The Comic Toolbox’s Lessons and Tools

Comedy is truth and pain . . . Religion, sex, and death are rich areas for humor because they touch some pretty strongly held beliefs.

The Rule of Nine . . . For every ten jokes you tell, nine will be trash . . . Depressing? Not really.  In fact, the rule of nine turns out to be highly liberating because once you embrace it, you instantly and permanently lose the toxic expectation of succeeding every time.

Lower your Sights . . . I lower my sights.  I concentrate on this chapter, this paragraph, this sentence, this phrase, this word.  Why? Because the hope of success can kill comedy just as surely as the fear of failure.

Okay, now we have two tools . . . the rule of nine and lowering our sights.

The better you imagine yourself to be, the better you become.

Change your focus.  Concentrate on the process, not the product . . . Concentrate on the task at hand . . . When you are concentrating on the task at hand, the outside world truly does not exist.

The comic premise is the gap between comic reality and real reality . . . Anytime you have a comic voice or character or world or attitude that looks at things from a skewed point of view, you have a gap between realities.  Comedy lives in this gap.

The comic premise exists in all comic structures.

Use the comic premise as a tool to create comic situations.

We start by looking for something unexpected to create the comic reality.

There are multiple gaps in a comic premise.  They all turn on conflict, and the deeper the conflict gets, the more interesting the premise becomes.

In classic dramatic structure, there are three types of conflict: man against nature, man against man, and man against self.

The first type of conflict, so-called global conflict, is the conflict between people and their world.

A normal character in a comic world stands in for the reader or viewer or listener and represents real reality.

Comedy is also created when a comic character appears in a normal world.

There are two types of local conflicts.  One pits a comic character against a normal character, and the other finds comic characters in opposition.

Not just in comedy but in all storytelling, the richest conflict is the conflict within . . . nothing beats seeing characters at war with themselves.

In on sort of inner conflict, a normal character becomes a comic character, and the comedy is rooted in the character’s change of state.

In the best comic storytelling, all three types [global, local, and inner conflict] are present in the same situation.

You may have noticed that I try to keep my comic premises short, the length of a sentence of less.  Like they say, brevity is the soul of wit.

To recap: The comic premise is the gap between real reality and comic reality.  Every form of humor, from the smallest jokes to the largest comic tales, has some sort of defining gap or comic conflict.  There are three types of comic conflict: Global conflict takes place between an individual and his/her world.  Local conflict us about people fighting people . . . Inner conflict features a character at war with himself./herself.  Inner conflict is always the richest and most rewarding.

The heart and soul of any comic character is his strong comic perspective.  I repeat these words—strong comic perspective . . . they [these three words] may be the three most important words in this book.

The comic perspective is a character’s unique way of looking at his world which differs in a clear and substantial way from the “normal” world view . . . The comic perspective functions in a character exactly as the comic premise functions in a story: it defines the gap that the laughs will spark across.

A character’s strong comic perspective is the motor that drives his comic engine.  Comedy flows from character.

Comic perspective is a new tool, a single, clearly defined way of looking at the world.

Virtually anything can be filtered through a comic perspective, and virtually any point of view can be a comic perspective.

Exaggeration is the tool that makes the comic perspective interesting.

The tool of exaggeration simply takes a comic perspective and pushes and stretches and accelerates it until it’s sufficiently so far from our [normal] perspective that it starts to be funny.

This tool, exaggeration, requires you to be bold . . .There’s no such thing as exaggerating too much.

Flaws are another tool in creating comic characters.  A comic character is funny as a function of his/her flaws.  Flaws are failings or negative qualities within a person’s attributes or aspects.

Flaws in a comic character work to open emotional distance between a comic character and viewers or readers . . . flaws work to make a comic character “the other guy” in readers’ and viewers’ minds.

The more flaws you can find for your comic characters, the more interesting and complex and funny those characters will become.

Find a flaw and you’ve found a comic character.

Here, then, is another comic premise you can exploit, the inner comic premise, the gap between how a character sees himself/herself and who he/she really is.

Flaws serve two purposes: they create conflict within characters, and they create emotional distance between character and audience.

Humanity is used to build a bridge between character and audience . . . a comic character’s humanity (identifiable sympathetic human qualities) create empathy.

Humanity, then, is the sum of a character’s positive human qualities that inspire either sympathy or empathy.

Comic perspective is the unique worldview at variance with normal reality; it is what drives the character’s comic engine.

Flaws are the elements of a comic character that separate him from “real” people.  If he has no flaws, he’s generic and not funny.

Humanity is the quality of a comic character that unites him with the audience, building sympathy and empathy.

Another tool is the clash of context.  Clash of context is the forced union of incompatibles.  Clash of context takes something from its usual place and sticks it where it doesn’t fit.

Clash of context is a surprisingly easy tool to use.  Stick a character in the opposite setting he/she is usually found in.

The wildly inappropriate response is another highly useful tool.

We want a wildly, not a mildly, inappropriate response.

The wildly inappropriate response is also pretty simple to use.  Just pick a situation and ask yourself what the logical response to that situation would be.  Then find the opposite (taking a cooler full of beer to a funeral).

The law of comic opposites seeks the diametric opposite of a comic character’s strong comic perspective and assigns that opposite to a second character.

The tool of comic opposites is one of the most common in comedy.

To find a comic opposite is to ask who could give your comic character the worst possible time.

Using tension and release is another comic tool.  You raise tension, and then you release it.

Allow tension (expectation) to build up.

Tension and release is not only a function of time, they are also a function of circumstance as well.

To make a joke funny, delay the payoff; to make a situation funny, create dire circumstances . . . maximum tension, suspended release.

Positioning the payoff: place the payoff at the end.

Tool: telling the truth for comic effect (stating the obvious).

Tool: telling a lie for comic effect  . . . Telling a lie for comic effect is like finding the wildly inappropriate response.  Simply locate the truth of a situation and then say the opposite of that.

Telling the truth and telling a lie for comic effect work well together.

Comic story: in the center-and-eccentric configuration you have a straight man/woman surrounded by comic characters . . .The comic premise of the center-eccentric story is found in the gap between the central character’s normal perspective and the uncommon comic perspectives of the surrounding eccentric characters.

Comic story: fish-out-of-water tale, a normal character in a comic world, or a comic character in a normal world.

Fish-out-of-water stories don’t require an actual physical change of place.  Often a character undergoes an internal change.

Comic story: Character comedy, the direct emotional war between strong comic opposites . . . law of comic opposites becomes the comic premise.

Character comedy is also often character romance.

Comic story: magical powers, the comic premise os the power itself.

Readers and viewers have tremendous tolerance for magic in comic stories, but give an explanation, establish your rules . . .readers and viewers will tolerate almost any stupid explanation.

Comic story: ensemble comedy, a group of people in conflict with each other and their world, a common storyline for TV sitcoms.

The trick to making an ensemble comedy work is to layer in sufficient lines of conflict within the group.

Comic story: slapstick, the easiest sort of comedy . . .you don’t have to worry about inner conflict of emotional core issues or any of the things that make writing hard.  All you have to do is to make it funny in superficial ways (slipping on a banana peel).

A slapstick character never experiences self-doubt . . .the comic premise of the gap between the slapstick character’s self-assurance and his/her manifest incompetence.

Because slapstick comedy denies self-doubt, it is physical comedy as opposed to cerebral/emotional comedy.

To create slapstick comedy, create a comic character with delusions of grandeur, and then put the character in a situation designed to torment those delusions.

Comic story: satire and parody, satire attacks the substance of a social or cultural icon or phenomenon from the outside.  Parody attacks from within.

The common denominator between satire and parody is this: both find their comic premise in the gap between the world as they present it and the world as their audience understands it to be.

The best parody and satire operate on two levels at the same time.  You might have a fish-out-of-water tale that involves a comic character in a new and challenging world that, at the same time, mocks a facet of that world.

A throughline is a simple, direct path from the start to the end of a tale.

The comic throughline:

1.     Who is the hero?

2.     What does the hero want? (inner and outer needs)

3.     The door opens (a new and challenging world—hero never the same).

4.     The hero takes control

5.     A monkey wrench is thrown in.

6.     Things fall apart.

7.     The hero hits bottom.

8.     The hero risks all.

9.     What does the hero get?

A monkey wrench is a new bad thing—a new screw-up, a new threat, a new character, a new complication.

In TV sitcoms, the monkey wrench is usually thrown in at the act break, the moment just before the commercial when the hero realizes things aren’t going according to plan.

The moment of maximum remove occurs when the character realizes just how distant he/she is from the goal.

You find the monkey wrench in your story by asking and answering the question: when does something go completely wrong?

In a comic story, the monkey wrench is usually thrown in when the hero falls in love.

The key word is loyalty.  A character always starts out with loyalty to himself and to his goal.  What happens when the monkey wrench is thrown is that the hero experiences displaced loyalty.

This new conflict between original loyalty and displaced loyalty turns the story on its head.

Create conflict between what the hero wanted originally and what the hero now wants.

The rule of three is a helpful tool that’s built on three iterations of an idea or theme.  The first iteration presents a theme.  The second iteration validates the theme.  The third iteration violates the theme/sequence.  The rule of three is thus: introduction, validation, and violation.

Another tool is the jokoid, something that looks and sounds like a joke but is not funny.  A jokoid is a placeholder in your story and can easily be revised.  It’s always easier to revise than invent.

The doorbell effect is a sudden unexpected complication.

The character has a certain expectation—the doorbell won’t ring—and then that expectation is denied/defeated—the doorbell rings.  As a tool, the doorbell effect can be a humorous way of complicating the character’s situation.

Avoid clichés, cheap worn-down lazy formulas that allow writers to take shortcuts.  Cliches risk alienating readers/viewers.

The running gag use the structure of a joke that never changes, while the substance always changes.

A close cousin to the running gag, the callback works by direct reference to an earlier joke or idea . . . callbacks are a marvelously effective way to finish, or button,  a scene or story.  End with your story’s beginning.

Comedy and jeopardy: the greater the jeopardy, the greater the comedy.

There are two general ways to increase the stakes for your here.  One is to increase the price of failure, and the other is to increase the prize for success.

Story logic versus story dynamic: always choose the boldest, noisiest, most dynamic choice.  Exaggerate.  You can always make a bad situation worse.

Microconflict and Macroconflict: the big conflict is your macroconflict.  Smaller skirmishes, obstacles, conflicts are the microconflicts that move the larger conflict forward and often act as microcosms, reflections of the larger conflict.

Synedoche: a part standing for a whole.

Ear Tickles: rhetorically pleasing sounds, alliteration, internal rhymes, and puns.

The Eyebrow Effect: setting up a situation where the solution to a problem creates a larger problem, which in turn creates a still larger problem.

Virtual Humor: three-dimensional humor that tell a story, tell a truth, and tell a joke.  To create 3-D humor first abstract your story, your truth, and your joke.  Once abstracted, you can look at your scene to consider how to make the moment functional on three levels.

Audience Allegiance: be consistent, avoid adversarial relationships, fulfill expectations.  Meeting an audience’s expectation is about the single most useful thing a comic creator can do to win an audience’s allegiance.

Sitcom Story Structure: either two-act or three-act story lines.  Each act ends with an “act break,” a big dramatic moment that creates a sense of expectation just before a commercial break.

In a two-act structure, create the ac break at the moment of maximum dread (when things should be as bad for your character as they possibly can get).

In a three-act structure, the first act break comes at a time of trouble is coming,” and the second act break comes at a time of “trouble is here.”

The Arc of Stability: sitcom story structures often follow a cycle of old stability, increasing instability, and new stability.  The new stability is most often a journey from denial to acceptance.

Sitcom structures also often have two story lines, an a-story and a b-story.  The a-story is the main story and focuses on the main characters.  The b-story is often much smaller, lighter and involves secondary characters, but somehow reflects the larger a-story.

A third sitcom shortcut to structure can be organized by four points: introduction (the trouble gets started), complication (the trouble gets worse), consequence (what results from the trouble), and relevance (statement of the story’s theme, often an imperative).

When creating a storyline, always consider the implied fireworks scene, the big climatic scene when all the fireworks explode.

Sketch Comedy has a nine-point structure: 1. Find your Strong Comic Character (comic perspective, flaws, humanity, and exaggeration), 2. Find your Force of Opposition (main character’s comic opposite), 3. Force a Union (strong compelling reason why your characters have to stay together), 4. Escalate the Conflict (the argument gets a lot worse), 5. Raise the Stakes (introduce a new element of risk or reward), 6. Push the Limits (make bad things worse, exaggeration is your best friend here), 7. Seek an Emotional Peak (a pressure-cooker point when things explode, highest point of conflict), 8. Find a Winner (who comes out on top), and 9. Change the Frame of Reference (a twist or spin to cap the action and release tension).