The Everything Guide to Comedy Writing

From stand-up to sketch - all you need to succeed in the world of comedy

Mike Bent

• Publisher: Everything
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781605501680
• eBook ISBN: 9781440501746
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Creative Writing
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

A guy walks into a bar...

With this guide, aspiring comics will learn to navigate the complex world of comedy writing. Discover how to tap into your natural sense of humor through real-life examples and hands-on skill-building exercises. Learn the best ways to come up with ideas and write comedy that gets laughs--every time! Mike Bent, an accomplished stand-up comedian and teacher, provides the inside scoop on techniques to jump-start your comedy writing career, including how to:

• Develop comic characters for sketches and scenes
• Create and polish a standup routine
• Write for TV and movies
• Use the web to advance your comedy career

Everyone loves a comedian. But breaking into this tough field is no laughing matter. After sharpening your comedy-writing skills with this practical (and funny!) guide, you'll feel comfortable adding humor to everyday situations and may even take a chance on your dream job in show business!

CHAPTER 1

What Are You—a Comedian?

Have you ever watched a comic on stage and thought, “I could do that!” Have you ever watched a television comedy sketch and thought, “You know, a better ending would have been . . . ” 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 comedy—and get paid for it—is 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 warned—most people won’t get what you do. You’ll be at a dinner party, and someone will ask what you do for a living. If you say, “I’m a comedian,” their next question will likely be, “Wow, that’s great, but what do you do for a living?”

Society craves comedy yet dismisses it as a career. But that’s not important. You will be doing something that makes a big difference in people’s lives. Being a comedian is also one of the most important jobs in the world. And it’s a blast! If you have a high opinion of yourself and love what you do, it won’t matter what others think.

“No Respect, I Tell Ya!”

The late great Rodney Dangerfield spoke for all comedians when he said, “I don’t get no respect!” Beginning in grade school, comedians get a bad rep. “Stop kidding around!” “Stop acting like a clown!” “What are you, some kind of comedian?” Comedians and comedy writers tend to be treated by society as second-class artists. What comedians do is fine, but it’s not that important. A comedy movie isn’t as important as a drama. A stand-up comedian isn’t as important as a poet. A comedy writer is never as important as a “serious” novelist.

In the eighty-year history of the Academy Awards, only three comedies have won the Best Picture Award—It Happened One Night (1934), You Can’t Take it With You (1938), and Annie Hall (1977). Tons of classic comedies weren’t considered worthy of the honor, even such great films as Animal Crackers (1930), Some Like it Hot (1960), Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), and Tootsie (1982).

What people don’t realize is it that comedy is just as important as the “serious” 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, we’d just be stuck with, well, the stupid things that happen every day. If people in authority couldn’t be taken down a peg, we’d have to (gasp!) take them seriously.

Respect Yourself

Remember, in the Middle Ages, only the jester could call the king’s 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. It’s serious stuff, this comedy thing. And, while it struggles to get artistic respect, it’s always in high demand in film, TV, comedy clubs, novels, and just about any form of entertainment the public consumes.

In the 2008 presidential election, Tina Fey’s impression of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live became a major news story. Record audiences tuned in to SNL and Fey’s NBC series 30 Rock. It could be argued that a lot of people formed their opinion of the mostly unknown vice presidential candidate after seeing Fey’s hilarious portrayal—her impression was as newsworthy as the candidate herself.

Then why doesn’t comedy writing get its due? It’s because good comedians make it look easy, effortless, like they’re not even trying. People don’t see the work—the writing—involved in what comedians do, if they do it right. And comedy writing is work—hard work—but guess what? It’s a blast! When you write a joke that works, there’s 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, that’s all that should matter to you.

Everybody’s Funny—Except 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 what’s 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?

Go online and look at anything comedy-related that has “user com-ments”—such as a YouTube video or a comedy DVD for sale at www.amazon.com. Look at those comments and compare them to a similar noncomedy item. Notice how nasty and personal the comments are whenever someone feels that their funny bone has been violated.

Everyone can be funny—you 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 it’s funny too.

People also guard their sense of humor passionately. That’s the blessing and the curse of comedy—immediate feedback. If someone goes to a play featuring an actress who isn’t that great, she might make a snide comment to her friends after the show, but she won’t stand up and shout, “You suck!” in the middle of Act One. But when comedy isn’t 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 don’t find you witty at all. They won’t even hesitate; it’s almost a defensive reaction: “How dare you assault my sense of humor!”

Kidding Around: Getting in Touch With Your Inner Child

Boy, does “getting in touch with your inner child” 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 don’t apply. One minute a kid is Mommy and her doll is the baby and the next minute she’s Batman and the doll is a bomb she needs to defuse. Children are totally committed to each character they play and the premise they’re following—and they can flow to the next “set” effortlessly. Why? Because they don’t care what people think. Their friends aren’t going to judge them, because they’re all acting the same way.

Notice how easily children laugh, truly laugh—that full body, side-splitting, rolling-on-the-floor type of laughter. Why is it so different with adults? Because kids willingly accept the fantasy of the comedy premise presented. They want to laugh; they are actively looking for things that make them laugh. Kids aren’t easier to crack up than adults, but they are more willing to let you make them laugh.

“Act your age.” Those three words are the enemy of creativity. We’ve always been told “Stop kidding around!” or “You’re too old to behave that way!” 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 don’t, you’ll 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 Won’t Do

It is impossible to teach someone to be funny. It just can’t be done. So if you don’t really believe you’re funny, this book can’t fix that. But obviously, since you’re reading it, you must think you’ve got some funny in you. Deep down inside, you think you’re 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.

You’ll 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 won’t make you funny—but if you’re willing to put the work into it, you’ll make yourself funnier.

No Shortcuts

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice! Some people are just naturally funny. If you’re 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.

It’s different for everybody, but on average only 5 percent of a comedy writer’s ideas work as a joke, and probably only one out of 100 jokes works really well. You have to sift through a lot of rocks to find a nugget of comedy gold.

But if it works, it’s all worth the effort. A well-crafted joke is something you will be really proud of.

Rules? We Don’t Need No Stinking Rules!

You won’t be learning comedy by “filling in the blanks” with a bunch of comedy formulas. None of that: “He’s so stupid, he thinks _________ is ________!” Why? Because your end product will sound like formula writing. You want material that’s fresh and uniq...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Top Ten Things You Should Know about Comedy Writing
• Introduction
• 1: What Are You—a Comedian?
• 2: You Know More Than You Think You Do
• 3: The Funny Five
• 4: Comedy Secret No. 1: We’re All in the Same Boat
• 5: Worship the Notebook
• 6: Comedy Secret No. 2: The Power of Lists
• 7: The Power of Questions
• 8: Let’s Get Sketchy
• 9: Types of Sketches
• 10: Writing With Others
• 11: Styles of Stand-Up
• 12: Writing for Stand-Up
• 13: Performing Stand-Up Comedy
• 14: Parody and Satire: “It’s a Floor Wax—and a Dessert Topping!”
• 15: Writing Sitcoms
• 16: Movies
• 17: Making “Sense” of Comedy
• 18: Places to Be Funny
• 19: DIY Fame: YouTube, MySpace, and Beyond
• 20: The Scouts Were Right—Be Prepared!
• Appendix A: Preparation “H:” Being Prepared for Hecklers
• Appendix B: Comedy Clubs in the United States