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chapter 2

If You're out of Touch, You Won't Get in the Door

Life literally abounds in comedy if you just look around you.

–Mel Brooks

Smart, informed writers write funnier stuff than people who don't know what's going on in the world. If you're not a news junkie, you'd better become one.

Keep current with what's happening in our country and around our planet. Read newspapers for national and international news; 3 watch your local TV news, too. You never know where you're going to find material. If you're too cheap to buy newspapers, go online; almost every newspaper is free for the viewing. I suggest concentrating on papers in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington.

Because I live in New York I read The New York Times for serious news and The New York Post for pop culture and oddball human- interest stories.

Pay even closer attention to pop culture news. Think of all the jokes that have been written about Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, and Sarah Palin, as well as their dysfunctional families. If you look at People magazine or Us and you've never heard of most of the actors, singers, or entertainers on the cover, you're out of touch.

There's always someone new on the horizon to make fun of.

Read as many online sites about Hollywood personalities as you can, because these are the people you'll be drawing humor from.

Here are some you should bookmark:

Perez Hilton

Nikki Fincke's Deadline Hollywood

Popculturemadness

TMZ

The Hollywood Gossip

The Superficial

Gawker

E! Online

TV Squad

PopSugar

Laineygossip

I'm Bringing Blogging Back

The Hollywood Grind

Dlisted

Bricksandstonesgossip

Hilaryshepard

National Enquirer

You should also watch every pop culture TV news show. DVR them. Fastforward through stuff that's remote, but take in the material that's ripe for ridicule.

The Soup

E!Online

TMZ

E! Entertainment

Access Hollywood

The Insider

Entertainment Tonight

And definitely check out the following political websites and blogs even if they're not on your side.

The Huffington Post

The Daily Kos

The Drudge Report (which connects you to many other news links and columns)

Wonkette

Politico

Indecisionforever.com

Salon

The Hill

RealClearPolitics

TalkingPointsMemo

HotAir

Crooks and Liars

And of course The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report.

Whatever your politics, by exposing yourself to what left- and right-wing columnists are writing about, you'll be more connected to what's going on in the world. But unlike the average person who reads the news for information, you will be looking for material. The more you learn every day, the more you'll have to draw on for material.

You also need to ask yourself how much you really know about comedy. Are you funny by instinct or are you well-schooled in the underlying nature of comedy?

It's a big plus to be funny by instinct, but that can only get you so far. It's like being a natural athlete. Somebody lucks out in the genetic lottery, but without the proper coaching and training, he won't learn how to refine his natural God-given abilities.

Adolescent boys who can't get attention from girls with their looks or intelligence or by excelling at sports resort to goofball antics either physical or verbal. But that only goes so far and lasts so long. The kid whose talent is shoving a slice of pizza up his nose will be trumped by the boy who has figured out that girls get bored quickly with silliness and prefer someone who can amuse them with wit.

If you're going to take the plunge and compete in the world of comedy writing, it's essential that you do as my father liked to say: “Smarten up.”

One way to do this is to get a handle on what laughter is all about.

People laugh for many reasons: when they're nervous, excited, tense, happy, tricked by someone, or simply because someone else is laughing or crying. In the past, laughter was considered an unsocial, sinister behavior. In the 18th century, Lord Chesterfield, writing to his son, said, “…there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill-bred, as audible laughter.”

According to Oliver Goldsmith, laughter was the expression of “the vacant mind” and John Ray likened it to “the hiccup of a fool.”

Fortunately, laughter is way more cool these days. There will always be an audience for laughter. People will pay to bring laughter into their lives.

If You're out of Touch, You Won't Get in the Door

If you want to be the recipient of their money, you have to educate yourself so you can discover the road that's right for you.

The R Word

New writers of any genre hate to rewrite. They don't understand its value. The tendency of most people taking their baby steps as writers is to get it out and assume that it's good.

It usually isn't. And when it comes to comedy, not being good means that it's not funny enough.

It might have a few laughs, but not enough. It might have more than a few laughs, but the story or situation is weak and the jokes don't make sense. It might have lots of laughs and the story is strong, but it can still be better, i.e., funnier.

If you have one laugh on a page, try to get two or three. If you have two laughs on a page, aim for four or five.

If you're satisfied that you have enough laughs, check the structure. Does the story get started too late? Do you go off on an unnecessary tangent midway? Can the ending be better? Funnier?

Once you understand that rewriting is second nature, you've crossed a major threshold.

a quick lesson

Before You Break the Rules, Learn the Rules

Ultimately, all forms of comedy writing are about learning the form and formula.

There is a right way to structure a joke, monologue, scene, TV script, and screenplay. Once you've decided the kind of comedy writing you're going to pursue, then it's a matter of learning the rules and necessary craft required. If you want to go “out of the box,” do it once you've mastered the rules.

Musicians who wind up playing jazz had to learn the musical scales first before they played their first riff.