The 2 Fundamentals of Comedy Writing
By Daniel Page.
So you wanna be a boxer comedy writer? Congratulations that’s great news! But where should you start?
There’s over 30 different aspects I could share with you, covering everything from punchlines to sound effects to the correct density of custard pies, but it’s probably best that I start you off with the basics. If you can master these fundamental building blocks of writing comedy then you’ll stand a good chance of kick-starting your journey towards stardom, or at the very least a meagre weekly paycheck.
So what are these ‘basics’ I speak of? Well, I’m not talking about words, although to be fair they are fairly important…
And I mean, obviously you’ll need a pen and paper.
And like a desk or something to lean on.
A chair helps too. Also some tea….
Okay, enough distraction. Consider this – just WHY do people laugh at jokes? There are lots of theories out there, including this one from the excellent Tim Ferguson, but quite frankly you’re reading my article right now and I’m gambling you’re too lazy relaxed to look elsewhere.
Still here? Good.
From personal experience there are a whole raft of factors that contribute to make something funny. Creativity, ingenuity, personality, character, energy, conflict, confinement, dialogue, language, timing (more so for performance than writing) and rhythm are all important.
But for me the most vital elements of good comedy writing are CONTEXT and SURPRISE. Let’s talk about each of these respectively.
SURPRISE
See what I did there? Surprise is leading the audience one way and then doing something they weren’t expecting…. but CRUCIALLY is in CONTEXT. This last bit is so important I did two of the words in capitals. We’ll come back to this in a bit. Context that is, not my penchant for capitalisation.
Let’s break down this ‘surprise’ thing a little. Have a quick watch of the first 40 seconds of this classic sketch.
When the brain is expecting something but doesn’t get it (e.g. a surprise), I suggest two things happen over the course of a few seconds:
- It gets startled, enters fight or flight mode and reflexively reacts. This could be a yelp of fear, paralysis or perhaps, if it’s a joke or sketch, an unforced guffaw.
- Next it tries to solve the puzzle before it. Is there danger or is everything actually okay? Is it actually quite happy at solving the puzzle? If the answer to both is ‘yes’ because you’ve written a joke (good) and not a death threat (bad) then it will react with relief and satisfaction. A letting out of tension. Perhaps a sigh, ‘aaaahh’, or if we’re really lucky, a laugh.
In the video clip Ronnie B builds the tension with Ronnie C – something is clearly wrong, but what it is? When Barker then says “fork handles” around 0:21 there’s a nervous ‘it must be a joke so I’ll laugh’ reaction. But when he then gives the true punchline and explains the joke “handles for forks”, the puzzle and there’s a huge wall of laughter (and relief).
So now we’ve identified that surprise is key and we’ve got a few ways to set our audiences to ‘laugh mode’ (not forgetting to spin their left nipple nuts anti-clockwise if they’re a 4000 series mechanoid), then presumably we’re ready to write some JOKES?
CONTEXT
Q. What’s brown and sticky?
A. SAUSAGES!
Our first joke using surprise, yay! Except… it was pretty rubbish. Which is odd as it was REALLY surprising. So what went wrong?
The thing about surprise is that if it’s too surprising, it won’t fully work. You may get the beginnings of a smile or giggle as the brain is startled, but as it rapidly considers what you’ve just said it’ll follow through with a confusion. Because what you’ve said doesn’t really make any sense.
Instead we want the brain to feel relief that what you’ve said won’t hurt it and happiness that it’s solved the riddle you’ve posed it. This means we need to make the joke friendly and solvable. Things that make sense are friendly and solvable. So we want a surprise that makes sense. Or, to use the words of my fellow comedy writer David Salisbury:
“Comedy is confounding expectations in a way that makes sense.”
Memorise this phrase. Write it down. Get it tattooed on your arm. This is the single most important piece of advice I’ve ever seen in comedy. Do this and your jokes will be funny (or at least stand a chance of being funny). It’s possible of course to go too far the other way. Try this one out loud:
Q. What’s brown and sticky?
A. POO!
Yes! Poo is very brown and very sticky (if yours isn’t consult your nearest poo doctor immediately) so the punchline makes total sense in the context of the question. But it’s still not working as a joke as we’ve lost our element of surprise (although I did get you to shout the word ‘poo’).
So we’re looking for a level of surprise that we really weren’t expecting, but really does make sense in the CONTEXT of the riddle we’ve set them. Because it turns out that most jokes are actually riddles dressed up in fancy clothes.
What might a middle ground look like? Let’s finish up here and apply our new found skills to our stock joke:
Q. What’s brown and sticky?
A. A stick!
Hooray, a functioning joke! The author has given us some surprise by interpreting ‘sticky’ as ‘like a stick’, which in the context of the riddle, is nicely satisfying.
Okay so it’s probably not the funniest joke out there, but then again we’re somewhat limited with our subject matter of… well…sticks. I’ll talk more about the importance of finding good subjects and ‘angles’ another time.
In my next article I’ll look at how we can use context and surprise to build and structure jokes. For the time being, why not start having a play yourself and see what happens? You might be surprised…
Daniel is a freelance script-editor, writer and producer of comedy shorts, sketch, sitcom and one-liners with credits on Newsjack, NewsRevue and the Sitcom Trials. For bespoke advice on your script visit www.coiledslinky.strikingly.com. Comedy Crowd members get a 10% discount on some services!
(C) Daniel Page, 2016
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