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Comedy Writing

Comedy Writing Tools

That's why a comedy writer needs a large‘tool chest' so that he/she can try different ways of working when a plateau is reached.

A Powerful Question

What if? It's a very simple question and can set a comedy writer off on a tangent that can break the spell of boredom and stagnation. Ask yourself this question constantly and see if it works for you and if it doesn't try it again when you're relaxed or with friends.

Idea Quota

How many ideas do you want? It's a simple question. How many comic ideas do you create when writing a joke? Stretch yourself with ambition. If you are writing a sitcom and you are looking for the best idea or type of funny character then set yourself an ambitious target. Not 10 ideas but 25 ideas perhaps push it to 50 ideas. What will happen? You'll burn off the inspiration and get into the ridiculous and then start making comic ideas removed from the original. You wouldn't get there without setting that quota.

List Building

Build a list of adjectives related to your topic and another list of nouns, say 25 of each and then link them. You'll find juxtapositions and anomalies and quite often a bunch of nonsense. It's a worthwhile comedy tool if you preserver. Maybe it doesn't work this time maybe it will work next time.

Free Writing

Comedy can be a stream of consciousness and often it will be rubbish. There are many ways of performing free writing for comedy. Either set yourself a time limit (start at 5 minutes and work your way up) or draw an x at the top left of a piece of paper and at the bottom right. Start at the first cross and don't Stop Writing until you hit the second. In both cases don't take your pen off the paper.

The Idea Bank

I keep a collection of ideas that have interested me; one-liners, comic characters, funny words and such a ‘bank' is a good starting point when stuck for a starting point or looking for something random to kick-start or add interest to a comedy sketch or video.

If you want more ideas about Writing Comedy, comedy characters and online comedy visit bitcomedy.co.uk.

About the Author

Jim Kinloch is a comedy writer living in Hertfordshire, England. He has had his work performed on stage, TV and online. He specialises in creating surreal, fun and highly visual comedy in every form, from physical theatre to radio and cabaret to twitter.

Comedy Writing Software ThoughtOffice Brainstorming Software

Think You're Funny? You Can Learn to Write Comedy!

I wrote comedy material for many performers before I became a writer for Bob Hope (1977-92), writing on the staff of "The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts," and "Steve Allen's Laugh Back."  While  styles of delivery and subject matter varied from one comic to the next, the basic principles were identical and, by studying lots of successful comics, you, too, can learn to write funny lines.

Here's how the writers did it for Bob Hope.

The eight-to-ten-minute topical monologue that began each Hope show was, and had been since radio, Hope's favorite segment and the one to which he devoted the most care and preparation.

He had begun his career as a dancer in vaudeville but one night was asked by a theater owner to emcee when the regular one failed to show up. He enjoyed it and soon began adding jokes to his introductions.  He eventually realized that the jokes were his strong suit and abandoned the dancing.

On television, he considered the monologue a hook with which he could snag viewers to keep them from channel surfing during the remainder of the show. Today, talk shows begin with a monologue for the same reason.

On a Hope special, the monologue that the viewer saw was a string of thirty to thirty-five gags — setups followed by punchlines — delivered rapidly. They covered the major news events of the day with particular emphasis on politics, sports, celebrities and pop culture. Though he was born in England, much of the material concerned how Americans lived.

The initial step in building the monologue was choosing the topics.  They had to be current and able to remain fresh until the show aired — usually several days following its taping. If an important event was scheduled — a playoff game, say, or the opening of a major movie — we'd write alternate lines covering all eventualities.

We would submit a list of topics from which Hope chose the ten or fifteen he thought had the strongest comic possibilities. Over the next few days, we would churn out ten to twenty lines per topic. Working hours at a time on a monologue took a goodly amount of stamina. I would play a tape of Hope delivering jokes just to get his rhythm, turning
on the recorder whenever ideas were slow to come.

After awhile, the jokes would seem to flow automatically as though I was simply writing down what Hope was saying. My wife, Shelley, would hear me chuckling at the keyboard and say, "Laughing at your own jokes again?"  And I'd say, "No. Hope's."  (Not that I never laughed at my own jokes, mind you.)

Hope loved being inundated with lines and we tried not to disappoint.  But despite this plethora of material, woe to the scribe who skipped a topic. His phone would ring with an inquisitive comedian at the other end: "What happened? Didn't get my list?"

Of course, the material had to complement the rapid delivery that he had so carefully developed on stage. He leaned toward particular setups, punchlines and a unique cadence that, over the years, became identified with him alone. (Perhaps the reason impressionists seldom attempted to imitate him.)

The monologue might begin with a definition gag that would sound something like this:

*   Hey, it's great to be here in Pasadena. You know what Pasadena is — that's Beverly Hills on Medicare.

Or, the joke could be in the form of a translation:

*   Here we are in beautiful, tropical Tahiti. Tahiti is an ancient Polynesian word meaning, "Forget the suntan lotion, did you bring the American Express card?"

The monologue would most likely contain one or two "list jokes" where the final item is the payoff:

*   Here in Las Vegas, if you see a guy running naked through the lobby, he's either a streaker, a loser, or his wife arrived a day early.

And no monologue was complete without a "that was just" joke:

*   I went to see "Star Wars" and couldn't believe all the weird, alien creatures with purple hair; green, slimy skin; and pods for eyes. And that was just waiting in line to get in.

Also effective was the "but enough about" setup: 

*   This is quite a ship — round-the-clock partying, booze flowing like water, girls hanging from the chandeliers — but enough about the captain's quarters.

Of course, these formulas were developed especially for Bob Hope, but you can use them as a starting point to develop your own style.  Be careful to keep all your lines consistent -- all in the same cadence and point of view.  Skipping from one style (or point of view) to another are the marks of an amateur.  Find a formula that you feel comfortable with, write material for yourself or someone else, and stick with it.

You may not become the next Woody Allen, but I guarantee you'll have fun making people laugh!

(The author can be contacted at:  [email protected])

Excerpted from THE LAUGH MAKERS: A Behind-the-Scenes Tribute to Bob Hope's Incredible Gag Writers (c) 2009 by Robert L. Mills and published by Bear Manor Media.  To order:  http://bobhopeslaughmakers.weebly.com

Kindle e-book $2.99: www.amazon.com/dp/B0041D9EPO

About the Author

A native of San Francisco, Bob Mills served in the Navy after high school, graduating from San Francisco State University in 1962 and the University of California Hastings Law in 1965.  He practiced in Palo Alto, CA for ten years before moving to Hollywood to write for television.  He worked on the Dinah Shore Show, the Steve Allen Show and the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts before joining Bob Hope as a staff writer  in 1977. He traveled the world with Hope for the next seventeen years. In 2009, his book The Laugh Makers: A Behind-the-Scenes Tribute to Bob Hope's Incredible Gag Writers was published by Bear Manor Media and was named one of Leonard Maltin's "Top 20 Year-End Picks."  To order:  http://bobhopeslaughmakers.weebly.com

Kindle e-book $2.99: www.amazon.com/dp/B0041D9EPO