Does your own writing make you laugh?
This may sound like an odd question but…does your own comedy writing make you laugh? Should it? I’m talking strictly in the rewriting phase, say, five months into a script, should you still laugh consistently as you read through your own work?
–Gary
No, usually my writing doesn’t make me laugh, at least after the initial how-clever-am-I chuckle. Any joke becomes unfunny after you stare at it for too long. The trick is to remember why it was once funny, and protect those aspects.
While rewriting generally sharpens comedy, it’s all too easy to lose subtle jokes in the process.
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August 25th, 2004 at 1:35 pm
Well I look at it a different way. I have my central characters who may be a gag character. But most of the time I just have an eccentric character who makes entrances here and there and says and does ‘funny’ things. So it kind of makes me laugh.
My last gag character was a stoner with dread locks.
August 25th, 2004 at 4:54 pm
well, I asked the question originally because there are certain scripts or books i read that ALWAYS make me laugh, no matter how many times I read them, and I’ve been working on this comedy script for 5 months now, and it just hasn’t been making me laugh lately, so I was worried. This is why it’s always best to write comedies with a partner (unless you are Rawson, of course)!
August 26th, 2004 at 11:13 pm
I found the question interesting. Personally, if I’m writing a comedy(well, anything really for me I try to throw as much humor in as I can), I won’t rest until I laugh my ass off nearly every time I read the script. Tonight I went back to do some re-writes to a script and began laughing heavily over several parts that I had forgotten I’d written.
I agree with richard too though. I’ve usually got a certain character that I try and place most of the comedic relief upon and then using more subtle lines with the rest of the character. I can’t write well unless I have at least one very outspoken character per script.
January 2nd, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Well…I made stickfigures do stupid things. Like shots in the head,jumpin-g down onto spikes, and kill the author. Even though this shty stuff like so many vilonce happened!!!!!!! poor fkn sticks
January 14th, 2007 at 11:55 am
sadly…i thought it was funny.