How to Write Comedy

When we talk about comedy writing, A comedy is a truly wonderful genre to write in. It is funny, as the name implies, interesting, and more often than not strange.

Comedy makes people laugh, and can even in the most serious of situations. Such a feat is hardly easy, but it manages it. And people love to find ways to laugh, so there is no doubt that a comedy story will be well received, especially if well written.

However, many people who want to work in comedy writing genre seem to be stuck. They either don’t know how to start, don’t know how to finish, or don’t know how to make it funny.

That is what this article is for; to teach you the best way to write comedy.

Work With Others

Most comedians, as you know, will test their jokes on a practice audience. A good friend or a family member. In this same way, you, as a comedy writer must practice any of the comedic parts or ideas for your story on a test audience.

It doesn’t have to be many people, just one or two who are the demographic you’ll be aiming your story towards.

If a joke or idea fails, ask why the test audience didn’t find it funny, and what they would change about it to make it funny. Consider what’s being said about the part, and either rewrite it to match what the test audience liked, or scrap it and come up with a new idea.

It will take awhile, and it may be tiring having to constantly rewrite jokes and funny parts in your story, but if you keep working hard at it, the end result will be well worth the trouble.

Test, Test, Test

As I said above, testing people’s reaction to your story is key. No matter how sure you are that a joke is sure to be comedy gold, don’t use it without testing it. That is the downfall of many comedy writers; they are too sure of their abilities.

Another thing to always be testing is people’s reactions to your genres that will be utilized. A comedy/thriller would not be something people want to read. Most would find it reaching too far, and unlikely that there could even be humor in a thriller. Not to say it hasn’t happened of course.

Of course storyline is important too. People will want something that’s truly deep and unique as well as funny, not just something that’s been copy pasted off of a cliche movie. Make sure that people test your storyline to achieve this. As an author, it can be easy to miss something like that.

Write, Write, Write

As a writer, you know that you’ll be doing quite a bit of writing. It is implied in the name. But it can be easy to underestimate just how much writing you’ll be doing. And rewriting. And rewriting again.

The first thing to do is write an outline of your story. Any important parts that are going to be in it need to be included for sure.

Then you write a first draft. Read it. Let others read it. See if it’s funny. If it’s not funny, make a new outline and then write a new first draft.

These steps repeat until you create a good first draft that is funny. Once you’ve found that perfect first draft, the rewrite it into a second draft.

See, Hear, Funny

A big part of comedy is its ability to make people almost feel like they were there at the same time a joke occurred first.

First, see. You have to make sure your writing is visual for people to see it happening. You want them to be able to see your story when they close their eyes. Able to be right there with the characters and seeing what the characters are seeing.

Second, hear. Jokes are almost always told using words in real life. While a comedy story might not be about jokes or someone telling jokes, its theme is still humor. It’s important for people to be able to practically hear the story being told, the characters talking to each other. Make sure that every single characters speech is distinct.

Third, funny. I know, we have already talked about being funny in comedy stories quite a lot already, but this will be quick. Make sure that the readers of the story will find the story funny, as we talked about in step 2 and slightly in step 1.

Have Fun

Do not forget to have fun when you write. It can be easy for people to forget this, especially when writing is a job. It should always be something you try to avoid though. How many people do you think have read stories that were good, but it just didn’t seem like the authors actually enjoyed writing them? That’s why it’s best to have fun writing. Otherwise people will know and not read your stories.

This also means that you mustn’t spend all your time writing too. You have to take breaks to relax and refresh. In the long run, this will benefit your story, because chances are that you’ll come back to it with a bunch of new ideas.

Be Different

in terms of comedy, it’s always better to have original ideas that ideas that have been used before. It adds more interest, and of course it means people won’t feel like they’re reading something just like they did last week.

Another way being different benefits you is that no one can claim you stole their ideas, and you’ll alway be known as the first person to use a specific idea.

And being different is something that most people want to be, to stand out from a crowd. By making your story different, that makes it stand out.

And there you are. A step by step tutorial on comedy writing. Now all you need is a pen, paper, and some ideas.

More Tips For Comic Story Writing

 Comic Story Writing is one of the most difficult genre in writing. Developing a great sense of humor is different, particularly when you have to put it to writing. Perhaps, it is so because humor trumps all other elements of a story, or because it simply depends on shared context. The problem a lot of writers have is how to come up with a way to incorporate jokes into different aspects of the story without cutting the reader’s involvement short. A lot of authors deal with this problem by giving out the task to their characters, and if you’re able to carry this out perfectly, your readers will secure a permanent spot in their heart for the funny characters. If done the wrong way, they’ll act like kryptonite to the emotional aspect of your story and shift their focus from the narrative aspect.

Here’s the bad news which many authors do not always want to believe; it’s very easy to create funny characters in a bad manner. The good news is that, this article has been designed to direct you on how to incorporate genuinely characters either to lighten up your dramatic narrative or comic story writing.

There are a lot of theories or rules attached to humor, and the only way a writer can go far to craft funny characters is by learning them.

Authors have picked out the incongruity-resolution theory to be the most useful of all. Here’s what it suggests; one can only create a humorous response after the recognition of the reality of a situation that had been perceived in the past to be unfamiliar or strange. What this theory is trying to explain in short is that you can only create a response the moment you “view” something that seemed odd initially. This is most traditional jokes blueprint; this setup itself creates a strange idea that craves expectation, thus, confusing the listener, but the punchline immediately works the confusion through to understanding.

Explaining jokes in Comic Story Writing

In comic story writing, There are a lot of ways by which you can visualize and create moments of realization coupled with the power to recognize how a situation presents itself. Different authors have been able to come up with different approaches regarding this.

What really determines how we are able to engage or deal with a situation is our personality, as it’s able to reflect our willingness. If a reader discovers that a particular approach isn’t interesting, such reader suddenly will lose interest in the incongruity and not become invested in it. Without the first confused energy and expectation, the resolution will yield no impact. This is why a person discovers a thing to be funny while the other sees no joke in it.

On the bright side, authors today are considering different choices in order to create a sense of humor and put laughter on their reader’s face, coupled with different funny characters to select. Let’s consider these characters explained below;

The fool in Comic Story Writing

This kind of character misinterprets a comment, situation or concept. Their behavior does not agree or conform to the reader’s own idea of a concept or situation, and resolution only appears when the reader is able to differentiate between the fool’s behavior and how a less foolish character would have behaved if allowed to play the role.

A perfect example can be found in one of Anthony Horowitz series’ The Diamond Brothers, Tim Diamond represented the character as an idiotic private eye.

The fool can only be of use for a short period of time as it might not work out anymore since the reader does not always resolve their incongruity when the comic story does. This might make the fool look irritating to the reader since he/she has to falsely go with the incongruity till the part where the writer has created a resolution, or try to shield more life on where the fool got it wrong. The reader might get the chance of experiencing the initial idea of incongruence since an assumption would have been made about the fool doing the wrong thing.

To utilize fools better, try inserting them in comedic stories, where the nature or setting of the world they are in supports their misapprehension. Check out the second if you want to try a more versatile or diversified type of funny character.

The friend in Comic Story Writing

In this case, the reader needs to have an in-depth understanding of humor before The friend can be unraveled, leaving readers to think and laugh while doing it. Here, the character gets to utter something unexpected or try to create incongruity, but there’s resolution the moment the reader is able to denote that their action exhibit similar measurable standard with an aspect of their character that had been existing before.

A perfect example can be coiled from one of Peter Jackson’s movies; The Lord of the Rings, from the Two Towers, where two characters Aragon and Gimli had to jump across a chasm in order to join the on-going battle. Most sitcoms adopt this type of character, where unusual and strange situations can be incorporated, which in turn creates a resolution acting same as their characterization. Shows like Scrubs and The Big Bang Theory make use of these characters as supports.

use of ‘wit’

This explains the writer’s ability to evoke humor by verbally presenting a concept or situation. Their humor isn’t designed and defines the same way as the two categories explained above, even though it may consist of what your funny character is able to do.

 

How to create a funny Frankenstein

The first two categories above can be adopted to denote the kind of humor that will fit your characters perfectly, but the major key which can help you to write very funny characters is trying to add up these categories. Take, for instance, Tim’s stupidity in “Diamond Brothers” made him a fool, but through the story, he is made a friend from the reliable recurrence. Gimli on the other hand who was given a friend warrior presented a fool humor after he was hurled at those he was fighting.

Do not forget that characters exhibiting a great sense of humor exist not in isolation, nor from the events that took place in the story or from other characters. Getting a basic understanding of what and why the situation is funny to bring about funny characters. However, getting to find your way in comic story writing by combining your creations bring about funny moments.