I have just finished reading John Cleese’s autobiography “So, Anyway…”

As an aspiring comedy writer, it is one of the most inspiring books I have ever read.

Cleese succeeded because he followed his ‘passion’ for comedy, and his story contains some great advice for comedy writers and performers.

There are 7 lessons that remain fundamental to modern day comedy creators.

1. Steal

That’s right, steal. John Cleese talks about how difficult it is to become really good at writing comedy. He says:

“If I may give a word of advice to any young writer who, despite the odds, wants to take a shot at being funny, it is this. Steal. Steal an idea that you know is good, and try to reproduce it in a setting that you know and understand. It will become sufficiently different from the original because you are writing it, and by basing it on something good, you will be learning some of the rules of good writing as you go along.”

I’m not a legal expert but I think it’s clear he isn’t talking about infringing copyright. The point I take away is this. Take a successful comedy you really enjoy, study the idea, structure and set up, and practise writing using that format based on your own experiences.

Ultimately as comedy writers we should and will develop our own unique style. But the message here is to be aware of what has worked before and why, to understand what it takes to write a strong comedy script and try applying the techniques to your own work.

2. Generating ideas

Cleese talks about how he and writing partner Graham Chapman came up with ideas for Monty Python. They started by using a Thesaurus.

As usual I picked up Roget’s Thesaurus and started reading words out at random.
‘Buttercup. Filter. Catastrophe. Glee. Plummet.’
‘Ah,’ Said Gra. ‘I like plummet.’
A couple of minutes passed.
‘A sheep would plummet, wouldn’t it?’ one of us said.
‘If it tried to fly, you mean?’ said the other.
‘But why would it want to fly?’
‘To escape?’
A couple of months later the ‘Flying Sheep’ became the first Monty Python skit to be recorded.

This initially struck me as an unusual way to generate comedy ideas. Generally the best ideas come from our own personal experiences (which probably rules out a sheep flying for most people). But it is a really interesting approach, and shows that actually the initial idea is just providing some inspiration, and that the creative development of the idea and characters is what makes it something really funny.

Cleese talks about the difference between realism and believability. You can have a very abstract idea that is in no way “realistic”, but the traits of your characters and how they react to their situation needs to remain consistent and “believable” throughout your sketch or sitcom.

This idea is also developed in one of the brilliant Tony Zhou “Every Frame a Painting” videos about Chuck Jones – Evolution of an Artist, where Tony demonstrates that you can have fantastical characters but they must follow a set of rules.

So maybe a flying sheep isn’t that absurd a place to start after all, as long as the sheep’s response to flying is the same as it’s response to other equally unusual and scary situations it finds itself in.

3. Writing with a partner and in a sketch team

We have talked before on the blog about the benefits of working with others, having a writing partner and being part of a team that can bounce ideas of one another making the creative experience more enjoyable. But to hear it from John Cleese and see how it lead to such great success is very inspiring.

Cleese worked most of his comedy career with writing partner Graham Chapman. They first met in the Cambridge Footlights, and wrote together for many TV shows, films, and of course Monty Python. Cleese says:

When you begin to write comedy, the biggest worry is simply: is this funny? Writing with a partner ensures you get priceless feedback and Graham and I worked together well: we found each other funny, and when we did laugh we really laughed.

Here is his experience of being part of a comedy sketch team for the first time at Cambridge:

What I liked most was being part of a team, and working with a common aim in co-operative spirit. The in-jokes, the friendly teasing and mutual helpfulness created a confidence, a feeling of being emotionally supported, that was the most motivating force that I had ever experienced.

4. The benefits of cutting out material

I know from personal experience how hard it is for new writers to get used to cutting their work, being able to detach yourself from the words that you created and accept that losing it may be for the best.

Here is what John Cleese says about the Cambridge Footlights show once they had started taking it on tour and cutting the material:

Our show had definitely got better since its Cambridge incarnation. It was now only sixty minutes long, teaching us that if you have an average show, and you can dump half of it, it doesn’t get a bit better – it gets a lot better. In fact, there seems to be a basic, rather brutal rule of comedy: ‘The shorter the funnier.’ I began to discover that whenever you cut a speech, a sentence, a phrase or even a couple of words, it makes a greater difference than you would ever expect.

Cleese backs this up by saying how hard it is to write a comedy film, because you cannot keep it consistently funny for more than 30 minutes or so, which means you need to keep the audience engaged through other aspects of the story. For those of us who have not yet been fortunate enough to have a comedy film commissioned, the message here is keep your early writing short, and get used to editing and cutting your work to make it as consistently funny as possible.

5. Productivity and writers block

Everyone who has tried any form of creative writing knows how this feels. Writer’s Block. Seemingly wasting limited time when inspiration just won’t come. It is reassuring to hear John Cleese talk so openly about this:

I would start in the morning with a blank sheet of paper, and I might well finish the day with a blank sheet of paper (and an overflowing waste-paper basket). There are not many jobs where you can produce absolutely nothing in the course of 8 hours, and the uncertainty that produces is very scary. You never hear of accountant’s block or bricklayer’s block; but when you try to do something creative there can be no guarantee anything will happen.

He also talks about how he became more relaxed when writer’s block set it, with the help of Peter Titheradge, former BBC producer and West End revue writer:

[Peter] got me to understand that, if you kept at it, material would always emerge: a bad day would be followed by a decent one, and somehow an acceptable average would be forthcoming. I took a leap of faith, and my experience started to confirm this mysterious principle.

The lesson here it to accept that those days happen even to the best and that slow days are a prelude to good ones. Writer’s block itself is not a problem, but panicking about it is. Which brings me to point 6.

6. The creative principle of anxiety

How we perform, how we are perceived, the impression we give is heavily dependent on our mental state. If we feel confident, we generally portray confidence. And vice versa. A good performance or action leads to a positive feeling.

John Cleese relates these ideas very well to writing comedy:

Writing and performing … taught me an important creative principle: the more anxious you feel, the less creative you are. Your mind ceases to play and be expansive. Fear causes your thinking to contract, to play safe, and this forces you into stereotypical thinking. And in comedy you must have innovation, because an old joke isn’t funny. I therefore came up with Cleese’s Two Rules of Comedy Writing:

First Rule: Get your panic in early. Fear gives you energy, so make sure you have plenty of time to use that energy.

Second Rule: Your thoughts follow your mood. Anxiety produces anxious thoughts; sadness begets sad thoughts; anger, angry thoughts; so aim to be in a relaxed, playful mood when you try to be funny.

This second “rule” is a great tip and one that definitely works for me. It also relates to point 5 about writer’s block. Don’t feel stressed when the ideas won’t flow because that will only encourage anxiety and create a vicious circle. Creating a positive mindset is a far more productive way to bring the best out of your comedy writing.

7. Pursuing activities for love, not money

I wanted to finish on this one because it is both humorous and the real overriding message from the autobiography. Cleese makes this point:

British journalists tend to believe that people who become good at something do so because they seek fame and fortune. This is because these are the sole motives of people who become British journalists. But some people, operating at higher levels of mental health, pursue activities because they actually love them. Thus I was drawn into comedy in a way I can’t quite explain but can definitely acknowledge.

Throughout the autobiography it is clear that John Cleese pursued comedy because he loved doing it, never with a direct long term plan for turning it into a career. The success came as a result of throwing himself into something he enjoyed doing.

This is a principle we can all apply, even if we are not 6 foot 4 with a remarkable gait and a bank of facial expressions to perfectly portray the rising frustration of a hotel manager or dead parrot owner.

The world of entertainment is very different now than it was in the 60s, but it feels like comedy is as relevant as it ever has been before. John Cleese and the Monty Python troupe changed the face of British comedy at the time. There are lessons we can take on to move it forward again today.

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There is a whole industry developed around the topic of productivity. Typically a ‘thought-leader’ will advocate a particular system of working that they use (it’s often debatable that they do…) and if followed will boost your output by x% and so unlock the door to your dreams.  I’ve tried many of these systems myself. Why wouldn’t I?  Its a formula for getting more done, who wouldn’t want that?  The problem is that the ‘one size fits all’ approach just doesn’t work.  People are different, what motivates them is different, what distracts them is different, and perhaps most crucially the work they’re doing is different.  What works for improving output for non-creative tasks is unlikely to be successful for an artistic endeavour like writing, and what works for one writer won’t work for another.  In recognition of that, this article is going to concentrate solely on a few free tools and that could help you as a writer.

Of course the irony is that time spent researching productivity is time you aren’t being particularly productive…  so I’ll keep it short.

1. Evernote

Evernote is a fantastic tool, particularly for the disorganised amongst us.  It’s essentially a digital notebook on which you can record your thoughts, take photographs, store web-links and scan documents across all your devices.  It reads text from photos and scans to save you duplicating work, and means you can simply take a picture of a whiteboard session or a business card and have the contents forever stored.  Everything on Evernote is fully searchable, so if you don’t enjoy filing documents you can simply keep one continuous note and tag each entry.  For example, I might tag all my sketch ideas ‘SI’ and then I can simply search for that term whenever I want to review them.  This has been great for me because I’m not an avid organiser but if you are, Evernote does gives you the facility to create separate documents.

Evernote is useful for writers because we never know when inspiration may come.  The fact that it works across all platforms means that you can use phone or tablet when you’re on the move to make sure you record an idea as it comes to you.  It even has voice recognition that allows you to talk through an idea and have it recorded for you to revisit later.  Like the Partridge dictaphone this ensures you have one place for all your best ideas…

Jet from Gladiators to host a millennium barn dance at Yeovil aerodrome.

— Alan’s Dictaphone (@AlansDictaphone) July 14, 2011

Evernote is free up to 60 mb, beyond that there are paid plans, but so far I’ve found the free version to do everything I need.

2. Freedom

Writing is often a sole pursuit and being your own master can lead to numerous, tempting distractions, particularly with the abundance of social media feeds available. Freedom is an application that removes the temptation by blocking sites that you tell it to for a set period of time. It’s highly customisable and effective – the only way you can override it is by rebooting your computer, which few can be bothered to do.

This works for me for short periods of time when I want to concentrate but it is a commitment device, and these don’t work for everyone.  A commitment device requires you, during a period of rational thinking, to recognise what you should be doing and set systems in place to make sure you follow through.  Essentially its the logical part of your brain trying to outsmart the more instinctive part (if you’re interested in learning more about commitment devices I strongly recommend this Freakonomics podcast).

Freedom has a free version which, similar to Evernote, has all the functionality I need, but if you have serious procrastination issues you may have to look at the paid plan.

3. The Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro technique is based upon the idea that by breaking work into 25 minute intervals with short breaks in between we can avoid burnout and be more productive.  I like it because it provides structure, and I need that to discipline myself.  Where I find this method particularly useful is on those mornings where I know there’s a piece that I’m struggling to write and against my better judgement I look for ways to avoid it.  The Pomodoro method breaks it into a small, attainable chunk of time – and this makes it far less intimidating to get started on. Invariably I find that once I’m into it, it isn’t anywhere near as problematic as I first envisioned, and the hardest bit was overcoming that initial inertia and actually getting myself to start.  So often writing is just about the process of actually committing thoughts to paper rather than thinking about it.

So what’s the tool here? Well it could just be a stopwatch.  If you want to spend an inordinate amount of money of a stopwatch shaped like a tomato then that’s your choice. There are lots of free resources out there that you can turn to to learn more about this method, and an app which does some of the work for you.  I’ve listed a couple in the comments section below but I would be lying to say I use anything other than a watch…

To summarise I think the main thing learnt from this blog is that I’m a disorganised, procrastinating, weak minded individual who needs tools to keep me on track.  I hope one or two may be useful for you too.  If you possess more self control you may find they aren’t required, but in that case what are you reading this article for anyway? Stop time wasting…

Peter Wright

Many people dream of writing comedy as a career, but very few do it straight out of school.   What if you want to write but have a job to work around?  Realistically you aren’t going to be handing in your notice immediately so here’s 5 tips to make it work.

1. Keep an ideas book with you.  A notebook is a great way to keep track of all the little sparks of inspiration you get during the day.  We’ve all had moments in which we mentally bookmark – ‘He could make a great comedy character’, ‘That situation would have made a funny sketch’.  We tell ourselves we should develop them when we next have some time off.  The reality is that we rarely do, because we’re busy and our minds aren’t built that way. Try keeping a notebook, scribble down your thoughts as they happen, and review them once a week.  You’re likely to find that you start observing more keenly than you did before…
2. Enjoy being in the ‘everyday’.  At its core, all good comedy understands human behaviour.  While working you’re more likely to be exposed to those regular encounters that enhance your understanding of people – what motivates people to do what they do?  Sometimes the more mundane the environment, the more genuine and interesting the behaviour. You’re also more likely to experience a diverse range of emotions yourself while you have varied pursuits, and your writing will be all the richer for it.
3. Take advantage whenever you’re in the zone.  It’s logical to set aside time in your schedule to write, but writing is not a linear activity.  Writing productivity fluctuates far more than most other tasks, so be prepared that you’ll have days when you can’t seem to thread it together and don’t let it get you down.  There are things you can do to improve your chances – it helps to do whatever gets you in a good mood (humans are far more creative when happy) – but it’s not an exact science.  If other work can wait (it usually can) take advantage of those times when you are ‘in the zone’ and the ideas are flowing, and even if you can’t – get them written down! (see 1)
4. Learn to write anytime/anywhere.  We all have our favourite places to write.  Some have a quiet room at home, others prefer the coffee shop – we tend to seek out the same place once we associate it with our best work. Unfortunately, writers with a day job don’t have the luxury of heading to this place whenever they get the time.  Learn to write whenever and wherever you get the chance – on the bus, in the waiting room, in the park on your lunch break – you will get more done and you might just find your writing improves with new stimuli.  I get a buzz whenever I write somewhere new or at an unusual point of the day.  It feels like a bonus, or even like I’m stealing time…
5. Don’t be an island.  The writer’s existence is often solitary.  Many like it that way, but the fact is that yours is only one biased opinion on whether your work is funny.  Seek out others who share your style of comedy to bounce your ideas off, and ask for feedback (try to avoid people who won’t want to offend).  You don’t always have to show someone a script, try out an idea on them, play one of your characters and mess around if that’s your style.  If you’re writing around a day job, you don’t want to be wasting time with a dud idea – test things quickly and be prepared to change it or move on – don’t wait until you’ve written a whole script to find out the premise isn’t as funny to others as to you.

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