Let's focus on a scene where a woman and man are sitting on a sofa talking. How can we make it funny?
1. The sofa is about to collapse.
2. The woman needs to pee.
3. The man suddenly goes blind.
4. They both go blind at the same time.
5. There's a dead body under the sofa. It's also blind.
6. The man has a fear of sitting.
7. The woman has a fear of men who have a fear of sitting.
8. The man has a fear of sitting and the woman, who's sitting down, has a fear of standing up. The dead body has a fear of neither but refuses to move.
9. The sofa has a fear of people sitting on it.
10. The sofa belongs to the man, who's OCD about stains. The woman is eating a curry. With her hands.
Comedy is everywhere. The ideas above; maybe you found five of them funny, maybe only one or even none. There's no harm in exploring scenerios. That took me fifty seconds to do.
Chaplin used to get on set and just start playing around with props to see what was funny. That's most of what comedy is.
Great blog! Jane Espenson had a post about this on her blog, and she said you shouldn't forget about characters. Comedy in writing should really come from them, not from objects. I'll post a link to her article if I find it.
ReplyDeleteEastern philosophy describes creativity as `carrying buckets to the river`. The river is always there, but sometimes the buckets don`t do their job.
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