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4

Learn the Business

The PAL was a big deal in our neighborhood when I was young. PAL was an acronym for the Police Athletic League. The local police precincts would form youth teams and play against each other around the city. I played baseball for them, as did almost every other kid in the area. One day, the sergeant who managed our team invited us into the gym in the basement of the 41st Precinct. To us youngsters, it was spectacular. It was a regular gym, just like we would see in the movies. It had punching bags and dumbbells, and the pièce de résistance was an actual boxing ring right there in the center of the room.

The policemen who ran this precinct’s PAL were putting together a boxing team. They gave us a few lessons on how to jab and protect ourselves from a jab and a little bit of basic footwork for a boxer. It was heady stuff for kids our age, and we all decided to become boxers. I thought it would be a wonderful life because all of the fighters I saw were famous, they were rich, they dressed nice, and they were surrounded by gorgeous women. It was everything a twelve-year-old longed for in life.

After our fundamental boxing lessons, the policemen paired us off for a few rounds of actual sparring. I was put in against a kid I didn’t even know, but I was quick and clever so I thought he’d be no match for me.

I threw a few jabs as we were taught, and I blocked his as I was taught. Then he abandoned the standard moves and launched an uppercut that stunned and staggered me. The cop who was refereeing immediately stopped the boxing and told me to go take a break. I was happy to.

I went into the bathroom and threw some water on my face to refresh my woozy self. When I glanced in the mirror, I noticed that all my teeth were outlined in blood. My opponent didn’t knock any of my teeth out, but he did jar them loose from their moorings a tad. He also jarred loose my desire to become a famous, rich, well-dressed, womanizing boxer.

My dreams of becoming a vicious, determined fighter who would waffle opponents around the head and face were appealing to me. Once it dawned on me that other folks might want to waffle me around the head and face, I wisely opted out of that particular sport. The purpose of this parable is to illustrate that any profession you aspire to will probably have some hidden setbacks in it. Comedy writing is not exempted. You may have your teeth figuratively but ignominiously jarred loose from time to time.

Before we throw ourselves into the craft of comedy writing, we should take a realistic view of the business. Look at what’s ahead and be prepared for it. The following are a few of the realities you should foresee:

Not every joke you write will be great: Some days, none of them will be great. As in any profession, you’ll have “on” days and “off” days. The good news is that you don’t have to produce brilliance with every line you write. A fair percentage is all you need to succeed in the comedy writing business. If you can create good comedy material, that’s enough. It doesn’t matter how much of your work you send to the trash can. You don’t get penalized for the gags you throw away; you do get rewarded for the ones you sell.

This doesn’t imply that you can take it easy and just produce a few good lines. Not at all. You strive to turn out the funniest material each time you tap on the keyboard. The reality, though, is that you won’t. A baseball player tries to get a hit each time he comes to the plate, but he doesn’t. If he bats .300, he’s a star. But he still has to try to get a hit each time he comes to the plate. If he relaxes two-thirds of the time, he’ll bat only .100. That will get him sent back to the minors. Likewise, as a comedy writer, you must offer full effort and devotion to everything you write, but you must be resigned to the fact that you won’t ever bat 1.000.

Enthusiasm is one of the greatest attributes a comedy writer can have. It fuels your inspiration. It makes you turn out more and better material. It keeps you striving. If you look too hard at the mediocre material that you will inevitably produce (because everyone, and I mean everyone, produces some mediocre material), you’ll get discouraged. You can lose the necessary enthusiasm.

One time I handed in some material to Bob Hope. He hefted the envelope in his hand (we used to kid that Bob Hope bought jokes by the pound) and said to me, “Is this stuff brilliant?” It wasn’t, and I had to confess that. I said, “Actually, Bob, it’s really not.” He was stunned a bit by my honesty, but then he said, “That’s OK. The other guys will be on.”

That’s the realistic attitude you should adopt about your own writing. If today’s production was only fair, that’s OK. Some other day you’ll be great.

Your career will progress one step at a time: When professional climbers plan to scale a specific mountain, they spend much time in preparation. They gather equipment, clothing, and whatever else a mountain climber needs to climb a mountain. They realize the trip will be arduous and must be done in increments. Very few professional mountain climbers will gaze at Mount Kilimanjaro and say, “I think I can do this in one jump.”

A career in comedy writing is accomplished in increments, too. You try to get a foothold somehow and then you use that to proceed to the next level. Your career grows according to your credits.

It’s good that your career will grow in stages, because at each level you learn something about your writing. Each writing experience should make you a better writer. It also slows you down—which actually will help you establish a more accomplished long-term writing career. When we begin any endeavor, we’re eager to succeed in it. The achievement always seems much more satisfying than the apprenticeship years. We all tend to want what we want now. The danger in that is you could go into a difficult profession unprepared.

You often hear that many new business ventures fail because they were underfunded. The entrepreneurs weren’t financially prepared to go the distance. In comedy writing, it’s to your advantage to spend a little more time in the formative stages, so that you’re ready for whatever comes your way when you get your break. Should you get your break early and you can’t handle the demands, you could be out of the profession. If that happens, it’s much more difficult to get back in.

You could price yourself out of a career: Successful comedy writers make pretty good money. But you may not . . . yet. As we discussed, your career usually progresses in graduated steps. Probably your financial rewards will, too.

Now don’t get me wrong. Earn as much as you can as quickly as you can. That’s only good business. But be wary of trying to make too much too soon.

The danger is that you read about exorbitant pay for some writers and assume you’re entitled to the same. What you must remember is that those writers earned their way to that income level. I once attended a writer’s party and overheard one writer boasting, “I’m in negotiations for my book.” A listener asked, “How’s it going?” The writer said, “Well, we’re at an impasse. I’m demanding a $200,000 advance and they’re refusing to read my manuscript.”

Sure, there are writers who command six-figure advances. Apparently, this guy wasn’t one of them. You may read about some gag writers who get $75 or $100 for a single joke from national comedians. But if you have a chance to have a local comic try out some of your material when he appears for a weekend at a small local comedy club, I doubt if you can demand a hundred bucks a gag.

So be wary. If you demand too much too soon, you could price yourself out of a career.

It’s never “your turn”: I’ve known comics who get frustrated and discouraged because a fellow comic gets a big break. Someone they’ve worked with on the comedy circuit for years gets a call from the network, lands a pilot, gets a slot on the schedule, has a hit, and makes a fortune. Now these comics get upset because “I’ve been doing comedy longer than he has. It should have been my turn.” That’s the point—there is no “your turn.” When you begin in the profession, you don’t pick a number like you do in a crowded bakery and wait for the clerk to call your ticket. It’s not really a haphazard process, but it’s not as orderly as being assigned a place in line.

It’s too much of a cliché to say that hard work and effort are always rewarded. Sometimes the comic who gets the break ahead of you is not deserving of it. Nevertheless, that’s the way the system works. Live with it.

You can’t let the success of others deter you from the work you want to do. You just have to keep working as if “your turn” will come. You just don’t know when.

It takes awhile for the world to recognize your talent: In 1964, Sonny Liston was the reigning heavyweight champion of the world. He was so fierce that many fighters avoided getting into the ring with him. One contender, in fact, refused to fight him. This fighter’s manager said, “We don’t even want to run into Sonny Liston on the street.” But a young Cassius Clay did challenge him.

Very few reporters and boxing experts gave Clay a chance. He was the decided underdog. In fact, it’s reported that only two sportswriters predicted that Clay would win. He did win, though. A battered Liston failed to answer the bell for the seventh round, making Clay a winner by technical knockout.

You all know the rest of the story. Cassius Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali and was known as “The Greatest.” Many do consider him among the greatest boxers of all time. He was just as great before he defeated the awesome Sonny Liston as he was afterward. The problem was that very few of the experts knew it.

The world is reluctant to recognize greatness. Before they will concede it, you must prove it to them time and time again.

Once I was in the green room of a national telethon for some cause or another. Two other writers were in the room at the time. One was a newcomer to television and the other was a well-known wit. The youngster was throwing lines that were hilarious. He had the room in stitches. A comic was there waiting to go on to entertain on camera. He turned to the old pro and said, “I should hire you to write lines like that for me.”

Notice, he didn’t ask the young writer to write the lines. He asked the veteran, even though it was the newcomer who was doing all the funny lines. The comedy world, including this particular comic, was not ready to admit yet that the youngster had amazing talent. That’s just part of the business and one of those obstacles that you must patiently endure. Eventually, as they did in Cassius Clay’s case, they’ll recognize your skill.

You will be rejected: Like it or not, rejection is part of the writing life. I opened this chapter with a boxing parable and just finished talking about a famous and skillful boxer, Cassius Clay, who later changed his name to Muhammad Ali. I’ll use the fight game once again to make a point. I opted out of a boxing career once I realized that people were going to try to punch me in the kisser. Others like Muhammad Ali embraced boxing and built a legendary career in it. But all of those who do pursue a fighting career know that sooner or later someone is going to clobber them upside the head. It’s part of the sport.

Rejection is part of writing. All writers get rejected at some time or another—even the most successful ones. Yes, they can get their books published, but maybe the publisher may ask that Chapter Four be rewritten. That’s rejection. Being rebuffed will always be a threat to a writer. It’s never pleasant, but it’s also not the curse that we sometimes make it out to be. In fact, we’ll see that it can be a blessing.

Consider that being turned down by a publisher, an agent, or a client is not a condemnation of your product. There are many reasons why material may be refused. Perhaps a particular comic simply can’t afford more material at this time. Maybe a show you’re submitting a spec script to already has an idea similar to yours in the works. A certain comic may appreciate your humor but realize that it’s not compatible with his or her comedy style. And, of course, sometimes the comic may just think your stuff is terrible, but not always.

On one show I produced we needed a performer to play the love interest of one of our stars. It would be a part in only one episode. Several agents sent their clients to audition for our show. We had only one part to offer, but we had about nineteen applicants. If you do the math, it quickly becomes obvious that eighteen of them would not get the part. That doesn’t mean that eighteen of them were horrible performers. No. It simply means that we could hire only one.

Rejection can often be an incentive to improve the quality of your work. I knew a writer who submitted a piece to Reader’s Digest. The article may have run six pages. The assigned editor sent back a twelve-page letter critiquing the submission and offering various suggestions. The author followed that critique in rewriting the article, which did sell to the magazine. Not only did this article sell, but over time several others also sold. At one point this author was the leading freelance contributor to Reader’s Digest, a periodical that pays quite well.

Another friend of mine wrote a sitcom and submitted it to a specific show. Almost as soon as he sent it off, however, he was dissatisfied with it and knew it would not sell or impress the producer. He immediately began work on another spec script and sent it to the same show. As his new script was on its way to the producers, the producer’s decision on the first spec script was on its way to the author.

The first show was soundly rejected. But on reading the second script, the producer called his agent and said, “Hire this guy.” Just a couple of years later, the author and the producer were coproducing a new television series.

You can’t allow rejections to discourage you.

Earlier I said that rejection can sometimes be a blessing. Consider the casting call where eighteen of nineteen hopefuls were rejected. The following year, my partner and I were producing another show and needed an actress for a repeating role. We remembered one of the rejectees from that casting call and offered her a job on our new show. Being turned down for a one-week acting gig resulted in a twenty-six-week job. That can be considered a blessing.

It’s beneficial to learn the peaks and valleys of the profession you’re pursuing. Be prepared for the pitfalls and hang in for the long run. And remember, all things considered, it’s probably less painful than boxing.

Now let’s move on to the fun stuff—learning to write comedy.