Hello everybody, welcome to the second entry of this series covering my experiences and thoughts on comedy writing.  Actually, I’d say that this is the first “true” entry of this series, with the previous one being a teaser.  But anyways, here it is.  I have to admit, it wasn’t easy figuring out how to start this entry and what to talk about.  After letting ideas sit for a while, though, I figured why not start from the ground up and go over basics that I’ve learned.  With that said, let’s get started.

Comedy is, in my opinion, surprisingly simple in hindsight when it comes to understanding what it is.  There is, however, a lot that makes it tricky when it comes to actually putting the elements of comedy to use.  Whether you’re going into stand-up, wanting to make your friends laugh for fun, or if you’re a public speaker and are wanting to spice up your presentations, it’s a challenge to craft humor that works.  Fortunately, the elements behind it are universal.  The crazy thing is that there are a lot of elements that define what comedy is.

Comedy is often defined simply as “truth and pain.”  Think about a lot of jokes that resonate with you and make you say, “It’s funny because it’s true!”  That’s pretty self-explanatory.  As for the “pain” part of it, think about a lot of the humor from sitcoms.  A lot of times, the laughs are coming about as a result of a character’s frustration, discomfort, personal troubles, etc.  Some comedians use pain as a source for their material.  They might talk about something they hate and make fun of, or they might joke about something that others hate.  Self deprecating humor is another example.  Combining truth and pain, when you think about it, does make up a lot of the humor that entertains us.

It doesn’t end there, though.  While truth and pain are everywhere in comedy, there are plenty of other elements.  Irony is one of them and is behind a lot of satirical works, parody, and sarcasm.  Exaggeration is another element too, and while it’s often combined with irony to add strength, it also stands on its own.  It can be used to paint a picture of sorts, adding specificity and imagery to a story that, without humor, might be dull.

Incongruence is another element.  For those who don’t know what it is, it pretty much means when something doesn’t quite combine with anything surrounding it (when it’s not in harmony, if you will).  Any moment when something is out of place is bound to lead to funny results.  Tons of comedies have this, forming the “fish out of water” concept.  This leads to yet another element, contrast.  When a person or thing presents qualities different from those of another person or thing, comedic possibilities grow.

And where there’s contrast, there has to be similarity.  This is an element used in many joke forms, a perfect example being the, “What do these two have in common?” approach.  Off the top of my head, I can think of an example from Gene Perret’s book Comedy Writing Step by Step that goes like this, “I have a lot in common with this dog… he always has a wet nose, and I always have a wet rug.”  It’s a little silly, but it gets the idea across.  Another example is when someone does a side by side comparison between a celebrity and an animal.

Other elements include surprise, unpredictability, and spontaneity.  These three often work together in various forms of humor, especially in improv-based comedy.  The element of surprise is particularly important when it comes to finding and delivering punchlines in jokes.  Without surprise, punchlines can become predictable, and humor will lose a lot of its strength.  This is where technique comes in, requiring the speaker to develop a way with words.  Learning how to work with words is a whole other beast, which I will go into in another entry.

In summation, all these elements do form a lot of the comedy out there.  More than one of them may be combined, or they can stand on their own.  It all depends on what you’re looking at and/or what you want to convey.  I definitely recommend looking at your favourite comedies and taking them apart with these things in mind.  Don’t over-think it, just write down what you like, why it makes you laugh, and look for where the elements reside.  I’m still doing this myself and it’s a lot of fun.

So, can we define comedy by distilling this information into one definition?  It’s possible, but I do feel that looking at each element helps better than one sentence.  We could say that comedy is truth, pain, irony, similarity, contrast/incongruence, exaggeration, surprise, unpredictability, and spontaneity, but it’s a lot easier to say that comedy is stuff that makes us laugh.  In order to understand comedy, we have to look at what’s behind those things which make us laugh.  All these elements help us do just that.

Well that was quite a mouthful, but it’s a good starting point.  If you’re new to comedy writing, I hope this has helped in some way.  I’m still learning things myself, so writing this has actually helped me organize my notes.  The next entry may go into either understanding jokes or techniques.

Until then, have fun and keep writing.  Good night everybody  o/