Some Awful Things about Comedic Screenwriting

Tell someone what to do and they’ll forget it. Tell them what not to do and they’ll remember it forever. And act on it. Just to spite you.

And that is the best reason to suggest what absolutely sucks the life and surprise out of comedy screenplays.

1. Loud is always good. Wrong. Loud, stupid, obnoxious can be fun. So can quietly paranoid, utterly absentminded, intensely introspective, whimperingly weak, slimily sneaky, worshipfully doting, or any number of attitudes in characters that have nothing to do with being big, broad, sprawling, and generally in-yer-face.

2. Jokes about flatulence, vomiting, and belching never get old. Don’t make me puke. Uh, sorry. But, if you resort to a cliché, you better shift the location or the character, and take a new angle on how it’s been depicted in the past. Some overweight, drunken slob with a loose grasp on bodily functions is going to have to execute perfectly to get a laugh. But a bomb defuser who farts out of nervousness might be a blast. A proper matron who loses her lunch while bidding at an art auction could be tasteful in its distastefulness.

3. If something is funny, you can repeat it over and over with the same results. You think so? You really think so? You really, really really, really, really, really think so? A funny, repeated character tick can be used a few times. And we all love strange or goofy catchphrases attached to characters. But anything repeated too many times will lose its charm. And there’s no agreeing at what exact point you lose an audience. So why tempt the fates?

4. A comedy has to end happily. What’s wrong with a bittersweet comedy? Or a black comedy? Or dramedy? Or satire? How happy was the end of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove? You would have to be in a really bad mood to be cheered by the nuclear destruction of the entire Earth. Comedies come in many shapes and sizes. Surprise yourself in your writing and you will surprise, and often delight, your audience. Be tonally consistent but resist doing the expected. Unless you are writing a romantic comedy. Don’t have the groom trip on the bride’s gown and die during the wedding scene at the end. Otherwise, be inventive.

5. If I get enough laughs in the beginning, I don’t have to worry about the end. Are you writing two acts of comedy and one act of drama? There is nothing more tedious, in my not-so-humble opinion, than writers of comedy who abandon the fun to give us a serious message in the third act. I’m all for your comedic hero actually learning something in the process of his/her journey. But that does not entitle you to stop trying to amuse your audience. Regardless of the ratio of comedy to drama in your script, you still have an obligation to make us laugh, snicker, chortle, or, unfortunately for anyone within hearing distance, snort. Integrate the humor throughout. Right to the bitter, damned end.

6. I’m writing a science fiction-fantasy-horror-fairy tale comedy that’s going to blow people’s minds. You’re right. The audience’s heads are going to implode, trying to figure out what kind of film they’re watching. And while they’re thinking about it, they won’t be laughing. This is the flip side of being predictable. Being self-consciously crazy has its place, but people still crave structure, along with surprise. But it’s like writing a sentence and then expecting a person to get meaning out of it when you decide to surprise them and