Inspiration for writing comedy.

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1swollen1

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I once tried to write a novel...........I got totally naked for inspiration to write a comedy....I gave up almost instantly as my mother in law and wife walked into the house and saw me sitting in my leather chair naked and covered in sweat.
 

benjaminjtucker

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you should have had a big, glass bowl of green jello sitting next to you and sunglasses on
 

S.J. Magill

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Well it did give you a funny story. So it kinda worked. Unless what happened next was your mother in law had a heart attack and your wife divorced you. If that happened I might leave those details out of the novel.
 

schrang41

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I find that a good inspiration for comedy is to ask yourself "what would be really funny for someone to do/say here?"
 

FoidPoosening

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I once tried to write a novel...........I got totally naked for inspiration to write a comedy....I gave up almost instantly as my mother in law and wife walked into the house and saw me sitting in my leather chair naked and covered in sweat.

Maybe they wrote a comedy with you as the main character; you were someone else's inspiration :p

On a more serious note, I myself don't write humor (yet) but I find elements that lend themselves towards humor are frequently:

-Stories from your life (can be injected into fiction instead of told in reference to your life)
-Unique perspectives on something people would consider normal
-Either being extremely direct, extremely muddled/random, or extremely sarcastic
-Youtube videos. Yes. Watch Youtube Videos.

Humor is subjective to each individual person and that is what makes it so hard. Do what you find funny and NOT what you think other people find funny. If you try your hand at something you don't laugh at, no one else will. However if you appeal to your own sense of humor, remember there are always others out there with the same sense of humor as you.
 

Jaycinth

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Don't be so serious about being funny.

Ironically, humor arises from the most serious situations.

Take the line:

"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition."

It was certainly not funny in 1580



But by 1980 it was freaking hilarious.









It is all about the timing.

Take care.
 

AndyD

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I once tried to write a novel...........I got totally naked for inspiration to write a comedy....I gave up almost instantly as my mother in law and wife walked into the house and saw me sitting in my leather chair naked and covered in sweat.

Just be glad you didn't have an erection to explain too.

Humor isn't a process for me. It's moments of inspiration. The trick is collecting 'em and forcing them on point. The more I edit a story the more I stop and say "but wait... wouldn't it be funny if this happened instead?"
 

Slamhamster

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One idea I had that is now paying dividends was to create a Facebook profile for my protagonist and post stories that really stretch credibility (in some cases outright batshit crazy) as status updates.

So far I have been propositioned by a london based lawyer to go dogging (with her AND her daughter), been informed I'm haunted by a malevolent shadow being and threatened with violence for pointing out to a council tenant that rather than whining about her new kitchen and bathroom install, she should be grateful for her rent-controlled freebie upgrade.

The profile is four days old.
 

FrederickS

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I once tried to write a novel...........I got totally naked for inspiration to write a comedy....I gave up almost instantly as my mother in law and wife walked into the house and saw me sitting in my leather chair naked and covered in sweat.


Sounds like the start of a porn movie. Is your mother in law young and hot?
 

flea23

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Don't be so serious about being funny.

Ironically, humor arises from the most serious situations.

Take the line:

"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition."

It was certainly not funny in 1580



But by 1980 it was freaking hilarious.

It is all about the timing.

Take care.

A man with good timing can shake the world. Take Jell-O for instance. That guy made us laugh when the Cuban Missile Crisis was going on. We tried to eat t with a fork. Then Castro shook his empty fork at us. Ha. We fooled him/. We blockaded his supply of gelatin.
 

Finnmc

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I'm involved in an improv group which helps coming up with silly ideas that for some reason do work.

It also gives me some exercises to find things. For instance: you have your character do an action (write a letter with a pen). Now delete that and write another action that is a bit more out there (write an important royal message with a quill). Delete that action and write another one down (writing down the sins of his father with the blood of a freshly slaughtered lamb) .
By the third or fourth action you'll start getting absurd things that still seem logical.

Not sure if I explained that correctly but if you try you'll find it really works.
 
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