Writing Excuses Transcripts

Writing Excuses 11.34: Humor as a Sub-Genre

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2016/08/21/11-34-humor-as-a-sub-genre/

Key Points: Situational comedy relies on characters struggling in an unfamiliar situation. Good for release. Think Lucille Ball on the candy conveyor belt. Physical comedy? Think punching, think pratfalls. How does the character react? Farce is the extreme pursuit of a ridiculous object. What is the hammerlock that forces these characters into this situation? Don't forget the soda! Linguistic comedy, wordplays, puns, and unexpected but accurate descriptions. May be tied to a particular character's view of the world. Making unexpected connections, forcing the reader to imagine something they didn't expect. That's the sparkling gun of linguistic comedy. Which can make us like a character who holds that gun to our head. Watch for the transition between character humor and relationship stories, especially with odd couples. Put them in a crucible, turn up the heat, and see what happens!
( Once upon a time... )

[Brandon] We are completely out of time. We need to move on. I'm going to give us our homework which is I want you to take some of these things we've talked about. At least three of them. The types of humor. Physical humor, situational, character, farce… Whatever it is, or find your own. I certainly don't think we've covered all types of humor in this short podcast. I want you to take a scene and try to write it with an overabundance of one of the types. Then pull it out and try to write the same scene using situational comedy. Pull it out, try to write the same scene using word plays. See how you can do these. You're going to overload on one of these types in order to practice it and see what it does to your scene. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses, now go write.