ADVANCE WITH SHALLA

Sunday

EXERCISE ONE: (page 67 of Comedy Writing Step by Step)

Ready to Exercise? Turn your brain cells on and get those pens ready, we're exercising our funny muscles.

1. Collect 50 jokes that we like.

2. Type or Print the jokes on paper and analyze them.

3. List what makes them funny and what form they take Ie. Are they word jokes? Do they create a funny image? Or both?

Here, we will learn the style and form of some great jokes, understand our comedy tastes and generate our own style, get inspired and have a nice reference.

Developing Our Funny Bones

Again, we're reading Comedy Writing Step by Step by funny man Gene Perret

But first, I just had to type this in. (so funny and well put)

You don’t remember that your sister was choked right in front of you? Tell you what, you choke my sister, I’m remembering it because I’m sitting in jail because I just whooped your ass.

--Keith in The Law Firm

DEVELOPING NEW SKILLS

Write faithfully and experiment with new skills, new talents. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Good writing is a kind of skating which carries off the performer where he would not go.”

Listen and Read comedy. Ie. Tape and type out monologues, study for form, rhythm and style.

You will adopt styles unconsciously.

learn what does and doesn’t Works: note type of responses certain jokes get

find the latest Joke Forms Ie. Knock-knock, who’s there? … or Your mama is so fat (fill in the blanks)

have New Topics and Slants Ie. Use current events

have a Definite Style Ie. Adopt character’s speech patterns/rhythms of speech (get acquainted with as many different styles as possible)

expose yourself to varied styles Ie. Learn from the greats (study the best sitcoms, faves like Will and Grace, Mama’s Family, Threes Company, Golden Girls, Night Court, etc.)

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Tip for overcoming Writers Block – Can’t think of anything funny? Watch a sitcom. Put on a tape of John Stewart’s America The Book

3 Skills to Comedy

Recognize relationships and ironies
Use visualization and Imagery
Have a facility with words

(learn vocabulary words, words found in jokes, funny words, etc.)

Be inventive… let your meanderings lead you where they may.

1. Relationship and Ironies:

2 or more ideas = humor

Ideas can be very similar,
Quite different,
Appear to be different but are really the same
Appear to be the same but are really different

Any time you see a man open a car door for his wife, either the car is new or the wife is.

Simple, yet a delightful observation.
Joke stands on its own. (Joke that needs an explanation needs to be edited)
Why funny? Statement is partly true. (Married men get lax about the nicety of opening car doors for spouses)
Observation is recognizable and expressed tightly.

Have you ever noticed how those Jehovah’s Witnesses are always at your door? Hey, I got an idea. Why don’t we let them deliver the mail?

Why funny? Statement is partly true/Recognizable.
It recognizes the irony and relationship.
Expressed beautifully.

2 Visualization and Imagery

Jokes – words that create funny images

Distortion or ridiculousness of Image = Humor

Puns/word play can be funny but make sure it creates a graphic image

Gene Perret’s jokes for Phyllis Diller:

Talk about fat people, you ought to see my mother in law. She’s so big, she has two zip codes.

She’s a nice woman, though. Nicest three acres of flesh I’ve ever met.

Take liberties with imagery.

Our minds easily accept distortions and impossibilities.

Minds also tend to fill in the gaps, continuing the image to a natural conclusion, supplying info.

Humorists manipulate this tendency by leading an audience’s thinking in one direction and then suddenly changing that direction.

It’s like a man slipping on a banana peel. He’s walking contentedly along then, suddenly, he slips.

Take advantage of human thinking patterns.

Facility with Words

Norm Crosby – malapropisms (clever ways to misuse words) “An ounce of perversion is worth a pound of cure.”

Sam Goldwyn –“Goldwynisms” misuse phrases so that meanings conveyed

Friday

Join Us! Back-to-Back Q&A with Literary Agents

September 28, 2005 Q&A with Wylie-Merrick Literary Agent, Robert Brown

October 26, 2005 Q&A with Firebrand Literary Agent, Nadia Cornier

Join Us ShalladeGuzman Writers Group

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Can you believe it? Halloween's almost here :)

Happy Halloween!

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Tuesday

BUILDING YOUR SKILLS: Exercises in Comedy Writing Step by Step

Gene Perret's is a how-to book with suggestions for beginners, exercises for sharpening your comedy skills, but "the genius must come from you." (yeah, okay)

He says, if asked, "Should I write if I don't feel ready?"
Answer must be, Certainly, that's how you get ready. What gets people warmed up to write? Writing.

You will improve with repetition. Ie. practice, write, study, practice, etc.

Persevere and complete these exercises and pretty soon, what first seemed "impossible" becoems doable and then, fun.

Good writing is a kind of skating which carries off the performer where he would not go. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

What's another way to practice comedy writing? Listening, reading, watching TV
-tape and type out monologues of comedians, study for form and style (for me, since I'm writing a novel, I'm typing and studying transcripts of TV shows)

How do you know if the joke works? By the audience/readers' laughter
Ie. you might like it, but the audience doesn't give it a laugh--then throw it out, get a new one

JOKE FORMS:

The form stimulates the mind, goads it into filling in the blanks.

Ie.
You all know what the trickle-down theory is, that's (fill in the blanks)

There should be something funny about that, you know... Ronald Reagan as a liberal Demorat. That's like (fill in the blanks)

It was cold today that... (fill in the blanks)

Do meanings for initials.

Ie.

With the new season going the way it is, NBC stands for (fill in the blanks)

Assignment: Listen and study other comedians

Resources for Writing Funny

The Comic Toolbox: How to Be Funny Even If You're Not by John Vorhaus (Author)

Writing Television Sitcoms by Evan S. Smith "You want to write?..." (more)

This one's not to up your funny, but I might like to check it out later, so here it is...

Comic Book Resources

Skills Needed to Write Humor

Ability to Scan Ideas

Topic > DISECT > List Relationships > (go thru joke creation)
Topic/Relationships (picture, word, phrase) have standard meanings, go beyond that

Topic/Relationships (picture, word, phrase) roll ideas until hits a joke

Start with what you want to say, then scan for perfect 2nd idea to form a funny line.

Recommendation-4-Newcomers: Write out list and stimulate funny bones

Ability to Visualize

Funny Jokes = Conjures ridiculous images

Ie. “She’s so fat that…”

My mother-in-law is so large, one day she wore a gray dress and an admiral boarded her.

Imagery – woman looked like a battleship

(Created by letting the mind wander into exaggerated visions of her size—whale, building, truck, tank, battleship, etc. As comedy composer, take realistic image and distort/exaggerate it out of proportion to see what funny images you can visualize. Find right words for new image and walah!)

Topic > DISECT > Exaggerated Visions of Topic > Get right words to show image

A Facility with Words

Get proficient with words. Develop an ear for words and phrases. List trendy words and phrases.

Ie. Someone asked Bob Hope how he stayed so young-looking. He replied: I use industrial-strength Oil of Olay.

Here, he combined 2 popular commercial phrases – “industrial strength” and “Oil of Olay” = Joke

Ability to Pick Up Comedy Rhythm

Get familiar with:

Comedy Rule of 3
Put punchline close to the end of joke
Words with “K” are funny
Rhythm, according to Gene Perret is inherent (we’ll see about that :)

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A wonderful Message Board TV Writer.Com

TV Writer.Com Message Board
Television writing is a collaborative effort!This is the place to trade tips, tragedies, and triumphs!

Monday

COMEDY WRITING STEP BY STEP: How to Write and Sell Your Sense of Humor

COMEDY WRITING STEP BY STEP

I’m reading Comedy Writing Step by Step by Gene Perret and he says getting the wit out is just a matter of discipline. Wonderful! Sure, I’ll buy that, so much possibilities, I can learn and acquire comedic skills? ‘Soo, happy.

According to Gene, he used to get about 60 jokes a day, now, he turns out 120 gags no problem. And as I’ve learned from watching Situation Comedy, writing is rewriting.

(I’ve heard that before but didn’t believe it and preferred instead to get it done the first time, but after reading/mastering :P Self Editing for Fiction Writers, I’m having lots of fun editing and my manuscript is improving at least a million fold. Amazing, I thought it was great the first time, now it’s rocking! And I’m still working on it—so fun! Why do I wake up, without alarms, at 3AM, pumped up to write? It’s sooo fun!)

“… all of us—beginners and veterans—can improve.” Cool!

The Skills You’ll Need

“Having been faced with many difficult assignments with distressing pressing deadlines, I’ve learned one thing: get them done quickly so that I can get back to relaxing.” My kind of writer… Ain’t that the truth? Right-on. (‘scuse me, characters in my head giving input)

Gene Perret’s other suggestions:

Spend time preparing – makes the job easier and results, better (check out chapter on skills necessary for comedy writing)

Patience, Study and Diligent Practice (until I can ad-lib and improvise) “…gradually, almost unwittingly, you will absorb what you learn and it will become part of your writing arsenal.” Well, since you put it that way :) I’m improving my writing arsenal—here, I can imagine myself strapped with weapons, BANG! BANG! YAH!, delivering rounds of perfect dialogue, imagery, syntax, word choices, blowing everyone away with highly sophisticated entertainment, full of wit, seething of charm, depth, and unique, award-winning writing style and voice.

Skills Necessary to Write Humor

What is a sense of humor?

A. to see things as they are (audience/reader should have had the experience in their own lives, remind them)

B. to recognize things as they are (past being offended when they accept what’s happening)

C. to accept things as they are

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Kid the audience/reader only with topics that they see, recognize and accept

Make sure the joke has all 3

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How to develop a sense of humor?

Learn to see, recognize and accept reality. Ie. Step back, look at an experience (see), figure out possible reactions (recognize), now from that, what’s the final result (accept)

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2 Thought Processes In Writing Jokes

distinct idea + distinct idea = joke

or

joke = 2 ideas tied together in a funny way

Ideas can be: strikingly similar; intriguingly opposite; totally nonsensical; simply ironic

(look at favorite one-liners and find there are two jokes there)

Here’s the Mind forming a Joke

IDEA >>> (with faster than super computer-speed generates & appraises other ideas) IDEA WITH HUMOROUS CONNECTION

Or

IDEA (humorous connection) IDEA

This can happen by accident or a slow, methodical process that prepares the mind to go thru forming a joke

Ie. Generate more IDEAs and get more, better jokes

The methodical process of creating jokes is rearranging, judging, rejecting, accepting, dissecting etc.

“As a humorist, you will want to be able to thoroughly dissect a topic and prepare a list of relationships before getting around the actual joke creation.”

So:

Topic > DISECT > List Relationships > (go thru joke creation)

Dissecting Ideas:

Find words, phrases, events, people, facts, things, and symbolisms similar or opposite Topic

See Non-Standard Meanings

“A good humorist must learn to go beyond the obvious.”

Topic/Relationships (picture, word, phrase) have standard meanings, go beyond that

Eg.

Man in tuxedo = Man in tuxedo but, he can also be a penguin

Man in white dinner jacket = Good Humor man or doctor

E.g. Bob Hope:

“My wife watched the game on television and said, ‘These players can’t be too old. Some of them haven’t been unwrapped yet.’”

Ie. “players” = athletes = playing cards