Loss is a big part of how stories engage us, develop the plot, and help us understand characters. In many cases, loss is inextricable from the main characters goal. For instance, Dorothy’s goal in The Wizard of Oz is to get home. Therefore, she has to have lost her home. Some stories, are driven by a whittling away of the good things in life. In The Natural, the hero has talent, health, opportunity, and a woman who adores him. He loses his innocence. He loses his health, which makes his talent irrelevant and costs him his opportunity, and, in a way, he loses himself, which is why he ends up abandoning the woman he loves.
So, let’s look at this in terms of story:
Getting back what’s lost. Here the main goal— and the story question—is about recovering something lost at the very beginning of the story. Stories about healing or revenge often turn on this. In Regarding Henry, the protagonist loses his memory and nearly dies when he’s shot, and the story is about recovering health and an identity that is better than the one he lost. Or, as with The Searchers, a beloved family member is kidnapped and must be rescued. Or, with a movie like Munich, the Black September members who killed eleven Israeli Olympic athletes are hunted down, one by one, to balance the scales of justice.
Forcing change. In Star Wars, Luke is not especially interested in taking his chances on an adventure with Obi-Wan until his regular life faces disaster. He loses his home and his family, and that frees him from what he believes are his responsibilities. But it also initiates a larger goal of seeking justice. He does not want the empire to continue to take away the normal things of life from others for its own purposes. His major loss is replaced with a new life’s focus. He has another pivotal loss when Obi-Wan is killed. It forces him into more of a leader ship role. He grows up in ways that otherwise would be unimaginable.
Creating obstacles. In scores of cowboy movies, the hero’s gun jams or runs out of bullets. With the loss of the weapon, the hero is put at a greater disadvantage. Often, this results in a fist fight (a classic roll in the ditch) or forces a new strategy. Characters lie and lose their credibility. They have to re-establish trust with others. Characters may be humiliated— as happens with the” costume party” that embarrasses the protagonist in Legally Blonde when Elle shows up dressed like a playboy bunny. Even though it wasn’t her fault, it leads to a loss of reputation and allies, which she needs to fit in.
Shifting power. The most obvious of these is when the villain steals something from the hero. A clear example is in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where Belloq takes the Ark from Indy.
Sacrifice. From the New Testament to Karras in The Exorcist to Walt Kowalski in Gran Torino, dying for others is the climax. But sacrifices can be less dramatic and still be effective. I Remember Momma is filled with modest, but affecting, sacrifices the family members make for each other.
Exchange. For an evil example, there’s Faust selling his soul for knowledge. In a positive example, Luke gives up control (and his computer’s aid) to use the Force, allowing him to destroy the Death Star.
Never really lost. Ob-Wan still has contributions to make after his demise. E.T. is resurrected (apparently). In Heaven Can Wait, Joe Pendleton not only gets to come back to life, he gets another chance to quarterback the Rams in the Super Bowl. And back in Kansas, Dorothy finds versions of all the friends she left behind in Oz.
Of course, loss doesn’t always have to be central to a powerful and entertaining story. In Marty, the title character has never had much. He isn’t good looking, doesn’t have much power, demands little respect, lacks self-confidence, and, at thirty-six, still lives with his mother. He has his butcher shop, his customers, a family that takes him for granted, and immature and feckless friends. In a way, he has never grown up, and he doesn’t have much to lose. It’s an odd coming of age story about a middle-aged man who grows up. But the emotional core is the surprising gain of a woman who cares for him, and the wonderful wrenching change recovering her after losing her requires.
So, lives, treasures, opportunities, reputation, and loved ones can be lost. So can innocence, self-confidence, influence, health, sanity, allies, and power. But whatever is lost (even if only apparently) can reveal who your characters really are, make audiences love them or worry about them, provide insights about important themes, surprise, and engage. As long as you include one element — whatever is lost, no matter how intrinsically vital or frivolous, must be deeply meaningful to your characters. Otherwise, the audience won’t care
Saturday, June 27, 2020
Saturday, June 20, 2020
Working Backward from a Pivotal Scene
I did a series on key scenes that can be used to help create focus and power for stories. One point I had was how the right scene could be used to generate the whole story.
Much of what I explored came from Paddy Chayefsky’s comments and interviews, so I was delighted to find a perspective from another luminary, John Gardner. In chapter seven of The Art of Fiction, Gardner takes on plotting and, among other techniques, presents an approach to writing backward from a climax. It’s worth a read, but I’ll provide my interpretation, abstracted from his discussion.
Note: It does not need to be the climactic scene. It can be any of your story’s high impact, thematic scenes with an abrupt change of fortunes. Also, I may have drifted from Gardner’s perspective, so, if this interests you, going to his original material may do more for you than working through this article.
The worthy scene is one that intuition says is promising. It’s interesting. The possibilities go beyond the obvious. It feels meaningful.
Both when selecting the scene and developing it, come up with multiple choices. Have a bias toward a fresh and surprising choice. Determine what occurs.
The example that came to mind was one of a baby snatching.
At the most basic level, the climactic (or pivotal) scene suggests other scenes to be intelligible. What’s going on is more than a confrontation and its resolution. Who is this person? (Or who are these people?) Why did this person make this choice? How has this confrontation changed the person, both in terms of external consequences and in terms of internal factors, like values?
The baby snatcher could be a middle-aged man, a policewoman or a tourist. The person losing the baby could be the victim of a home invasion, a mom waiting at a bus stop, or a con artist.
Lots of motivations come to mind. One thing Gardner cautions against is victim stories, so the motivations of the person snatching are more promising for this example. For some reason, I see the tourist racing away with them baby out of revenge. Of course, there could be other reasons — a deep attraction to the baby, replacing her own lost baby, concern about the child’s welfare.
Choose the character whose perspective provides the most opportunity. This is most obvious when the scene has two people in conflict. And you can arrive at the point of view by analysis or intuition.
Not the victim. And I seem to have chosen a tourist by instinct. (Though I know remember of story where a pickpocket would toss her baby at a mark. No one lets a baby fall to the pavement, making the person depended upon to catch the baby vulnerable.) It is a less that obvious choice, which is good.
What’s the best style to use? Should the story be told by a folksy narrator or an eminent professor? Is this humor or tragedy? Is the logic spelled out? Or does the narrator miss the main point, leaving a way for the reader to engage? Is the style congruent with the subject matter or (intentionally) at odds or ironic?
The intrinsic sentimentality of this concept suggests to me that an objective treatment, like a police report, might be valuable. It’s so serious, it might be worth making this a comedy.
If you are writing a short story (or a chapter in a novel or an act in a script), first consider this in terms of as few scenes as possible, say, 3-4. This will provide focus and make you more selective. By the way, you can come up with dozens of scenes — and this may help for larger works or create more options — but the limits here will force deeper thinking on what is essential and most valuable to the work.
In reality, I’d probably take no fewer than three approaches and (in one-sentence summaries) spec out about 20 possible scenes. But I’ll mention just one sequence to illustrate. Margie has saved up all her life to visit Paris. She has learned the language. She has selected clothes that she thinks will set her above the fanny pack crowd. And everything has gone wrong on the visit. She gets on the wrong Metro and loses an hour. A threat leads to an evacuation of the Louvre before she gets to the Mona Lisa. She gets distracted by a dog at the cafe and spills her cocoa on herself. By the time the baby is tossed at her, she’s itching to grab back power. So let’s say I choose two of those and an aftermath scene — with the police or the pickpockets following her back to her hotel.
If there are two characters in conflict, do they have mutually exclusive values? Why must they engage? Why can’t they have sympathy for each other? Why can’t they find a compromise or delay the confrontation or avoid each other? Why is the confrontation both inevitable and surprising?
Both characters want to have possession of the baby, and there is only one baby. If someone takes your baby (or gains possession because you tossed it), you need to take immediate action. If you are a baby snatcher, your opportunities are limited and failure is not an option.
When two people (or rational beings) are not in conflict, when it is someone confronting a force (disease, the weather, an icy mountain), what does this confrontation symbolize in terms of moments that matter in our lives? (This can be considered with two character confrontations, too.)
This story could have to do with maternity or the struggles of being an outsider, but I think it has to do with how what we possess reflects our power. And this can be ambiguous. A baby is a good example, since you baby is yours (with legal rights and privileges), but a baby has claims on your time, attention, and resources.
Which parts of the scene result from volition? Which is a natural consequence of circumstances? How are the choices of characters relevant? What motivates them, which outcomes match their motivations, and which would surprise, disappoint, delight, or appall them?
For the pickpocket, this is a way to earn a living. It is predictable and orchestrated. Everything seems to be in her control. Margie’s action is surprising and disastrous. For Maggie, the action is her deliberately taking power when she is assumed to be powerless. Ultimately, the scene is about her choice. The natural consequence is a need to maintain possession (otherwise why snatch the baby?), and that probably means fleeing. I suspect all are surprised, the pickpocket is bereft, and Maggie, in the moment, delighted.
Consider what your spare little sequence conveys, paying special attention to the specifics in your scenes (which likely bubbled up from your subconscious for a reason) and the order in which the beats come and play out your intention. These provide hints about the theme you should be exploring.
I can’t help but think of the statement, “No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force.” It’s true both for the pickpocket and for Maggie. And in direct conflict with Maggie’s saving, setting an itinerary, dressing in a specific way, etc. The folly of human order is a repeated element of each scene.
If there is an element that jumps out as symbolic or resonant, explore it in terms of the rest of the story. Going from the tangible to a theme that touches your art and provides insights brings authenticity to your work.
If I had actually drafted these scenes, I’d now have the job of noticing opportunities. For instance, Maggie might find a button that doesn’t even show has fallen off and make some effort to sew it back on before her tour. Or I could include something as simple as her straightening her collar after the wind blows it.
One thing Gardner speaks of elsewhere in his book is the artist’s vice of frigidity. This is when something of great value isn’t given the space, consideration, and effort it deserves. It is far too easy to be superficial or conventional when more is in play. My mind turned this around to insist on giving every story its dignity. One thing along these lines that sets my teeth on edge is the unserious use of a battlefield trauma or abuse to explain the behavior of a character. Major societal wounds used as devices to push less serious plots forward reflects a lack of thoughtfulness or empathy.
Because it’s part of my writing process, I make a big deal about considering the audience for the work. It helps me to focus. This is not really explored in this chapter by Gardner, but it suggests another set of valid an important choices.
In practice, since I write rapidly, many of my choices come out in a quick draft and then those choices are tested with these questions (and more invention/experimentation). That is about putting a real investment in the scene that started it all, and it pays off (I hope) with something deeper and more meaningful.
Much of what I explored came from Paddy Chayefsky’s comments and interviews, so I was delighted to find a perspective from another luminary, John Gardner. In chapter seven of The Art of Fiction, Gardner takes on plotting and, among other techniques, presents an approach to writing backward from a climax. It’s worth a read, but I’ll provide my interpretation, abstracted from his discussion.
Note: It does not need to be the climactic scene. It can be any of your story’s high impact, thematic scenes with an abrupt change of fortunes. Also, I may have drifted from Gardner’s perspective, so, if this interests you, going to his original material may do more for you than working through this article.
The worthy scene is one that intuition says is promising. It’s interesting. The possibilities go beyond the obvious. It feels meaningful.
Both when selecting the scene and developing it, come up with multiple choices. Have a bias toward a fresh and surprising choice. Determine what occurs.
The example that came to mind was one of a baby snatching.
At the most basic level, the climactic (or pivotal) scene suggests other scenes to be intelligible. What’s going on is more than a confrontation and its resolution. Who is this person? (Or who are these people?) Why did this person make this choice? How has this confrontation changed the person, both in terms of external consequences and in terms of internal factors, like values?
The baby snatcher could be a middle-aged man, a policewoman or a tourist. The person losing the baby could be the victim of a home invasion, a mom waiting at a bus stop, or a con artist.
Lots of motivations come to mind. One thing Gardner cautions against is victim stories, so the motivations of the person snatching are more promising for this example. For some reason, I see the tourist racing away with them baby out of revenge. Of course, there could be other reasons — a deep attraction to the baby, replacing her own lost baby, concern about the child’s welfare.
Choose the character whose perspective provides the most opportunity. This is most obvious when the scene has two people in conflict. And you can arrive at the point of view by analysis or intuition.
Not the victim. And I seem to have chosen a tourist by instinct. (Though I know remember of story where a pickpocket would toss her baby at a mark. No one lets a baby fall to the pavement, making the person depended upon to catch the baby vulnerable.) It is a less that obvious choice, which is good.
What’s the best style to use? Should the story be told by a folksy narrator or an eminent professor? Is this humor or tragedy? Is the logic spelled out? Or does the narrator miss the main point, leaving a way for the reader to engage? Is the style congruent with the subject matter or (intentionally) at odds or ironic?
The intrinsic sentimentality of this concept suggests to me that an objective treatment, like a police report, might be valuable. It’s so serious, it might be worth making this a comedy.
If you are writing a short story (or a chapter in a novel or an act in a script), first consider this in terms of as few scenes as possible, say, 3-4. This will provide focus and make you more selective. By the way, you can come up with dozens of scenes — and this may help for larger works or create more options — but the limits here will force deeper thinking on what is essential and most valuable to the work.
In reality, I’d probably take no fewer than three approaches and (in one-sentence summaries) spec out about 20 possible scenes. But I’ll mention just one sequence to illustrate. Margie has saved up all her life to visit Paris. She has learned the language. She has selected clothes that she thinks will set her above the fanny pack crowd. And everything has gone wrong on the visit. She gets on the wrong Metro and loses an hour. A threat leads to an evacuation of the Louvre before she gets to the Mona Lisa. She gets distracted by a dog at the cafe and spills her cocoa on herself. By the time the baby is tossed at her, she’s itching to grab back power. So let’s say I choose two of those and an aftermath scene — with the police or the pickpockets following her back to her hotel.
If there are two characters in conflict, do they have mutually exclusive values? Why must they engage? Why can’t they have sympathy for each other? Why can’t they find a compromise or delay the confrontation or avoid each other? Why is the confrontation both inevitable and surprising?
Both characters want to have possession of the baby, and there is only one baby. If someone takes your baby (or gains possession because you tossed it), you need to take immediate action. If you are a baby snatcher, your opportunities are limited and failure is not an option.
When two people (or rational beings) are not in conflict, when it is someone confronting a force (disease, the weather, an icy mountain), what does this confrontation symbolize in terms of moments that matter in our lives? (This can be considered with two character confrontations, too.)
This story could have to do with maternity or the struggles of being an outsider, but I think it has to do with how what we possess reflects our power. And this can be ambiguous. A baby is a good example, since you baby is yours (with legal rights and privileges), but a baby has claims on your time, attention, and resources.
Which parts of the scene result from volition? Which is a natural consequence of circumstances? How are the choices of characters relevant? What motivates them, which outcomes match their motivations, and which would surprise, disappoint, delight, or appall them?
For the pickpocket, this is a way to earn a living. It is predictable and orchestrated. Everything seems to be in her control. Margie’s action is surprising and disastrous. For Maggie, the action is her deliberately taking power when she is assumed to be powerless. Ultimately, the scene is about her choice. The natural consequence is a need to maintain possession (otherwise why snatch the baby?), and that probably means fleeing. I suspect all are surprised, the pickpocket is bereft, and Maggie, in the moment, delighted.
Consider what your spare little sequence conveys, paying special attention to the specifics in your scenes (which likely bubbled up from your subconscious for a reason) and the order in which the beats come and play out your intention. These provide hints about the theme you should be exploring.
I can’t help but think of the statement, “No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force.” It’s true both for the pickpocket and for Maggie. And in direct conflict with Maggie’s saving, setting an itinerary, dressing in a specific way, etc. The folly of human order is a repeated element of each scene.
If there is an element that jumps out as symbolic or resonant, explore it in terms of the rest of the story. Going from the tangible to a theme that touches your art and provides insights brings authenticity to your work.
If I had actually drafted these scenes, I’d now have the job of noticing opportunities. For instance, Maggie might find a button that doesn’t even show has fallen off and make some effort to sew it back on before her tour. Or I could include something as simple as her straightening her collar after the wind blows it.
One thing Gardner speaks of elsewhere in his book is the artist’s vice of frigidity. This is when something of great value isn’t given the space, consideration, and effort it deserves. It is far too easy to be superficial or conventional when more is in play. My mind turned this around to insist on giving every story its dignity. One thing along these lines that sets my teeth on edge is the unserious use of a battlefield trauma or abuse to explain the behavior of a character. Major societal wounds used as devices to push less serious plots forward reflects a lack of thoughtfulness or empathy.
Because it’s part of my writing process, I make a big deal about considering the audience for the work. It helps me to focus. This is not really explored in this chapter by Gardner, but it suggests another set of valid an important choices.
In practice, since I write rapidly, many of my choices come out in a quick draft and then those choices are tested with these questions (and more invention/experimentation). That is about putting a real investment in the scene that started it all, and it pays off (I hope) with something deeper and more meaningful.
Saturday, June 13, 2020
Excruciating details -- Immersing readers in your novels, short stories, and other prose works
I think, except when you are writing instructions, the best writing is that which people want to read again and again. They often use the word “reexperience” or even “relive.” And, even though the relationships are built on ink marks on paper (or the virtual equivalent), prose can excite our senses more that a film.
A film has sound and pictures, but a book has those plus smell, touch (which is an array of senses), taste, and, I suspect, other less defined senses, as well.
I have a friend who sees every number as a distinct personality. Because of this, you can read him 1,000 numbers, and he can recite them back to you. I taste lemon when I hear that word. I have a whole-body resonance with places I know. Mention my college campus or my grandfather’s farm or my first grade classroom, and I get more than memories rushing back. I feel these places distinctly and intensely and emotionally.
Words on paper cue all of my senses, including the odd undefined ones, in ways films cannot. I do live in the moment of a book. And the limits of ink on paper supercharge my imagination.
How can you do this for readers? I think the primary requirement is that you live in the moment yourself. If your imagination is not engaged, mine won’t be either. I believe that checklists and rules about including all the senses cannot help writers create true experiences if they are used dispassionately. They only have any use at all if they catalyze the Technicolor, all-singing, all-dancing dream of the scene that is being written. If the right brain stays quiet, the writing will be flat even if it includes all the details.
Oh, by the way, you probably shouldn’t include all the details. If you describe everything, the readers cannot engage. They become spectators rather than participants. (You can explore this further if you want by checking out the work of Marshall McLuhan.) I once asked NYT Bestseller Kristan Higgins about describing a hero in a book, and she said it was sufficient to convey one distinctive feature – the blue of his eyes, the quirk of his smile, the way he strode across the ballfield. Present and repeat, and the reader will fall in love.
Imagine it all, select enough to put the reader into the scene (but no more), and animate the same details later on in the story, as required.
Choosing the best places to set the scenes can lead to wonder, excitement, and anticipation. I have an article, “Take Me to Monte Carlo,” that explores this. If you have a choice, put a scene in an open, interesting space over a cramped, drab space. (Though, you don’t have a choice if you want people to feel trapped. A police holding cell has its own value apart from wonder and excitement.)
… and don’t forget metaphor. Poetic techniques (all of them) can bring people into scenes in special ways, but they need to be done with great care. The best way to master them is by seeing how writers you admire use them. As I mentioned in my last post, I began my writing apprenticeship writing whole scenes of my stories in the styles of Tolkien, Poe, Harlan Ellison, Roger Zelazny, and Twain. I still do this on occasion when I am looking for answers. You'll find that, even where scenes might have fit the plot with the details another writer chose, each makes his or her distinct choices. Those selections create an unmistakable coherence and a unity in their work. It's worth striving for that. In prose, your distinct choices can come together to create a fresh engaging style.
A film has sound and pictures, but a book has those plus smell, touch (which is an array of senses), taste, and, I suspect, other less defined senses, as well.
I have a friend who sees every number as a distinct personality. Because of this, you can read him 1,000 numbers, and he can recite them back to you. I taste lemon when I hear that word. I have a whole-body resonance with places I know. Mention my college campus or my grandfather’s farm or my first grade classroom, and I get more than memories rushing back. I feel these places distinctly and intensely and emotionally.
Words on paper cue all of my senses, including the odd undefined ones, in ways films cannot. I do live in the moment of a book. And the limits of ink on paper supercharge my imagination.
How can you do this for readers? I think the primary requirement is that you live in the moment yourself. If your imagination is not engaged, mine won’t be either. I believe that checklists and rules about including all the senses cannot help writers create true experiences if they are used dispassionately. They only have any use at all if they catalyze the Technicolor, all-singing, all-dancing dream of the scene that is being written. If the right brain stays quiet, the writing will be flat even if it includes all the details.
Oh, by the way, you probably shouldn’t include all the details. If you describe everything, the readers cannot engage. They become spectators rather than participants. (You can explore this further if you want by checking out the work of Marshall McLuhan.) I once asked NYT Bestseller Kristan Higgins about describing a hero in a book, and she said it was sufficient to convey one distinctive feature – the blue of his eyes, the quirk of his smile, the way he strode across the ballfield. Present and repeat, and the reader will fall in love.
Imagine it all, select enough to put the reader into the scene (but no more), and animate the same details later on in the story, as required.
Choosing the best places to set the scenes can lead to wonder, excitement, and anticipation. I have an article, “Take Me to Monte Carlo,” that explores this. If you have a choice, put a scene in an open, interesting space over a cramped, drab space. (Though, you don’t have a choice if you want people to feel trapped. A police holding cell has its own value apart from wonder and excitement.)
… and don’t forget metaphor. Poetic techniques (all of them) can bring people into scenes in special ways, but they need to be done with great care. The best way to master them is by seeing how writers you admire use them. As I mentioned in my last post, I began my writing apprenticeship writing whole scenes of my stories in the styles of Tolkien, Poe, Harlan Ellison, Roger Zelazny, and Twain. I still do this on occasion when I am looking for answers. You'll find that, even where scenes might have fit the plot with the details another writer chose, each makes his or her distinct choices. Those selections create an unmistakable coherence and a unity in their work. It's worth striving for that. In prose, your distinct choices can come together to create a fresh engaging style.
Saturday, June 6, 2020
Using Favorite Authors to Open Up Your Stories
When stuck, the simplest way for me to find out how to begin a story is to take the concept on from another writer’s point of view. I give the idea to Mark Twain or Edgar Alan Poe or Robert Louis Stevenson, then I write about a page in, using these familiar voices, and see where it goes. I’ve been doing this at least since high school. It’s my introvert’s version of mimicking a distinctive high school teacher.
From a learning perspective, it’s amazing. Just as singers find their styles by imitating favorite vocalists and art schools encourage students to reproduce the masters, writers can learn about style, pacing, and character development by creating faux versions of scenes they admire.
To do so may be difficult at first, but it gets easier with time. Naturally, the author’s work must be engaging (to you) and the author’s oeuvre must be familiar. It’s a good idea to read a few pages just before writing. Fresh exposure helps make the voice louder in your head. Then, put down one to three pages for a scene that is equivalent. (If the model is an action scene with jeopardy, write an action scene. If it’s a lover’s confession, write a lover’s confession.)
With practice, the style is apt to come through. For some fun, you can type up the original and two forgeries and see if friends who know the author can tell which one that author wrote. If they choose yours, you’ve got it.
Deeper than the voice is the perspective. Writers see life in distinctive ways. It shows in the subjects they choose to write about, the characters they focus on, the genres they prefer, and the ways the story questions are answered. Little Red Riding Hood would come out very differently if handled by Stephen King, Nora Roberts, or James Thurber.
By standing in the shoes of writers you love, you can find new perspectives on your own work. I had an idea I loved, and I could not find a way to turn into something fresh and powerful. So I actually gave the concept, ultimately, to six different writers. I had, over time, immersed myself in their work, and it was easy for me to grab, one after another, their stories from my bookshelf. It took me two hours to create these imitation pages. I liked most of the results, but one really resonated. I set it aside, and charged into the story using my own voice, and it’s one of my best writing experiences.
There is a genre of creating imitations. It’s called pastiche, and it usually is done as a parlor trick or for humor. (The most famous pastiche may be Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead.) That’s fun, but it’s not my point here. The purpose is to get a point of view on the concept or disrupt a writing pattern that has become a bad habit. Imitation can be a good tool, a little like role-playing or making deliberately different choices as an actor.
Beyond taking on a scene, you can use imitation to explore story in a more direct form. For example, I recently wrote up the premise for Sleepless in Seattle in a way I imagined Nora Ephron might have.
Original:
To win the love of her life (Sam), Annie must discover his identity, send a note that stands out from many competitors, defy advice and her own sense of what’s reasonable, dump a fiancé, and make it to the top of the Empire State Building before it closes or she will end up settling for a life that has only a pale shadow of the true happiness she longs for.
Then I created three variations…
Mark Twain’s version:
The path of true love winds, twists, burrows under fertile fields bounces off of rocks, and, sure, finds a path eventually after tearing up the countryside. Annie had foresworn herself to leave love and all its worst habits aside for good sense, but nature had other ideas. Or curiosity. Or blamed stubbornness. The only way to get that widower every gal wanted (so she wanted him, too) was with a lot of fibbing and relieving the ship of her life of all the ballast, including a so-called fiancé, who never knew what happened. Did I mention all the gals wanted this widower?
Dashiell Hammett’s version:
She uses the kid. That’s how she pulls off the impossible stunt of baiting a broken-hearted man to meet her thousands of miles away. If a few people got hurt along the way, what did it matter. Suckers always lost, and that included the all-too-convenient man she had set up to catch her if she fell. He really thought she loved him? She was smarter and tougher than any of them, and soon they’d all know.
Jane Austen’s version:
Approaching a man who nobly holds the memory of his lost wife is a delicate thing and liable to lead to society’s approbation, but Annie is willing to risk it for love. To succeed, however, she must first set aside her practical views of what a good match is. The fine attributes of her current fiancé, not to mention the commitment she’s honor-bound to keep, are not easily disposed of. Indeed, the unmistakeable correctness of her choice has the acceptance and blessing of her family, further complicating attempts at romance. Against all of this is the greatest challenge of all. winning the heart of a man she has never met. But to fail, means sacrificing her own heart forever.
I’m not claiming any of these are art or even entertaining. Since using imitation to explore story isn’t aimed work for publication, it doesn’t need to be good. And first draft is fine for these purposes. (Getting caught up in making an imitation perfect or entertaining may take you away from your own story if you’re not careful.) The value, even in these few words, written in about 15 minutes, was unleashing a cascade of possibilities. Mark Twain would spot the human folly, but also the good hearts within the characters. Dashiell Hammett might find in the situation a story about a flawed person fighting for fairness in a dark world, but suspecting, at best, a bittersweet outcome. Jane Austen would probably focus on how Sleepless offers ways to illustrate the social norms the shape us.
So, if Sleepless in Seattle had been my story, the exercise would have provided me with some interesting choices that otherwise never would have occurred to me. Not bad for 15-minutes work.
From a learning perspective, it’s amazing. Just as singers find their styles by imitating favorite vocalists and art schools encourage students to reproduce the masters, writers can learn about style, pacing, and character development by creating faux versions of scenes they admire.
To do so may be difficult at first, but it gets easier with time. Naturally, the author’s work must be engaging (to you) and the author’s oeuvre must be familiar. It’s a good idea to read a few pages just before writing. Fresh exposure helps make the voice louder in your head. Then, put down one to three pages for a scene that is equivalent. (If the model is an action scene with jeopardy, write an action scene. If it’s a lover’s confession, write a lover’s confession.)
With practice, the style is apt to come through. For some fun, you can type up the original and two forgeries and see if friends who know the author can tell which one that author wrote. If they choose yours, you’ve got it.
Deeper than the voice is the perspective. Writers see life in distinctive ways. It shows in the subjects they choose to write about, the characters they focus on, the genres they prefer, and the ways the story questions are answered. Little Red Riding Hood would come out very differently if handled by Stephen King, Nora Roberts, or James Thurber.
By standing in the shoes of writers you love, you can find new perspectives on your own work. I had an idea I loved, and I could not find a way to turn into something fresh and powerful. So I actually gave the concept, ultimately, to six different writers. I had, over time, immersed myself in their work, and it was easy for me to grab, one after another, their stories from my bookshelf. It took me two hours to create these imitation pages. I liked most of the results, but one really resonated. I set it aside, and charged into the story using my own voice, and it’s one of my best writing experiences.
There is a genre of creating imitations. It’s called pastiche, and it usually is done as a parlor trick or for humor. (The most famous pastiche may be Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead.) That’s fun, but it’s not my point here. The purpose is to get a point of view on the concept or disrupt a writing pattern that has become a bad habit. Imitation can be a good tool, a little like role-playing or making deliberately different choices as an actor.
Beyond taking on a scene, you can use imitation to explore story in a more direct form. For example, I recently wrote up the premise for Sleepless in Seattle in a way I imagined Nora Ephron might have.
Original:
To win the love of her life (Sam), Annie must discover his identity, send a note that stands out from many competitors, defy advice and her own sense of what’s reasonable, dump a fiancé, and make it to the top of the Empire State Building before it closes or she will end up settling for a life that has only a pale shadow of the true happiness she longs for.
Then I created three variations…
Mark Twain’s version:
The path of true love winds, twists, burrows under fertile fields bounces off of rocks, and, sure, finds a path eventually after tearing up the countryside. Annie had foresworn herself to leave love and all its worst habits aside for good sense, but nature had other ideas. Or curiosity. Or blamed stubbornness. The only way to get that widower every gal wanted (so she wanted him, too) was with a lot of fibbing and relieving the ship of her life of all the ballast, including a so-called fiancé, who never knew what happened. Did I mention all the gals wanted this widower?
Dashiell Hammett’s version:
She uses the kid. That’s how she pulls off the impossible stunt of baiting a broken-hearted man to meet her thousands of miles away. If a few people got hurt along the way, what did it matter. Suckers always lost, and that included the all-too-convenient man she had set up to catch her if she fell. He really thought she loved him? She was smarter and tougher than any of them, and soon they’d all know.
Jane Austen’s version:
Approaching a man who nobly holds the memory of his lost wife is a delicate thing and liable to lead to society’s approbation, but Annie is willing to risk it for love. To succeed, however, she must first set aside her practical views of what a good match is. The fine attributes of her current fiancé, not to mention the commitment she’s honor-bound to keep, are not easily disposed of. Indeed, the unmistakeable correctness of her choice has the acceptance and blessing of her family, further complicating attempts at romance. Against all of this is the greatest challenge of all. winning the heart of a man she has never met. But to fail, means sacrificing her own heart forever.
I’m not claiming any of these are art or even entertaining. Since using imitation to explore story isn’t aimed work for publication, it doesn’t need to be good. And first draft is fine for these purposes. (Getting caught up in making an imitation perfect or entertaining may take you away from your own story if you’re not careful.) The value, even in these few words, written in about 15 minutes, was unleashing a cascade of possibilities. Mark Twain would spot the human folly, but also the good hearts within the characters. Dashiell Hammett might find in the situation a story about a flawed person fighting for fairness in a dark world, but suspecting, at best, a bittersweet outcome. Jane Austen would probably focus on how Sleepless offers ways to illustrate the social norms the shape us.
So, if Sleepless in Seattle had been my story, the exercise would have provided me with some interesting choices that otherwise never would have occurred to me. Not bad for 15-minutes work.
Thursday, May 28, 2020
Making Your Comedy Funnier 3 - Leveraging the situation
A fish out of water is a classic comedy situation. Think Crocodile Dundee facing New York. Everything normal, from most of the audience’s part of view (and Sue’s) is strange, wonderful, bewildering and/or challenging for Dundee. He brings an odd, childish perspective whether facing mobs of people, a bidet, or a transvestite.
But here’s the funny (not haha) part. In Australia, though Sue is technically a fish out of water when she is in the Outback, isn’t especially funny. The humor comes more from the relationship and who Dundee is than from the context. It’s a great example of humor (often) requiring that the audience be in a superior position. Few of us are in a superior position when in the Outback. That situation is strange, wonderful, bewildering and/or challenging for most audiences.
There is a clever connection between the two worlds — food — that explicitly equates eating roasted lizards with eating New York hot dogs.
Conflict is at the heart of a fish out of water and other comic situations. It’s all about being at odds: person against person, person against fate or god(s), person against nature, person against society, person against the unknown, person against technology, and person against self (which, when I was in school, was simpler: man against man, man against nature, and man against himself)?
For example:
▪ A fish out of water (Crocodile Dundee) story usually finds conflict through person against society, with a wink.
▪ Liar Liar, where Fletcher struggles against telling the truth is a person against self story (though not just that).
▪ The Music Box, in which Laurel and Hardy struggle to get a piano up the stairs, might be considered person(s) against technology (and a great example of prop humor).
▪ The Odd Couple is person against person, pitting a neatnik against a slob. (Many romantic comedies are person against person, often with differences in social rank adding a person against society component. A favorite of mine is It Happened One Night.)
▪ Clown characters, especially continuing ones like Chaplin’s Little Tramp seem to me to be person against fate stories. They strive for happiness and success, but are doomed to fail or only partly succeed.
▪ I can’t think of a better comic example of person against nature than the wind sequence in Steamboat Bill, Jr. Buster Keaton was a genius.
▪ Person against the unknown is fairly uncommon, probably because irony, that superior position the audience holds, requires common knowledge. Science fiction humor is relatively sparse, probably for this reason. Mork, of Mork and Mindy, leans on a fish out of water premise. To get to familiarity, the story may blend together what is essentially our world with common, well-known tropes from the genre. Good examples that might pass as person against the unknown are Men in Black and A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But, when the balance shifts heavily to the tropes, the humor depends less on the conflict and more on reference humor. And that is a different sort of situation. It’s a spoof.
While spoofs include conflict, they rely on making fun of something specific. Galaxy Quest references Star Trek. Spaceballs references Star Wars. Young Frankenstein references Frankenstein. Away from speculative fiction, consider Airplane!, which references Zero Hour!. Or Life of Brian references the New Testament. Note: If people don't get the reference, most of the humor is lost.
The comic situation may simply be a satire of a genre (like the rock mockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap) or it could be taking a poke at the absurdity of real life, like Wag the Dog (politics), Bad Words (spelling bees), or Little Miss Sunshine (beauty pageants).
So comedies can be spoofs, satires, and explorations of seven dramatic conflicts. Or they can be mixes of these. For you as a writer, a clearer clearer understanding of which situations you’re leveraging can provide focus to sharpen your humor and make the work funnier. Such a closer look can also lead you to some terrific films that provide good models of how to get the most out of the situations you’ve chosen.
But here’s the funny (not haha) part. In Australia, though Sue is technically a fish out of water when she is in the Outback, isn’t especially funny. The humor comes more from the relationship and who Dundee is than from the context. It’s a great example of humor (often) requiring that the audience be in a superior position. Few of us are in a superior position when in the Outback. That situation is strange, wonderful, bewildering and/or challenging for most audiences.
There is a clever connection between the two worlds — food — that explicitly equates eating roasted lizards with eating New York hot dogs.
Conflict is at the heart of a fish out of water and other comic situations. It’s all about being at odds: person against person, person against fate or god(s), person against nature, person against society, person against the unknown, person against technology, and person against self (which, when I was in school, was simpler: man against man, man against nature, and man against himself)?
For example:
▪ A fish out of water (Crocodile Dundee) story usually finds conflict through person against society, with a wink.
▪ Liar Liar, where Fletcher struggles against telling the truth is a person against self story (though not just that).
▪ The Music Box, in which Laurel and Hardy struggle to get a piano up the stairs, might be considered person(s) against technology (and a great example of prop humor).
▪ The Odd Couple is person against person, pitting a neatnik against a slob. (Many romantic comedies are person against person, often with differences in social rank adding a person against society component. A favorite of mine is It Happened One Night.)
▪ Clown characters, especially continuing ones like Chaplin’s Little Tramp seem to me to be person against fate stories. They strive for happiness and success, but are doomed to fail or only partly succeed.
▪ I can’t think of a better comic example of person against nature than the wind sequence in Steamboat Bill, Jr. Buster Keaton was a genius.
▪ Person against the unknown is fairly uncommon, probably because irony, that superior position the audience holds, requires common knowledge. Science fiction humor is relatively sparse, probably for this reason. Mork, of Mork and Mindy, leans on a fish out of water premise. To get to familiarity, the story may blend together what is essentially our world with common, well-known tropes from the genre. Good examples that might pass as person against the unknown are Men in Black and A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But, when the balance shifts heavily to the tropes, the humor depends less on the conflict and more on reference humor. And that is a different sort of situation. It’s a spoof.
While spoofs include conflict, they rely on making fun of something specific. Galaxy Quest references Star Trek. Spaceballs references Star Wars. Young Frankenstein references Frankenstein. Away from speculative fiction, consider Airplane!, which references Zero Hour!. Or Life of Brian references the New Testament. Note: If people don't get the reference, most of the humor is lost.
The comic situation may simply be a satire of a genre (like the rock mockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap) or it could be taking a poke at the absurdity of real life, like Wag the Dog (politics), Bad Words (spelling bees), or Little Miss Sunshine (beauty pageants).
So comedies can be spoofs, satires, and explorations of seven dramatic conflicts. Or they can be mixes of these. For you as a writer, a clearer clearer understanding of which situations you’re leveraging can provide focus to sharpen your humor and make the work funnier. Such a closer look can also lead you to some terrific films that provide good models of how to get the most out of the situations you’ve chosen.
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
Making Your Comedy Funnier 2 - Your go-to characters
There's an old rule of comedy: Going on stage after another comedian is death. I think this is based on the premise that the humor comes from jokes. A barrage of jokes (setup/payoff, setup/payoff, setup/payoff) is exhausting. But humor based on character touches on our common humanity and becomes more compelling, even invigorating. That’s why good storytellers — even those who specialize in funny stories — can follow each other without risking death.
The characters in comedy, as I discussed in Casting Your Stories 2: The ensemble of characters, have been categorized and explored at least since the Renaissance, and can help you see the comic possibilities in your work. I’ll take a different cut at it this time.
Danny Simon said two things were most important to make a scene as funny as it could be:
For the present purpose, we’ll consider four kinds of characters. I’ll call them the Straight Man, Wile E Coyote, the Fool, and the Trickster.
In comedy teams (which used to be common), the straight man was the one who set up the jokes. The other team member — the comic or the banana man — got the laughs. So, here, the Straight Man keeps the scene on track. Usually, the Straight Man is seeking calm, order, and reasonable solutions. While his frustration may be funny, the Straight Man isn’t ridiculous, exaggerated, or (usually) needy. The Straight Man can be used to sharpen the timing of a scene by speeding up or delaying the payoff. He’s great to entrap in running gags and, because he is trying to bring something to resolution, he adds tension and encourages escalation. Watch Abbott and Costello (Who's on first?) or Burns and Allen (Say goodnight, Gracie) or Laurel and Hardy (Here's another fine mess) on YouTube. One of the best straight men in a sitcom was Judd Hirsch in Taxi (Reiger). Choose almost any episode, and you'll see him adeptly keep stories moving forward even as they threaten to spin out of control.
This character is less fun to play in its pure state. Someone like Sam in Cheers is only a part-time Straight Man. When he’s being the bartender, he’s serious and in control (often with an ironic perspective). But he also can be oblivious (playing the Fool when Diane is three steps ahead of him) or needy (when he is a Lothario).
I gave character 2 the Wile E Coyote name because the most obvious contribution is wanting something… that’s unobtainable. The Coyote will never catch the Road Runner. Lucy in I Love Lucy
will never become a professional performer. Cliff in Cheers will never be respected for his intellect. Louie in Taxi will never satisfy his lust or greed. In most cases, Wile E Coyote is typified by two things — persistence and lack of self-awareness. Wile E Coyote will never give up, always moving onto the next tactic. He’ll also never evaluate, understand why he has failed, or stop sending his money to Acme.
A Wile E Coyote is the most reliable source of laughs. He is laser-focused on his goal. He goes to extremes. The audience is always waiting for his reaction, expecting another stumble. The trick is making the stumble fit while still surprising the audience. Classically, showing someone approaching a banana peel sets up the expectation of a slip. Some laughter might come if the character steps on the peel and falls on his butt. But there will be more laughs if the character evades the peel at the last minute only to fall into a manhole.
There are variations here as well. In The Honeymooners, Ralph will do anything to get rich, but his schemes always fail. However, there is momentary self-awareness at the end when he has to deal with Alice. In The Dick Van Dyke Show, Sally never will get a husband, but she is almost painfully aware of this, making self-deprecating jokes ("Listen, if any of you out there have a lazy brother, an unemployed uncle or a nutty nephew, you send 'em to me!").
The Fool doesn’t get it. Often, he gets it wrong. This can be a mechanism for stories that rely on misunderstandings. And poignant moments can be created when other characters work to protect the Fool. Latka ("") and Reverend Jim ("I wonder about things, like, if they call an orange an 'orange,' then why don't we call a banana a 'yellow' or an apple a 'red'? Blueberries, I understand. But will someone explain gooseberries to me?"), both of Taxi, are two of my favorite fools. One is a foreigner and one drug-damaged. It can’t be guaranteed that either will understand instructions or explanations. Like most fools, they are generous and want to be helpful, and the execution of these positive impulses can lead to disaster.
In general (and unlike Wile E Coyote), they don’t want anything for themselves. The audience waits for their input, but it’s difficult to anticipate what that might be. Writers are free to create crazier, more surprising responses. Often, their answers inadvertently lead to the solution to a story (or scene) problem. At times, it turns out that the Fool is removed enough from reality to provide answers that are truly wise. (Reverend Jim: If you find yourself in a confusing situation, simply laugh knowingly and walk away.)
Like the Straight Man, Fools often are given another dimension with time, especially in a sitcom where the character is likely to deepen in over multiple stories. Latka was, at times, not afraid to play the fool to get what he wanted.
The Trickster may be the rarest character in comedy. I suspect that’s because Tricksters are difficult to connect with. They stir things up and revel in chaos. They owe nothing to anyone else and often lack empathy. They don’t change. Ferris Bueller is my favorite example. He is the same at the end of the story as he is at the beginning. Though he satisfies his desires, he mainly wants to stir things up. Though he catalyzes needed change in other characters, he has no compunctions about causing them anxiety and distress. You can count on the Trickster for practical jokes, sarcastic (even cruel) remarks, and unexpected truths. The Trickster doesn’t make things go sideways unintentionally. He is deliberate and amoral.
Though Hawkeye Pierce in MASH often wanted to satisfy his desires ("Life, liberty, and the pursuit or happy hour."), I think most of what he contributed in the early seasons of the show was almost pure Trickster. Breaking rules was more important than what he got from doing so. He disregarded authority and sowed the seeds of rebellion. He added energy and excitement and revealed what was inside other characters (usually, but not always, their flaws). Hawkeye was given more direction and moral standing in later seasons and he connected with other characters and even became vulnerable to them, but that’s not how it all started.
All of these are at your disposal for sweetening. Do your characters fit any of them? For a scene that needs to be funnier, are the right characters there? Do they show up and do their schtick throughout the scene? If not, imagine the scene with the right characters intruding when they normally would (either to get something or to help or to get things back on track or to stir things up). I suspect you’ll discover new opportunities for making the scene (and the story) funnier.
--------------------------------------
I have three online courses coming up: The Promise of the Premise, a Storytelling Workshop, and Developing a Web Series. The first is traditional, with lessons posted, exercises and interaction with me and among students via text. The other two are Zoom meeting, with writing, sharing, critiquing, and lectures. There will also be handouts.
The characters in comedy, as I discussed in Casting Your Stories 2: The ensemble of characters, have been categorized and explored at least since the Renaissance, and can help you see the comic possibilities in your work. I’ll take a different cut at it this time.
Danny Simon said two things were most important to make a scene as funny as it could be:
- Have the right characters present.
- Make sure all the characters contribute through action, reaction, or dialogue.
For the present purpose, we’ll consider four kinds of characters. I’ll call them the Straight Man, Wile E Coyote, the Fool, and the Trickster.
In comedy teams (which used to be common), the straight man was the one who set up the jokes. The other team member — the comic or the banana man — got the laughs. So, here, the Straight Man keeps the scene on track. Usually, the Straight Man is seeking calm, order, and reasonable solutions. While his frustration may be funny, the Straight Man isn’t ridiculous, exaggerated, or (usually) needy. The Straight Man can be used to sharpen the timing of a scene by speeding up or delaying the payoff. He’s great to entrap in running gags and, because he is trying to bring something to resolution, he adds tension and encourages escalation. Watch Abbott and Costello (Who's on first?) or Burns and Allen (Say goodnight, Gracie) or Laurel and Hardy (Here's another fine mess) on YouTube. One of the best straight men in a sitcom was Judd Hirsch in Taxi (Reiger). Choose almost any episode, and you'll see him adeptly keep stories moving forward even as they threaten to spin out of control.
This character is less fun to play in its pure state. Someone like Sam in Cheers is only a part-time Straight Man. When he’s being the bartender, he’s serious and in control (often with an ironic perspective). But he also can be oblivious (playing the Fool when Diane is three steps ahead of him) or needy (when he is a Lothario).
I gave character 2 the Wile E Coyote name because the most obvious contribution is wanting something… that’s unobtainable. The Coyote will never catch the Road Runner. Lucy in I Love Lucy
will never become a professional performer. Cliff in Cheers will never be respected for his intellect. Louie in Taxi will never satisfy his lust or greed. In most cases, Wile E Coyote is typified by two things — persistence and lack of self-awareness. Wile E Coyote will never give up, always moving onto the next tactic. He’ll also never evaluate, understand why he has failed, or stop sending his money to Acme.
A Wile E Coyote is the most reliable source of laughs. He is laser-focused on his goal. He goes to extremes. The audience is always waiting for his reaction, expecting another stumble. The trick is making the stumble fit while still surprising the audience. Classically, showing someone approaching a banana peel sets up the expectation of a slip. Some laughter might come if the character steps on the peel and falls on his butt. But there will be more laughs if the character evades the peel at the last minute only to fall into a manhole.
There are variations here as well. In The Honeymooners, Ralph will do anything to get rich, but his schemes always fail. However, there is momentary self-awareness at the end when he has to deal with Alice. In The Dick Van Dyke Show, Sally never will get a husband, but she is almost painfully aware of this, making self-deprecating jokes ("Listen, if any of you out there have a lazy brother, an unemployed uncle or a nutty nephew, you send 'em to me!").
The Fool doesn’t get it. Often, he gets it wrong. This can be a mechanism for stories that rely on misunderstandings. And poignant moments can be created when other characters work to protect the Fool. Latka ("") and Reverend Jim ("I wonder about things, like, if they call an orange an 'orange,' then why don't we call a banana a 'yellow' or an apple a 'red'? Blueberries, I understand. But will someone explain gooseberries to me?"), both of Taxi, are two of my favorite fools. One is a foreigner and one drug-damaged. It can’t be guaranteed that either will understand instructions or explanations. Like most fools, they are generous and want to be helpful, and the execution of these positive impulses can lead to disaster.
In general (and unlike Wile E Coyote), they don’t want anything for themselves. The audience waits for their input, but it’s difficult to anticipate what that might be. Writers are free to create crazier, more surprising responses. Often, their answers inadvertently lead to the solution to a story (or scene) problem. At times, it turns out that the Fool is removed enough from reality to provide answers that are truly wise. (Reverend Jim: If you find yourself in a confusing situation, simply laugh knowingly and walk away.)
Like the Straight Man, Fools often are given another dimension with time, especially in a sitcom where the character is likely to deepen in over multiple stories. Latka was, at times, not afraid to play the fool to get what he wanted.
The Trickster may be the rarest character in comedy. I suspect that’s because Tricksters are difficult to connect with. They stir things up and revel in chaos. They owe nothing to anyone else and often lack empathy. They don’t change. Ferris Bueller is my favorite example. He is the same at the end of the story as he is at the beginning. Though he satisfies his desires, he mainly wants to stir things up. Though he catalyzes needed change in other characters, he has no compunctions about causing them anxiety and distress. You can count on the Trickster for practical jokes, sarcastic (even cruel) remarks, and unexpected truths. The Trickster doesn’t make things go sideways unintentionally. He is deliberate and amoral.
Though Hawkeye Pierce in MASH often wanted to satisfy his desires ("Life, liberty, and the pursuit or happy hour."), I think most of what he contributed in the early seasons of the show was almost pure Trickster. Breaking rules was more important than what he got from doing so. He disregarded authority and sowed the seeds of rebellion. He added energy and excitement and revealed what was inside other characters (usually, but not always, their flaws). Hawkeye was given more direction and moral standing in later seasons and he connected with other characters and even became vulnerable to them, but that’s not how it all started.
All of these are at your disposal for sweetening. Do your characters fit any of them? For a scene that needs to be funnier, are the right characters there? Do they show up and do their schtick throughout the scene? If not, imagine the scene with the right characters intruding when they normally would (either to get something or to help or to get things back on track or to stir things up). I suspect you’ll discover new opportunities for making the scene (and the story) funnier.
--------------------------------------
I have three online courses coming up: The Promise of the Premise, a Storytelling Workshop, and Developing a Web Series. The first is traditional, with lessons posted, exercises and interaction with me and among students via text. The other two are Zoom meeting, with writing, sharing, critiquing, and lectures. There will also be handouts.
Friday, May 15, 2020
Making Your Comedy Funnier 1 - Five tricks to increase the laughs
So you’ve drafted a comedy, and it really works as a story. You started with an engaging premise and built and polished a logline that defines the essential components. The beginning sparks interest, the middle has strong turning points and holds attention, and the ending is powerful and memorable. You love this story.
But it’s not funny enough. It would make a pretty good drama, spiced with humor, but you know it has the bones to be a classic comedy. One that would make Mel Brooks grind his teeth with envy. All it needs is a little sweetening.
If you have a writers’ room full of naturally funny (and highly competitive) people, they could punch this thing into shape before they kill each other (or you). Sadly, you are not at the stage of your career where geniuses have lifting you up and carrying you to fame and fortune on their must-do lists. So try these five tricks and see how far they get you.
1 - Make the endings pop. Humor works best if you withhold it to the very end. My mother-in-law had many virtues, but telling jokes was not one of them. She always led with the punchline. Everything that twisted and surprised came out first. Don’t let that happen to you. Withholding builds tension, and the more anxiety or curiosity there is, the greater the release in laughter. Look through each line to see if the funny part can move to the end of the sentence.
Find the (3-5) beats in each scene. Identify the power shifts and discover the potential for humor in each. (A power shift almost always promises humor.) Arrange them so, as the stakes rise, things get funnier. Now make sure each scene ends with its biggest laugh. And make the last scene in the comedy the funniest of all.
But… don’t toss your earlier version because this might not yield all your story has to offer. This trick is here to explore and create options, not to create final copy. Pacing matters, too.
2 - Manage the energy. This is about setting up, surprising, and trimming. If I told you the funniest story ever written in Estonian and you didn’t speak that language, I wouldn’t get any laughs (or they’d come at the wrong times). Understanding is an essential element to humor. That means being clear and holding attention. So the setup must proceed with clear visuals that let readers/audience process the action, meaning, revelations, and (usually) conflict and concern about the protagonist. Often, people are lured into making assumptions.
Assumptions overturned create surprises, which are central to comedy. If you just fulfill expectations, it’s not likely to be funny. When, in Animal House, Bluto get high on a ladder to spy on sorority girls, we know that ladder is going down. Disappointingly, that’s all that happens. Much funnier is when he inspires his frat brothers to action by saying it wasn’t over for the U.S. when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.
Of course, when you raise expectations, you need to come up with something funnier (or at least more interesting) than what people imagine. Just because something is surprising doesn’t mean it can’t be disappointing.
There are surprises that don’t come from assumptions. If you have a completely off-beat character (like Reverend Jim in Taxi), the forward motion can be derailed by a non sequitur. This can be used to distract or as comic relief. For instance, in one of my scripts, a character who has been ignoring a building conflict suddenly comes out with, “Have you ever eaten a cat?”
Finally, cutting out excess verbiage can make what’s funny funnier. Like poetry, humor works best when it’s distilled. Challenge every word.
3 - Play with the language. Yes, K sounds are funnier. And Bing Crosby made an art of reshaping dialogue to include big words. Silly names (in Catch-22, Major Major and Scheisskopf) are memorable and can trigger jokes along the way. The natural rhythm of sentences can suggest comedic timing (or work against it). Puns can work, and rephrasing can be an excellent way to create misunderstandings or irony.
In my experience, of all the sweetening tools, this is the one writers find most irresistible. When language intrudes, unintentionally distracts, or is not appropriate to a character in whose mouth it has been placed, take these darlings and strangle, crush, and obliterate them.
4 - Exaggerate. I can still hear comedy writer Danny Simon, my one-time teacher, encouraging the class to “Make it bigger!” We did. Pitching in real time, making it outrageous so we could get a smile or even a laugh from him. But what do you make bigger? Usually, it’s the character choice. In the classic chocolate factory scene in I Love Lucy, Lucy goes from eating the chocolates she can’t wrap fast enough to sweeping them into her hat to shoving them into her cleavage.
The ultimate payoff of the scene is exaggerating the situation. The chocolates come too quickly so, even though Lucy and Ethel have succeeded in deceiving their manager, their reward is even more chocolates to get rid of. Making the situation more desperate increases stakes and invites people to accept more and more outrageous solutions, so build toward the biggest choices if you can.
5 - Change perspective. Romances typically alternate perspective (with changes to scenes or chapters) between the hero and the heroine. Who gets the viewpoint for the scene? A rule of thumb is to choose whomever has the most at risk. Whose heart would be most ruined. Whose reputation would be destroyed. Who would be exposed or vulnerable. If your comedy allows changes to points of view (and not all do), choosing the perspective of the person most at risk usually turns out best. People will worry more. The character will be more likely to lie or withhold the truth. And make outrageous choices to protect him/herself.
Another way to change perspective is to zoom in or zoom out. In Dr. Strangelove, there’s a famous scene near the end that moves from close-in scrambling to complete the mission to a god-like view of total destruction. This makes the scene more ironic and, I think, more horrifying. Zooming in or zooming out exposes something true that otherwise might be invisible. Truth and irony can make people uncomfortable or add insights, but both also can be used to add humor.
The party on the train scene in Some Like It Hot is hilarious and includes nearly every trick in this list. It’s fun to watch and great to dissect for techniques that can sweeten your story.
One more thing. Don’t cut funny. Humor is particularly vulnerable to wearing out, as anyone who has suffered repetitions of dad jokes knows. As a result, it can be tempting to take some of the best bits out of your comedy. One solution is to mark what brings laughs as early as possible. Protect them until the story is finished. Then read the work to friends (who appreciate your humor) and only remove them if the parts that made you laugh turn out not to be funny.
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I have three online courses coming up: The Promise of the Premise, a Storytelling Workshop, and Developing a Web Series. The first is traditional, with lessons posted, exercising and interaction with me and among students via text. The other two are Zoom meeting, with writing, sharing, critiquing, and lectures. There will also be handouts.
But it’s not funny enough. It would make a pretty good drama, spiced with humor, but you know it has the bones to be a classic comedy. One that would make Mel Brooks grind his teeth with envy. All it needs is a little sweetening.
If you have a writers’ room full of naturally funny (and highly competitive) people, they could punch this thing into shape before they kill each other (or you). Sadly, you are not at the stage of your career where geniuses have lifting you up and carrying you to fame and fortune on their must-do lists. So try these five tricks and see how far they get you.
1 - Make the endings pop. Humor works best if you withhold it to the very end. My mother-in-law had many virtues, but telling jokes was not one of them. She always led with the punchline. Everything that twisted and surprised came out first. Don’t let that happen to you. Withholding builds tension, and the more anxiety or curiosity there is, the greater the release in laughter. Look through each line to see if the funny part can move to the end of the sentence.
Find the (3-5) beats in each scene. Identify the power shifts and discover the potential for humor in each. (A power shift almost always promises humor.) Arrange them so, as the stakes rise, things get funnier. Now make sure each scene ends with its biggest laugh. And make the last scene in the comedy the funniest of all.
But… don’t toss your earlier version because this might not yield all your story has to offer. This trick is here to explore and create options, not to create final copy. Pacing matters, too.
2 - Manage the energy. This is about setting up, surprising, and trimming. If I told you the funniest story ever written in Estonian and you didn’t speak that language, I wouldn’t get any laughs (or they’d come at the wrong times). Understanding is an essential element to humor. That means being clear and holding attention. So the setup must proceed with clear visuals that let readers/audience process the action, meaning, revelations, and (usually) conflict and concern about the protagonist. Often, people are lured into making assumptions.
Assumptions overturned create surprises, which are central to comedy. If you just fulfill expectations, it’s not likely to be funny. When, in Animal House, Bluto get high on a ladder to spy on sorority girls, we know that ladder is going down. Disappointingly, that’s all that happens. Much funnier is when he inspires his frat brothers to action by saying it wasn’t over for the U.S. when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.
Of course, when you raise expectations, you need to come up with something funnier (or at least more interesting) than what people imagine. Just because something is surprising doesn’t mean it can’t be disappointing.
There are surprises that don’t come from assumptions. If you have a completely off-beat character (like Reverend Jim in Taxi), the forward motion can be derailed by a non sequitur. This can be used to distract or as comic relief. For instance, in one of my scripts, a character who has been ignoring a building conflict suddenly comes out with, “Have you ever eaten a cat?”
Finally, cutting out excess verbiage can make what’s funny funnier. Like poetry, humor works best when it’s distilled. Challenge every word.
3 - Play with the language. Yes, K sounds are funnier. And Bing Crosby made an art of reshaping dialogue to include big words. Silly names (in Catch-22, Major Major and Scheisskopf) are memorable and can trigger jokes along the way. The natural rhythm of sentences can suggest comedic timing (or work against it). Puns can work, and rephrasing can be an excellent way to create misunderstandings or irony.
In my experience, of all the sweetening tools, this is the one writers find most irresistible. When language intrudes, unintentionally distracts, or is not appropriate to a character in whose mouth it has been placed, take these darlings and strangle, crush, and obliterate them.
4 - Exaggerate. I can still hear comedy writer Danny Simon, my one-time teacher, encouraging the class to “Make it bigger!” We did. Pitching in real time, making it outrageous so we could get a smile or even a laugh from him. But what do you make bigger? Usually, it’s the character choice. In the classic chocolate factory scene in I Love Lucy, Lucy goes from eating the chocolates she can’t wrap fast enough to sweeping them into her hat to shoving them into her cleavage.
The ultimate payoff of the scene is exaggerating the situation. The chocolates come too quickly so, even though Lucy and Ethel have succeeded in deceiving their manager, their reward is even more chocolates to get rid of. Making the situation more desperate increases stakes and invites people to accept more and more outrageous solutions, so build toward the biggest choices if you can.
5 - Change perspective. Romances typically alternate perspective (with changes to scenes or chapters) between the hero and the heroine. Who gets the viewpoint for the scene? A rule of thumb is to choose whomever has the most at risk. Whose heart would be most ruined. Whose reputation would be destroyed. Who would be exposed or vulnerable. If your comedy allows changes to points of view (and not all do), choosing the perspective of the person most at risk usually turns out best. People will worry more. The character will be more likely to lie or withhold the truth. And make outrageous choices to protect him/herself.
Another way to change perspective is to zoom in or zoom out. In Dr. Strangelove, there’s a famous scene near the end that moves from close-in scrambling to complete the mission to a god-like view of total destruction. This makes the scene more ironic and, I think, more horrifying. Zooming in or zooming out exposes something true that otherwise might be invisible. Truth and irony can make people uncomfortable or add insights, but both also can be used to add humor.
The party on the train scene in Some Like It Hot is hilarious and includes nearly every trick in this list. It’s fun to watch and great to dissect for techniques that can sweeten your story.
One more thing. Don’t cut funny. Humor is particularly vulnerable to wearing out, as anyone who has suffered repetitions of dad jokes knows. As a result, it can be tempting to take some of the best bits out of your comedy. One solution is to mark what brings laughs as early as possible. Protect them until the story is finished. Then read the work to friends (who appreciate your humor) and only remove them if the parts that made you laugh turn out not to be funny.
--------------------------------------
I have three online courses coming up: The Promise of the Premise, a Storytelling Workshop, and Developing a Web Series. The first is traditional, with lessons posted, exercising and interaction with me and among students via text. The other two are Zoom meeting, with writing, sharing, critiquing, and lectures. There will also be handouts.
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