The Problem with Teaching Comedy

Now before we actually go look for jokes in your research, let me put your expectations into context and be completely honest.

You’ve already seen this meme about learning to draw.

Learning how to write comedy often feels exactly like that. Many books and courses promise you that you just need to follow their technique step by step and at the end you will be the next Brian Regan.

And - in a way - I do the same. Take another look at the Formula:

“Create or use an already existing assumption and fulfill or disappoint it in a surprising and satisfying way.”

In my humble opinion this Formula tells you EXACTLY how to write a joke.

But.

BUT.

BUT!

There is a step missing: The writing of the actual joke.

And I’m keenly aware of that.

It ties in with what I wrote earlier: I can’t teach you comedy writing. I can show you my deliberations, tell you all about my thoughts on the subject matter. But I can’t write a joke for you.

I can’t even tell you how I come up with jokes.

Yes, I can tell you my thought process when it comes to a joke I have already written. And in hindsight it’s obvious: I realized there was a second meaning to the phrase I could exploit. I realized I could combine these two topics and the stark difference would make it funny. I realized a saying set up an assumption I could subvert.

But getting to the realization, to the magic moment of having the exact idea for a joke? And I mean a new, not yet written joke… I don’t know. I simply don’t know.

Because it works always the same and yet so vastly different. Or as author Gene Wolfe puts it:

“You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you’re writing.”

And it’s the same with jokes. I can show you how I swing a hammer and how I construct a beehive with it. Very badly.

But at some point you have to just get a feel for the hammer yourself. And that you’ll only get by swinging the hammer and sometimes missing wildly. And sometimes hitting the nail on the head.

I guess what I want to say is this: You will still have to come up with jokes on your own. And it will get easier with experience and a willingness to try and fail and explore and be curious and stay with a topic. Or as Neil Gaiman says:

“Rule one, you have to write. If you don’t write, nothing will happen.”