Writing about comedy writing is difficult because...well, because I'm worried that it won't be funny. Very worried. And I shouldn't worry because my desire to discuss comedy writing in an academic yet humorous way just proves that I'm dedicated to the 'comedy' part of it all. But does that mean I'm not AS dedicated to the 'writing' part of it all? I did, after all, use the phrase comedy writing rather than writing comedy. Which might mean that the writer part of me and the comic part of me are leg wrestling somewhere in my subconscious. Or it might just mean the old brain chemistry could stand to move a milligram or two in a different direction.
In my opinion, the crux of comedy writing is taking what's funny to you and making it funny to other people. Focus first on what gives you the smirks and giggles and move on from there. I mean it's just plain nuts to sit down in front of a blank page and try to consciously think of what might amuse millions. Writing from personal experience is much better than wracking your brain for something that will have universal comedic appeal. It doesn't matter if the whole world thinks, for example, that pickles aren't funny. If you think pickles are funny then you should write about pickles. Use your perspective on pickles. Invoke your own personal memories of the moment that you realized pickles were funny. Take those memories and give them some context, maybe an unusual and amusing setting. Now write down a few choice words about pickles so that from this day forward people who read what you wrote will laugh out loud every time they even hear the word 'pickle.'
(Per the instructions of my agent, and so he doesn't hyperventilate, I would like to take a moment to make it clear that my writing for all formats--television, film, literary publication, competitive haiku--DOES HAVE great universal appeal and can thus "put butts in the chairs" and prove very profitable for any number of companies, producers and/or media moguls.)
The second rule of comedy writing is that structure doesn't apply to us. Organization is for the dramatic. Feel free to confuse the reader with circular thoughts and references to points you haven't yet made. Chaos is very, very funny. Almost as funny as bedlam.
To be a great comedy writer is to be open to adventure. When a spouse or loved one asks you to accompany them to an auto dealership for opera and cigars and you really want to say "Are you nuts?"--say "Yes" instead. Opera, cigars and overpriced luxury sedans...there's funny in there somewhere. Could yield a goldmine of material for the writer bold enough to attend. If you don't like cigars then rewrite as 'martinis.' If you don't like cigars or martinis then rewrite as 'Thai stick.' The point is that every awful experience you've had in your life that was supposed to build character and didn't could still turn out to be an asset to your comedy writing. What doesn't kill us makes us better, funnier writers. Or better writers who happen to also be funny.
Remember that time is the greatest friend to and the greatest foe of comedy writing. The passage of time brings humor to events that were, perhaps, not at all humorous at the time they occurred. Each one of us could sit down today and write about the first time we got arrested and find great comedy in the telling. Not many of us found it funny at the time. (Except for those few of you lucky enough to have been arrested in some sort of illegal mime activity in the 1960s for whom even the glimmer of a memory of things that might or might not have happened is usually amusing.) But the passing weeks or years since that first trip to the pokey have made the black ink stains on fingers and white Sergio Valente jeans seem funny. And the exiting confession from the local sheriff that he'd never have arrested you at all if your sister with the big melons had just gone out with him? Well that's hysterical today. (Special Note: If you've never been arrested then you don't have enough life experience to be a comedy writer and you should just stop now. Or go get arrested. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays are vice nights in Hollywood. So I'm told.) But always be wary of the dark power of time. A Bananarama joke that rocked the house only 18 short years ago would play to contemporary silence. The Hope/Crosby road movies always make me laugh though I must confess to pausing periodically to look up exactly which studio head or political misstep they were poking fun at. Even if people reading your words years from now have no idea what you're talking about they might still laugh at the sheer gibberish-ness of it all. That's the beauty of the whole time good/time bad thing--sometimes you can get a laugh either way.
Another tenet (since I shouldn't use 'rule' twice) of comedy writing is to be careful what you visualize. A man getting hit in the groin with any sort of sports equipment or lawn tool is, it goes without saying, very funny. But writing about such events loses some of the inherent comedy in the events. Good comedy writers can bring just about any scene or moment alive with the right words, cadence and style. But no comedy writer can bring the groin-meets-whiffle-ball-bat to life in a way that's funny on the page. Some comedic ideas just can't be fleshed out. Accept it and move on.
There's comedy in your writing. There's art and, ideally, money to be made. So where's the glory for the comedy writer? You can have witty prose flying out of your laser printer, snappy dialogue sparking from your fingertips that proves you can bring the funny for all ages, races and socio-economic backgrounds, and a collection of party stories tailored for G, PG, R and even Grandma audiences, and still never get the brass ring. Drama writers win most of the Oscars. Drama writers get selected to Oprah's Book Club. Drama writers get all the attention for being sensitive and trying to change the world.
The real secret is that every comedy writer has the pathos on the inside to be as dramatic as he/she wants to be. I don't mean that laughing on the outside crying on the inside crap. I mean words and ideas that sometimes overwhelm you with their speed and tragedy and import. Every comedy writer you meet has a book or a screenplay about war or strife or death or family or how it all ends. There's a first draft on his bookshelf. There's an unfinished scene or chapter on her desktop. There's a fresh copy in the trunk of his car.
I called my sister Cecelia up on the telephone to ask permission to use her real name in a comedy piece I was writing about the time she got her jaw broken in a drug-fueled domestic squabble. She didn't remember that being at all funny. Then I read her my version of the story and she laughed. That's comedy writing. That's changing the world to shine a light on what's absurd and amusing. Some might say warping real-life for the sake of comedy is wrong. I say a little warp never hurt anybody. Not like a broken jaw hurts.
