Writing Comedy

How to use funny plots and characters, wordplay and humour in your creative writing

Lesley Bown, Lesley Hudswell

• Publisher: Teach Yourself
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781473602182
• eBook ISBN: 9781473602205
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Television

Learn how to write comedy that makes people laugh. Masterclass: Writing Comedy will reveal to both beginners and experienced writers the distinctive features that mark out comedy from other forms of creative writing. Having identified these, it will help you then to unlock your inner anarchist, and explore the different elements of comedy, using a combination of practical exercises, insight and creative inspiration. Whatever your preferred comic genre, you will find guidance on everything from wordplay and visual humour to plots, comedy characters and different styles.A section on performance will help you to hone stand-up skills, while chapters on stage and screen will give techniques and tips on how to craft a sitcom or create a sketch show. Finally, there is a uniquely frank but useful section on the realities of the markets, and the actualities of going it alone with self-publishing and self-promotion - or the tools you need to successfully pitch an idea or comic manuscript.ABOUT THE SERIES
The Teach Yourself Creative Writing series helps aspiring authors tell their stories. Covering a range of genres from science fiction and romantic novels to illustrated children's books and comedy, this series is packed with advice, exercises, and tips for unlocking creativity and improving your writing. And because we know how daunting the blank page can be, we set up the Just Write online community, at tyjustwrite.com, for budding authors and successful writers to connect and share.

1

Comedy basics

It’s pretty difficult to fake laughter: ask any actor. It’s also hard to stop laughing once you’ve started: again, actors will tell you about the nightmare of ‘corpsing’ – when they break character by getting the giggles on stage and being unable to stop. It can also be just as hard to start laughing if you’re not in the mood. We really don’t have much control over laughing and perhaps that’s why we value it so much.

So what makes us laugh? Or rather, what is there in common between the various things that make us laugh? In this chapter you will learn about the many ways of creating laughs, including surprise and recognition, and about visual, verbal and physical comedy.

Alan Ayckbourn, director and playwright

‘If I had to give just one piece of comedy writing advice it would be: for God’s sake take it seriously.’

Key idea

The two main factors in creating laughs are surprise and recognition.

Most laughs come from surprise: the sudden unexpected event, the twist that you didn’t see coming, the moment when the penny drops. A lot of surprise laughs are created when an audience thinks they recognize what’s about to happen, and are taken by surprise with what actually does happen.

We usually laugh at moments of recognition in a less explosive, more thoughtful way. It’s a rueful, ‘Yes, I do that too’ sort of laugh. Observational comedy makes great use of recognition precisely because it is based on everyday life, but to be successful it has to include some surprises too. Recognition laughs are very useful as laughs along the way, as you build up to the big surprise punchline.

Create surprise

To practise creating surprise, have a go at this job applications exercise.

Who would be the worst possible applicants for these jobs: heart transplant surgeon, TV weather forecaster, massage therapist? There are no correct answers, but whatever you choose will only be funny if it’s surprising.

Focus point

The key concept in creating both surprise and recognition laughs is incongruity, because the incongruous is also the unexpected. This works at every level of comedy, from the simplest joke to the most complex plot.

Create incongruity

To practise creating incongruity, try this simple exercise. First choose a character from list A and another from list B.

• List A: doctor, maths teacher, High Court judge, politician

• List B: used car salesman, streetwise teenager, hairdresser, plumber

Now write a short speech for one of the characters using the type of language you’d expect from the other character. For instance, the doctor could be looking at a patient’s operation scar and saying ‘What cowboy did this, then? I could sort it out but it won’t be easy, can’t get the parts you see, could fit you in Tuesday week, cash in hand all right with you, Squire?’ and so on. Choose your own incongruous characters and try the exercise again. You can use specific people (such as the Prime Minister) or fictional characters (such as Robin Hood).

Creating laughs

Let’s look at ways of creating incongruity, surprise and recognition in more detail, but first a couple of exercises.

What do you find funny?

Make a list of the words and objects that you personally find funny.

The more boring the better…

Write about something boringly ordinary and humdrum that you did yesterday. It could be something like travelling to work, watching TV or buying carrots – as long as nothing interesting exciting or amusing happened. Describe what you were doing and the environment you were in. Maximum 750 words.

OPPOSITES

Opposites provide instant incongruity: big and small, happy and sad, funerals and weddings. This is why double acts often exaggerate the physical differences between them; for instance, Laurel was thin and Hardy was fat. The casting of Only Fools and Horses must have...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Title
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Contents 
• Meet the author
• Introduction
• 1 Comedy basics
• 2 The comedy writing mindset
• 3 Getting started
• 4 Language and style
• 5 Jokes
• 6 Stand-up
• 7 Simple characters and situations
• 8 Quickies and sketches
• 9 Creating more complex characters
• 10 More complex situations and plots
• 11 Sitcoms
• 12 Character development and deeper plotting
• 13 Editing, polishing and unblocking
• 14 Writing for different media
• 15 The practicalities of placing your work
• Appendix A: Other types of comedy writing
• Appendix B: Comedy styles and genres
• Appendix C: Doing it yourself
• Appendix D: Figures of speech
• Appendix E: Works mentioned
• Appendix F: Full texts of examples
• Appendix G: Taking it further
• Copyright