BOOKISH: Writing Comedy

As a young man, Stan Laurel wanted to quit. He came from a theater family and his father took him aside. He told him son, you can quit. But I’ve watched actors all my life. I don’t know what you have, but you have it.

To our enduring benefit, he stayed with acting. An early Laurel and Hardy film opens with his face. That’s all. Winsome, innocent, simple, it is a face with no future and no past. After a few seconds the audience begins to titter. Then laugh. By the time the camera cuts away they are roaring.

Whatever Stan Laurel had, he had it.

A funny actor is born funny. Writers are a little different. We might have a funny face (a lot of us do) but that doesn’t help. A writer has to learn to be funny, and here rules apply. Let’s start with the most important.

Don’t chase a joke, or dig for one. If it’s not there it’s not there. Keep writing and move on.

Closely related, a joke might be there, but small. Don’t make it bigger. I had a friend who wrote about coming home to find his dog on top of the garage. He hardly mentioned how the dog got there (chasing a squirrel). This is wise. A dog on a garage is funny enough. The reader wants to chuckle and move on. The writer should too.

Another rule has to do with audience. A joke is funny because it’s universal. That’s why partisan comedy is so hard to take, unless we’re back in high school and a streak of nastiness runs through you. Not a good look.

The joke is always on us. All of us.

Don’t try to cop a superior attitude. This is really hard for a lot of writers. They just can’t be wrong, or the butt of any joke. Bad for them. Worse for us. Holier-than-thou isn’t funny.

Al Franken was Al Franken the comedian, before he was Al Franken the politician. He said the hardest part of doing stand-up were hecklers. He gave an example, in deadpan. “You’re not funny,” someone yells from the back.

This is good. Notice he doesn’t chase the joke. Or make it bigger. He certainly wasn’t above making himself the butt. Al was really funny.

I almost forgot. The worst thing a humor writer can do is force a joke. I call it “Insert Joke Here” writing. David Sedaris is a master of this. You’re supposed to laugh, but can’t, so you sort of grimace. Sedaris commits this, and my other sins all the time. He digs for jokes. He inflates a small joke into a long, unfunny one. He makes fun of people, and as a millionaire idling his life away in Paris, his attitude is very superior.

Yet he is our best selling humorist. Sigh.

I’ll finish with a joke. A joke about joking, which seems appropriate. You know that Andy Capp strip? One of my favorites has Andy sitting in a pub, flirting with a young waitress. Here is the exchange, as I recall.

Waitress: Aren’t you a little old for me, mate?

Andy: Old! Haven’t you heard of laugh lines?

Waitress: Nuthin’s that funny.