Comedy Writing Toolbox: Little Tricks
Taking an idea to a finished product by way of little writing tricks.
Comedian slash writer slash prolific Substacker Matt Ruby posted a great article on his Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian (recommend!) this week that he called “Ways to make it funny.” In short, he found a list of writing tips he made from studying what tools comedians used in their jokes to get from premise to punchline. You can read the full list here:
As a joke dork, this is the stuff I eat right up. It’s also the stuff I do all the time. When I hear a joke I love or that stands out to me, I like to stop and think about it. I’ll re-listen to the joke and break it down. I’ll make up stories in my head about where the comedian was or what they were doing when the inspiration for the joke hit them. I’ll picture them out in public, or having a conversation with a friend, and falling into the situation that inspired them. Sometimes a joke feels like it came up naturally through a lightning-bolt of inspiration, while others feel like an idea that came about through getting deep into the weeds of free-writing or journaling or whatever sort of writing method the comedian might use. Of course, I could be way off course to how the joke was actually created, but by making up a story, I help myself create a path to creating my jokes in a similar way.
Inspired by Matt’s post, I wanted to share my list of stand-up writing “little tools” that I use to help me work through an idea.
Some of these are vague or use terminology that only makes sense to me. Others are pretty clear-cut. But I think I’m going to explain them more in future posts here.
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