Screenwriting : Comedy advice by Alex Alexander

Hi Matthew, we have a great webinar on that topic right here on Stage 32: https://www.stage32.com/webinars/How-To-Write-A-Comedy-Pilot-Executives-...

Ask 5 people who know you well to describe you in 3 words. If none of them say funny...don't write comedy. But check out Steve Kaplan's book on Comedy!

Danny, that is good advice. But then some people said Joan Rivers was funny - and I could not agree.

Seriously, the best advice anyone can give you when it comes to writing comedy is be funny. Wow, so obvious yet so true. By all means make a go of it, but if people read your comedy scripts and don't laugh then maybe you should stick to horror.

I think you'll enjoy this genre, Matthew. My co-writer and I are currently re-writing out two comedies. They are FUN. :)

LindaAnn did u just say Joan Rivers wasn't funny??? WHAT?

THE COMIC TOOLBOX is an interesting book, because it looks at comedy writing tools you can use if you are only mildly funny.

I'd say watch lots of comedies and different styles of comedies. That's what i did. Really paid attention to how the jokes were being told and the different types of jokes. There are dozens. Slang, imagery, exemplification, puns, slapstick, observations, analogy, metaphor, onomatopoeia, malapropism, alliteration, hybrid words, rule of three, double entendre, farce, satire, hyperbole, jargon, caricature, irony, flip, cliche, contradiction, connotation, dialects, discourse, bathroom humour, opposites, colloquial, absurdity, comedy of manners, black humour, blue humour, innuendo, overblown rhetoric, sarcasm, wit, truisms, spoof.....and more. There is a good book. But the title and author mysteriously alludes me. Tim something. An Aussie. Title has monkeys in it. i'll look it up. Been meaning to buy it anyway.

Thanks everyone for the comments

Danny: Joan Rivers was very hard-working and resourceful -- I'll give her that -- but also (to me) not funny, boring, overrated. Close friends of mine who worked with Joan or opened for her would also add the words vicious, back-stabbing, mean-spirited. But before I heard those anecdotes, I still rarely laughed at her material.

Unfortunately comedy is very subjective.

The best practice you can do for comedy, is watch all the comedies you can and read all the coinciding scripts to those comedies. Discover the type of comedy you are pursuing; slapstick, smart, sophomoric, etc... Comedy is mostly about finding the humor in serious situations - rather situations the Character finds himself in are not funny to him, but it may be to everyone else... Don't try to be funny. Find the funny. So put your characters in situations where they can be funny, without trying. 'Pacing and Timing' are your other main ingredients to good comedy... Like Pierre stated, comedy is so subjective, some will get you - and some won't. And you really have no assurance that it will play, until its read aloud in character by a group, or a table read with cast. Best of luck!

Danny- just read your comment. My co-writer would have everyone of the 5 people say "funny." Odd thing is... probably none would say it about me, yet with him, I'm able to help write comedy.

The generally accepted wisdom, certainly from Monty Python, was to write what you find funny. The guys in Monty Python said they wrote about things they found funny. If you find it funny, chances are someone else will too. Finding them is the difficult part but it will have an audience.

If it makes you laugh out loud several times while writing it, gets a chuckle out of friends when u reference it, and still makes your wife pee a few drops when you reenact it .. then you may be on to something funny Matthew.