Joseph Wolenberg
4/12/2013
WRT: 200
Funny Business
The vast plethora of jobs that require a higher form of writing in one way or
another are nearly countless, from authors to lawyers to policemen, chances are that your
job will involve some form of writing. However there is one particular writing style that
appears to operate in a vastly different fashion than your average professional writing
style, and that would be writing of Comedy. Weather its for a show, a sketch, or even a
live performance, the writing process behind comedy has always been a fascinating and
intriguing field that I have always held near and dear to my heart. It is a unique process
that, with the help of a special guest of sorts, I shall elaborate upon thoroughly.
Now while writing for a show or movie and writing for a comedic act have many
similarities, they also have quite a few differences, so they will be examined separately
with the latter of the two going first. The writing process for a live comedy differs due to
the fact that the author is for a series of standalone jokes for the author himself to recite in
front of an audience, thus it requires both a different state of mind and a different process
to be written by. Comedian Louis CK mentioned during the late George Carlin’s
memorial tribute in 2010 that he learned something incredibly important from George
about writing comedy, and that was to throw out all of your material every year and just
start anew. He learned how to keep things fresh, and that his act shouldn’t be the same
jokes year after year just because the audiences tend to like them. And really, that’s one
of the key components of writing a good act, not trying to write the perfect joke for your
audience, but simply writing down what you as a comedian find to be humorous and
relevant. It may sound a bit backwards, not writing a joke with the intent of making an
audience laugh as they are more or less a meal ticket for the writer, but its true! A
comedian should write down what they specifically find to be funny, not what an
audience finds funny. The one thing that does need to be kept in mind whilst writing
certain forms of comedy is the relevancy of the joke. A comedian could write an
absolutely hilarious comedy routine, but if said routine is all about the presidency of
Chester A. Arthur in 1881, chances are that the routine would utterly fail as that is not
even remotely close to relevant to any audience outside of a historians group of some
sort. It’s good to keep your writing broad and at least semi relatable to others with topics
such as day to day life, relationships, gender differences, pop culture and so on. This is by
no means tailoring jokes for an audience; it is simply ensuring that there will actually be
an audience to tell jokes to in the first place. By no means does this idea mean that a
comedian couldn’t make a few jokes here and there that aren’t all that relevant, but it is
important to intersperse these jokes within a much larger collection of more pertinent
jokes. There are also quite a few subtle writing techniques that effect how funny
something is. Another method that comedians use in there writing is observational
humor, which involves taking mundane things from the comedians life, or often times
their nearby surroundings and asking themselves “How can I make this funny?”
According to comedy writer Lisha Goldberg, this is actually one of the more effective
ways for up and coming comedy writers to hone their skills, as it helps them with
learning how to develop new material on the spot, and it also gives them an out if their
routine is ever doing poorly.
Writing for a show on the other hand is a completely different story. Comedy may
follow a similar formula regardless of format; however the writing process differs quite a
bit when the writing is not intended to be seen live or for an act of some sort. The writer
is no longer writing for themselves, but rather they are writing for a character of some
sort. It is no longer the about what the joke writer would say, it’s about what the character
being written for would say. It’s all about setting up situations that play off of characters
personality traits, and it also involves far more writing of dialogue than a stand up bit
would. A comedian on stage is always aware that he is telling jokes, and he is aware of
his audience. I character on a show or skit shouldn’t be aware of the fact that they are
telling jokes, and rarely are they aware of the ever present fourth wall. For readers who
are unaware, the fourth wall is more or less a theoretical wall of reality that separates
fictional worlds from our world, which causes fictional characters to obviously be
unaware of the existence of our universe. Occasionally though a character may break the
fourth wall by referencing to the audience, or acknowledging that the world that the
character lives in is indeed fictitious. A good example would be a television character
winking at the camera, thus showing that the character is aware of the viewing audience,
or perhaps a comic character defeats the villain by simply “reading ahead” thus
acknowledging that the character is aware that it’s in a comic book.
I bring this notion of the fourth wall up, as it’s usually very important to avoid it
for most forms of comedic writing, however I did manage to find one comedic writer
who uses it flawlessly, and I had a brief interview with him over his comedic writing
style. Internet comedian Phelan Porteous, aka Phealous, who hosts a weekly comedic
review show which gains views in the hundreds of thousands, is a member of a large
group of comedians that all operate off of the same website. Most of the sight
contributors are comedic reviewers, be it of movies, song, comics, etc, and each one of
them usually has a character that hosts their reviews and Mr. Porteous is no exception.
There is one thing that sets his show apart from others though, and that would be his
character, which is completely aware that he is a character, and actually derives a large
portion of his jokes from this fact. He offered some interesting insight on the topic of
writing for a character in general, writing for a dry and self aware character such as his,
and how writing can change over the years: “When I first started the show four years
back, I…wasn’t very good. The writing was stiff, and I hadn’t really mastered the art of
deliveries and punch line’s yet. But as I improved over the years, the actual writing
process became way easier. I wasn’t really writing for my character anymore so much as
my character was writing himself and just telling me what to type”. He went on to
explain to me that the business is now simultaneously easier and harder to get into than
ever before. It has become easier do to social media sites and video sharing sites such as
youtube, but harder for the exact same reasons that were just mentioned causing an
incredibly large amount of competition in the field. And that is a sentiment that I agree
with wholeheartedly. For every one popular comedian that can be found online, there are
seemingly thousands who have tried the exact same thing and failed. So it technically is a
lucrative business, but it is reserved for the truly inspired and passionate. And as for
writing for a self aware character such as his own, there is obviously some finesse
involved, however the actual writing process s quite simple. According to Phelan, a lot of
the self referential humor does not get written into the script until after the script for an
episode has been completed. “Let’s say im reviewing a movie next week. I’ll watch two
or three films, pick out the worst of the bunch, and then write a script for an episode
about that movie. Later when im reading over the script, maybe I’ll come across a bad
joke and say “why did I type that?”, then I’ll actually type in “why did I type that?” into
the script, and then I can do a whole bit on why I just said type even though I’d be
speaking that line, yatta yatta, you get the idea”. So breaking the fourth wall does work
well in some situations, but it’s usually something to avoid in most forms of writing as it
is usually either done poorly or inappropriately.
Comedy writing is a business that will always be booming and in need of fresh
talent, whilst simultaneously having the market being flooded with inferior goods and
services. It is both complicated in dissecting what exactly is funny to both the writer and
the pubic, and it can be as incredibly simple as simply observing your surroundings and
speaking freely. So while writing comedy, either for stand up or pre-recorded shows and
scripts, may be both an interesting, entertaining, and sometimes quite lucrative field, it is
simply not meant for every schmuck with a keyboard and a sense of humor.
Sources
Lisha Goldberg. "Comedy Writing Tips." Writing.Com. Writer of the Winds, Winter
2002. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.
Porteous, Phelan. “Phealous at The Movies.” Skype Interview. 8 Apr. 2013.
Rubin, Fred. "5 Secrets for Improving Your Comedy Writing." Scriptfrenzy.org.
Scrivener, Summer 2008. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.