Comedy Writing Self-Taught Workbook. Gene Perret

The Almost Right Word

      Obviously, words are important to any writer. Good writers search not only for the correct word but for the precisely accurate word. Mark Twain once said, “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” Someone later wrote a variation: “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is like the difference between ‘chicken’ and ‘chicken pox.’”

      So serious writers are intent on finding the “no-other-word-will-do” word. In joke writing, it’s imperative to use accurate, descriptive words. However, sometimes comedy writers call on their creativity to find the precise wrong word to use in place of the exact right word.

      In 1775 Richard Brinsley Sheridan wrote a play called The Rivals. One of the characters was Mrs. Malaprop, who was noted for misusing the English language. Throughout the play she would inadvertently use the wrong word. For instance, she said of another character, “She’s as headstrong as an allegory on the Nile.” She meant, of course, “alligator on the Nile.”

      These have since become known as “malapropisms” or “malaprops” and can be used to great effect for comedy. Leo Gorcey, who played the unofficial leader of the gang in the Dead End Kids movies, mangled the language masterfully. When he had a brilliant thought, he’d boast, “I’ve just come up with a brilliant seduction.” If he interrupted a conversation, he would say, “Forgive my protrusion.”

      At a roast you may hear a speaker say:

       I have been seated next to our guest of honor at this banquet and I can tell you now that he is a man of great perspiration.

      Often the wrong word can also paint a graphic picture that adds to the comedy. For example, this line from Archie Bunker:

       Edith is not here right now. She’s had to visit her groinacologist.

      Or the tycoon in poor health who said:

       I’d like to leave you now with my last will and testicle.

      That’s the idea behind this exercise. We’d like you to generate about fifteen to twenty malaprops. Make them as colorful and graphic as you can. This exercise may require even more creativity than finding the appropriate language, but it will pay benefits in teaching you to write comedy. It’s ironic that aggressively searching for the wrong word provides priceless experience in finding the right word. That’s valuable training for anyone, especially a comedy writer

      And it’s great fun, so enjoy this exercise.

Exercise 9

       It’s All Around Us

      One stumbling block beginning comedy writers face is that “there’s nothing to write about.” Professional writers don’t have the luxury of not having anything to write about. If they don’t write, they don’t get paid. And then they go hungry, and there’s nothing worse than a hungry, broke writer.

      So do professional comedy writers have a magical fountain to draw comedy topics from? Unfortunately, no. They just have the talent for finding humor in everyday events.

      Luckily that skill can be developed and trained. Humor is all around us in the everyday things we do. All you need to do is to tune in to it, mine it, and use it.

      For three days we want you to make a list of all the humorous things that go on around you. If something happens that makes you chuckle or laugh, put it on the list. If you hear a witty comment, write it down. If you see something that amuses you, mark it down. Shoot, it can even be something you see or hear on TV. The only requirement is that it somehow strikes you as funny or as something you can make funny.

      Those incidents can also be things that annoy, intrigue, or mystify you. There’s humor in those situations, too.

      It’s important to note that at this point, you’re not writing jokes, you’re just gathering ideas.

      On the fourth day, review your list. You now have a collection of topics that are ready to be used at any time. Pick one item on your list and write ten jokes using it as your topic.

      Your list may look something like this:

      •A car cuts me off on the highway and then slows down.

      •Telemarketers always call when we sit down to dinner.

      •At the store, not one salesperson offered to help me.

      •I received an e-mail from an old high school friend volunteering me for some committee.

      As you can see none of these are jokes. They really aren’t even that funny. But each one can be used to generate jokes. That’s what we want you to do—start picking up on the things that go on around you that you can use in your comedy writing.

      In this exercise you’re doing this consciously, but pretty soon you’ll be finding humor without even realizing it.

Exercise 10

       Inspired by Legends

      We used to play tennis with a group of extraordinarily mediocre players. We approached competence only about once a year—while the Wimbledon matches were being televised. Most of our colleagues watched the tournament and consequently played a little better than they normally did. There were probably two main reasons for this. First, watching the play was instructional. We all saw the strokes of the quality players, and we picked up some of the strategy of world-class tennis competition. Second, it was inspirational. We watched great players playing great matches. We thought if Martina Navratilova could perform that brilliantly, so could we. We were eager to emulate Pete Sampras and Roger Federer. We played just a tad better.

      Great jokes also can be instructional. If a certain joke gets the desired results, it must have been brilliantly conceived and perfectly executed. Studying the gag and the efforts that went into producing it is a great teaching tool in learning to write solid comedy.

      But good jokes also can inspire us. They can awaken in us a desire to write material as good as or better than the ones we hear or read. Even if we don’t live up to that lofty desire, we still manage to learn to write a tad better. What’s wrong with that?

      We’d like to begin this exercise by having you select a few specific topics. Let’s say about six of them. They can be about anything at all. You may even glance through a collection of jokes and select topics at random. Traffic, dating, growing older, marriage—whatever topics you want.

      Once you’ve made your choices, begin to research some superb jokes on those topics. You may select some that you have in your list of great jokes from Exercise 1 or you may gather some new ones.