The follies that miss the jollies

Just thinking with critiques current purple patch how about accumalating our wisdom and advice gathered from it. The how not to advice based on what you wrote or read that made you think, man (or lady) don't write that!

1 Joke grasping.

When you go for every single possible gag. When you're doing well the jokes you miss are as important as the ones you keep. If you're sitcom has 2 characters stop just to exchange witty lines for a page. Or you're hilariously stupid groundskeeper stops to real off some Wildean wit. Then you're breaking the spell and those jokes will hold you back.

2 Over explanation.

My pet hate. Humour is very much about surprise and intellectual leaps. So every time you painstakingly set up a gag, you're draining all the humour and surprise out of it.
Starting a sketch
"Hello I am professor silly trousers and today I will be hilariously explaining gayness to penguins."
Will never be funny unless his speach turns out to be dead serious.

3 Running past the punchline.

The punchline is where the joke ends. Anything extra is just a bit confusing. And akin to running upto a heavy weight boxer in a bar punching him in the cock. And then hanging about.

Only been writing a small while but my pearls are -

Writing a joke should be like eating a piece of bacon, trim off the fat to make it fit for consumption (though I have eater bacon with the fat on in my wilder moments)

Sketches are like a stew, they need plenty of colourful veg but the meat should be of quality and don't overboil.

Sitcoms should only be attempted at home if you have all the ingredients to hand, are prepared to labour long, adding a pinch here and a sprig there, the final result will be your pride and joy, but you may still end up feeding it to the dog.

This thread is a very good idea. It would be good if people added to it now and then, when they thought of the odd tip.

I have to say I'm a fan of 'show, not tell'. By that I mean there is a lot of comedy in a person's physical reaction to a situation, rather than just letting them spout dialogue at it. Don't forget your audience can see what's going on, you don't have to give your characters the boring job of explaining it all to them and the audience the boring job of listening.

Sometimes, a screwed up grimace and an aggravated point is all that's needed to show a person's distress.

It's a very common temptation for a new script-writer to hear the conversation they want their characters to have and proceed to whack it all in to their PC/laptop (I used to do this!). They can see the scene, and what their characters are doing, in their heads, but forget that their potential audience can't. They forget to add actions and leave us all imagining a bunch of inanimate actors who have nothing to do but talk. Even the emotions with which they want an actor to speak is sometimes omitted and those small details are really helpful when 'cold' reading through a script.

Going back and adding actions to a script is okay, but then you have the job of thinning out the dialogue so your characters aren't showing AND telling at the same time.

A basic example would be if one person knocked another person's wig off their bald head.

The wig slides off and on to the floor.
"Oh no! Now you've knocked my wig off and it's on the floor!"

I know this seems a little too obvious, but you see where I'm going.

Better to have the wig fall off and the bald person react in a completely shocked and offended way...looking at the wig...clutching his head...shrieking at the person who knocked it off...you see what I mean.

So...yes...I used to spew dialogue and forget the all important visuals. You might think someone reading your script can imagine everything you have created without these, but it's very likely they can't and you should never assume.

I know nothing more about comedy but I reckon I could cook tea following that advice.

Quote: Shandonbelle @ August 2 2012, 3:50 PM BST

Only been writing a small while but my pearls are -

Writing a joke should be like eating a piece of bacon, trim off the fat to make it fit for consumption (though I have eater bacon with the fat on in my wilder moments)

Sketches are like a stew, they need plenty of colourful veg but the meat should be of quality and don't overboil.

Sitcoms should only be attempted at home if you have all the ingredients to hand, are prepared to labour long, adding a pinch here and a sprig there, the final result will be your pride and joy, but you may still end up feeding it to the dog.

View original

Are you hungry?

Oh and if noone likes it, deep freeze for use in an emergency.

Knowing who you are writing for is importnat its easy to write for jaded online comedy writers

But they're not the real audience

Quote: sootyj @ August 2 2012, 4:08 PM BST

Knowing who you are writing for is importnat its easy to write for jaded online comedy writers

View original

I would have thought it would be harder to please them.

One thing that always sticks in my mind is this pithy example of a three act structure.
1, Stick your character in a tree.
2, throw stuff at him.
3, get him out of the tree.

Great analogy for sitcom structure.

There is a difference between a sketch and a gag in dramatic form. The gag builds up to the punch and ends there, you don want anything after the punch; in a sketch the big laugh comes when the audience works out the premise - what it is about the sketch that makes if funny; you then milk that joke for as long as is decent, and try to get out with as much dignity as possible. The ending does not have to brilliantly funny, it just has to be sufficiently definite that the audience know to applaud (or not).

It seems a daft thing to have to learn but I'd add 'Be true to yourself'.

I've written some absolute rubbish in my time (that led to the resumption of my bed-wetting) only because I was flattered to be asked.

Now I only write stuff that I am happy to put my name to. That's my 'career' over, but who wants to make a 'career' out of being funny?

tl;dr What Bill Hicks said.

Listen to the professionals. That's the best advice.

That's actually a really sad thing to write.

Bodie knows his shit but Doyle's an arse.

Quote: sootyj @ August 4 2012, 9:23 PM BST

That's actually a really sad thing to write.

View original

Just my experience, Sooty. I've learnt more from people who've had some proper success than on here.