comedy writing 1 The Elements Of Humor (Jokes)

1.    Writing comedy is not so different from writing love stories or just about any other type of literature. You need to have real characters, sharp dialogue, true-to-life situations, a good sense of pace, balance, development-and once you have those ingredients, all you need to add is humor.

2.    Jokes, are the cheapest commodity in comedy. And the most necessary. But successful comedy is built around solid characters interesting in humorous situations, not just jokes. Every successful comedy series is peopled with characters you can identify with to some degree. The jokes have been fitted specifically to the person, which helps you identify with the character.

3.    Basically, all jokes are constructed the same way. There is the feedline, then the punchline.  The feedline sets the joke up, the punchline is the snapper that gets the laugh. This is true visually as well as vocally. For instance, when somebody throws a pie at the comedian, this is the feedline. When the comedian ducks and a third party ( either an innocent bystander or somebody’s boss) unexpectedly gets the pie in the face, that’s the punline.