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chapter 4

Start Small With

Short Humor and Blogs

Humor is reason gone mad.

—Groucho Marx

Before you run in a marathon, take a brisk walk around the block. Short humor won't make you rich, but it can be a way of testing the water in your new comedy-writing career.

I tell people who want to be playwrights to start by writing a five- page scene, then move up to a 10-minute play (which means no more than 10 pages). From there they tackle a few variations of a one-act play: first 15-20 pages, then 30 pages, then a long one- act play of 60 pages. Then it's time to write the full-length play (80 pages and up).

It stands to reason that before taking on a sketch (3-5 pages), TV spec script (35 pages) or a full-length screenplay (110 pages), it might be smart to write something less than one page.

What is a short humor piece?

Think of it as something between 500 and 1,000 words that would appear in The Onion, The New Yorker, The New York Times op-ed page, The Huffington Post, and numerous periodicals of all tastes and subjects. And of course there's Mad Magazine and National Lampoon.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has a unique comedic voice. She wrote a piece relating tensions in North Korea to the characters in Mean Girls.

Woody Allen has been publishing short pieces in The New Yorker since the 1960s. Think of the work of David Sedaris. Steve Martin also has a side career of writing short humor pieces (not to mention plays and novels). To get a sampling of their work, Google The New Yorker and go to their archives.

Short humor could also be a comical essay for Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Playboy, or any number of men's and women's magazines, not necessarily only humor magazines. The Internet is filled with e-zines and websites that are looking for material. They may not pay anything, but you're getting a credit and exposure.

The key to short humor is, well, to keep it short.

If you write something that will fill one page in a mainstream magazine, you have a better chance of selling it. Same with an op-ed piece for The New York Times. Perhaps two or three times a month you'll see something amusing there and they're typically less than 500 words.

Less is more is the case with virtually all writing, but even more so with the short stuff.

I'm not talking about short stories. They are an entirely different thing. Other than in oddball contests where people are asked to write a short-short story, most short stories go over that 1,000 limit I mentioned.

Below is a short humor piece that I wrote for The New York Times.

How to Run a Network in 12 Easy Steps

At a secret location high in the Hollywood Hills, a unique support group meets once a week to share the pain of a specialized dysfunction that began during the latter half of the 20th century.

Its abbreviation is OCPD, otherwise known as Obsessive Compulsive Programming Disorder. Its victims are past and present individuals who have run a network and found themselves in the position of deciding what gets on and what doesn't.

Here, smuggled out of the meeting place, is the official 12-Step Program agenda for OCPD victims:

(1). Have the conviction to cancel sitcoms that aren't funny, to renew what is funny, and to know the difference.

(2). Have the strength not to give Kelsey Grammar another sitcom. He was unforgettable as Frasier and will always be associated with the character no matter how hard he tries not to be.

(3). Have the faith to resist all inclinations to take genuinely fresh and original concepts and develop them into finished products that only a business major could love.

(4). Have the self-confidence to not even think about ripping off Keeping Up With the Kardashians.

(5). Have the courage to use your political contacts to pass federal legislation that would bar any further sitcoms dealing with mismatched roommates, single moms, divorced dads, or oddly blended families.

(6). Have the nerve to develop programs about flesh-and-blood, recognizable human beings (even if they are animated or aliens).

(7). Have the self-assurance to eliminate from your vocabulary the words “tried” and “true” (except when used in the following context: “I tried to watch Hank and it's true – it sucked”).

(8). Have the boldness to say yes to intelligent, witty, cerebral comedies that won't ever be in the Top 10 or Top 20 or even the Top 30 and probably won't generate big advertising bucks and may barely break even, but just might draw in an audience so turned off to most of what's on that it could start a trend and help you take pride in bringing wit back to the boob tube.

(9). Have the assertiveness to greenlight programs for audiences over 50. Millions of high-end baby boomers who were couch potatoes before the term was even invented are channel-surfing every night. They're tired of watching the icons of their youth trashed on E!'s True Hollywood Story, crop circle theories on the Discovery Channel, and Bill O'Reilly's nightly attempt to be tougher than Mike Wallace.

(10). Have the integrity to undo the damage your predecessors have done to children by eliminating violence and blatant sexual innuendo that has certainly gotten some of these people really nasty spots in Hell. Always remember: Satan is waiting.

(11). Have the fortitude to ignore focus groups, demographics, and overeducated, over-opinionated experts and instead ask the person who cleans your office, or delivers your wine, or drops off your FedEx packages what they think. And never, ever forget that these are called “regular” people, who watch TV to relax at the end of a hard day.

(12). Have the wisdom, should you find a “regular” person whose insights are right on the money, to resist all urges to hire him or her as a vice president. Just under 550 words. It has some amusing points. I was poking fun (or taking aim) at network programmers. I made my point and did so with humor.

Now you try it.

reading assignment

Google the following. Look at the construction and pacing of the various essays. Wh at are the authors' points of view? Are they clear? Are they clever? Are they amusing?

Larry David's New York Times op-ed piece: “My War”

The Borowitz Report by Andy Borowitz

Maureen Dowd's New York Times op-ed piece: “To Tweet or Not to Tweet”

Will Durst (willdurst.com)

Carl Hiaasen's columns in The Miami Herald

Dave Barry (davebarry.com)

Woody Allen's New Yorker pieces: “Tails of Manhattan,” “Think Hard, It'll Come to You,” and “Udder Madness”

Madeleine Begun Kane (madekane.com)

Bill Shein (reasongonemad.com)

Tom Purcell (tompurcell.com)

writing assignment no. 1

Come up with 10 ideas for a short humor piece. Choose the one you like best and write an essay of 500-750 words. 12 pt. Courier. Double-spaced, which equals three pages.

writing assignment no. 2

Write a satiric opinion piece on something that irritates you. 500-750 words.

writing assignment no. 3

Write a satirical essay for The Onion. Either go online and check out their website or if you have access to the paper, study it cover to cover. Look at the length of the pieces. Most are short. Some are longer. Some work very well; some don't. Ask yourself why you laughed at some and didn't at others. Then write one.

Something You Should Know that's Not Big Enough to Deserve Its Own Chapter

Why Blogs Were Meant for Fledgling Comedy Writers

As far as I'm concerned there are two kinds of blogs: those that offer information on learning or improving on a skill, and those that are chronicles of a person's life.

Some of the latter are entertaining as hell and are fun to read. Many of these are directed at a niche audience. New moms, new dads, retirees, cooks, tell-alls about different professions. However, most of these kinds of blogs are about the minutiae of someone's life, i.e., “I found a bug in my hamburger today,” or “Checked out the campus of Penn State today,” or “Last night's episode of Big Bang Theory was awesome.”

Who reads these things I don't know, but I do know that the blogs I read are for entertainment and education in areas I'm interested in: movies, television, and cooking.

People who want to begin their comedy-writing career with short humor should start a blog. They're easy to construct and free. Find your niche and start posting short pieces. Give yourself the goal of writing at least two posts a week, maybe three. Unless you're having an incredibly busy week, don't back away from this schedule.

It's all about the discipline. You're learning to write short humor. The best way to learn is to do it. The more of them you write, the better you'll get. Some will be superb, some will suck, and the rest will be somewhere in between.

With each blog post you write, you'll get better and more comfortable putting your thoughts and ideas on paper.

If your blog topic is interesting, colorful, entertaining, and provides information to help readers develop or improve a skill, it'll catch on.

The ultimate goal of a blog for anyone seriously trying to be a comedy writer should be to create a solid Internet platform of readership in order to turn your blog into a book.

In the case of Julie Powell, her blog The Julie/Julia Project became not only a book, but also a movie: Julie & Julia.

Steve Dublanica, a waiter, started a blog called Waiter Rant, which described the ups and downs of being a waiter. It resulted in a best-seller of the same name.

Even if you don't achieve results like them, what you will gain is experience in writing and it will prepare you to move on to longer projects.

Save it for the performance!