Methods to Come Up with a Topic

What annoys you? What is wrong with you, the world, with something?

If you don’t know where to start, start with what annoys you, what you think is wrong. Comedy doesn’t need to be more than “I don’t like this and here is why.”

The are several advantages to this: You already have a target to attack, it violates how you think the world ought to be and there is your emotionality and attitude already prepackaged in your topic.

While writing comedy you can’t go wrong with what is wrong.

Methods to find a topic

Read the Newspaper. See? Now you’re angry!

Go to the library and pick up a magazine you normally would never buy and read it.

Phone a friend and ask for a topic.

Think of the most embarrassing moments of your life.

Get a deadline. Honestly. The sands of time trickling through your fingers will make you chose something.

Mood Ring

Imagine for a moment that you have been wearing a Mood Ring for the last couple of days. Think back to all the times it would have changed color. It doesn’t matter if it was from happy to angry or from neutral to euphoric or from being annoyed to hating something. The important thing is the change. Because most often than not, where change happened, especially dramatic change, there is something interesting to tell or at least think about.

It is generally a good idea to be aware of any emotional reaction you have while looking for a topic: When reading the news, what makes you go: Huh? What? Why?! Weird! That is beyond idiotic!

Keeping a diary

We are forgetful people. And even worse than that: We can’t even keep the memories straight we still have. So keeping a diary is a very good thing. It tells us exactly how we felt about a particular event.

If you are like me and are horrible at keeping a diary, then keep it short and simple: Why not try to limit yourself to the most important moment that day and jot down a maximum of three phrases?

Zoom in, zoom out

Take a topic you already have. For this example let’s choose “Airplane Food”. Try to get one level deeper or higher aka zoom in or out to find a new topic or subtopic.

Think about where the food comes from: Maybe the cow you are eating has been butchered by someone who has never flown. So his work gets closer to the sun than he ever has.

Think about food as a topic. What is your favourite food and why is it never served as airplane food?

If a Happy Meal would work, why not serve it as airplane food?

Zoom out. You are in a plane. You are in the middle seat. What else is there to talk about? Inflight entertainment? What is left and right from your topic? Right behind the airplane food is the vomit bag. The only place where you get served professionally cooked food and at the table they provide you with an exit strategy for your food.

I say professionally cooked food. But wouldn’t it be fun to imagine it is the product of a cooking class? How would that work? Is it a prison cooking class? Or home cooks? Wouldn’t it be nice to get a home cooked meal while flying? With a picture of who cooked it for you?

What happened before? What happened afterwards?

Again think about a joke or a topic you have thought about before. Now imagine what happened before and what happened afterwards. Again airplane food: What happens before you get served? Or even before that. No cook dreamed of being an airplane food cook. What went wrong there?

Interviewer: Well this is bloody amazing! So tasty!

Cook: Thank you. I learned it when I traveled around the world learning from the best cooks I could find.

Interviewer: Good, good. Now to the last and most important question: Can you make it taste worse?