FunnyâExcept Maybe Dick Cheney
Everyone has a sense of humor. Others might not seem all that funny to you, or they might not laugh at the things that make you laugh. But everyone has their own sense of whatâs funny to them.
Were you the class clown? The kid who was always on, always trying to crack everyone up? Or were you the quiet kid who mostly kept to herself and barely spoke, but when you did chime in, you would say something that was really funny?
Everyone can be funnyâyou just need to find your style. You need to figure out how to communicate what you think is funny to your audience, in your own way, and make them think itâs funny too.
People also guard their sense of humor passionately. Thatâs the blessing and the curse of comedyâimmediate feedback. If someone goes to a play featuring an actress who isnât that great, she might make a snide comment to her friends after the show, but she wonât stand up and shout, âYou suck!â in the middle of Act One. But when comedy isnât funny, the audience will tell you. On the spot. You can count on it.
If you make a funny comment, professionally or not, people will let you know that they donât find you witty at all. They wonât even hesitate; itâs almost a defensive reaction: âHow dare you assault my sense of humor!â
Kidding Around: Getting in Touch With Your Inner Child
Boy, does âgetting in touch with your inner childâ sound hokey or what?
But this is not meant in a New Age way at all. It is simply that you need to get back to your sense of play if you want to be a successful comedy writer.
Every child at play is a consummate improvisation expert. When playing with other children, rules donât apply. One minute a kid is Mommy and her doll is the baby and the next minute sheâs Batman and the doll is a bomb she needs to defuse. Children are totally committed to each character they play and the premise theyâre followingâand they can flow to the next âsetâ effortlessly. Why? Because they donât care what people think. Their friends arenât going to judge them, because theyâre all acting the same way.
âAct your age.â Those three words are the enemy of creativity. Weâve always been told âStop kidding around!â or âYouâre too old to behave that way!â Well, if you want to write comedy, you had better start kidding around. You need to let your mind free-associate the same way a child does. You need to stop worrying about what people are going to think. If you donât, youâll never take any chances with your comedy, and taking chances is what good comedy is all about. Playing it safe is what mediocre comedy is all about.
What This Book Will And Wonât Do
It is impossible to teach someone to be funny. It just canât be done. So if you donât really believe youâre funny, this book canât fix that. But obviously, since youâre reading it, you must think youâve got some funny in you. Deep down inside, you think youâre a funny person. The goal of this book is to make you know you are funny. Using the exercises in this book and learning to let go of your inhibitions will get you started on the road to being a comedy writer. It will act like a coach, teaching you to trust your comedic instincts and encouraging you to get your comedy out there to the world.
Youâll mostly be working with sketches and stand-up in this book. They are the most immediate use for your ideas, but of course, your ideas can be used for anything. This book will ask a ton of questions. Asking yourself questions is the key to good comedy. Questioning everything is the only way to get ideas. This book wonât make you funnyâbut if youâre willing to put the work into it, youâll make yourself funnier.
No Shortcuts
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice! Some people are just naturally funny. If youâre one of them, congratulations. But the rest of us have to work at it. Comedy writing is a lot of work, coming up with ideas, working through them, writing them effectively, and performing, refining, and polishing. If you do it properly, no one will even notice all the work.
But if it works, itâs all worth the effort. A well-crafted joke is something you will be really proud of.
Rules? We Donât Need No Stinking Rules!
You wonât be learning comedy by âfilling in the blanksâ with a bunch of comedy formulas. None of that: âHeâs so stupid, he thinks _________ is ________!â Why? Because your end product will sound like formula writing. You want material thatâs fresh and uniq...