The Prompt
Write a humorous story by giving your character permission to go after their desire, no matter what the cost
Tips
Comedy gives your character in the narrative the permission to win. Comedy gives them the permission to do what they need to do in a moment of crisis, even if it makes them look like a bad guy or an idiot.
–Steven Kaplan, The Hidden Tools of Comedy: The Serious Business of Being Funny (Michael Wiese Productions)
Give your character a desire, something they are willing to go all-out for.
What makes Marty McFly so funny in Back To The Future? It’s the fact that he’s willing to do anything to get home, no matter how difficult or ridiculous, from fighting the town bully to seducing his own mother — well, almost.
He’s willing to give it a try– to prat-falling over fences and doorways in his haste to get out of awkward situations. None of this is ‘funny stuff’ in a vacuum, it all grows out of the character’s single-minded desire to achieve his aim, no matter what the cost to his ego.
Put your character in a situation where they are going to have to do things they wouldn’t normally do, if they really want to achieve that desire .
(e. g. in The Life Of Brian, our hero is a nobody who wants to be somebody and get the girl, who happens to be a revolutionary. When her leader tells him to graffiti the town square and is caught by the school-master-like centurian, the consequence is funny because it goes so far, so big. Literally.)
Make sure your character doesn’t have any of the skills they would need if they were going to be a traditional hero character.
Marty, in BTTF, knows nothing about life in 1955.
Monty Python’s Brian is so timid, so far from being a revolutionary, that every situation he finds himself in is inherently funny.
If either of these characters possessed the skills they needed to win, their movies would have been dramas or action movies, instead of comedies!
Make your funny character believe in themselves.
They are not a character. They are a person, who is trying to achieve something.
Everything they say or do, they should believe in. It might turn out to be inappropriate for the situation, but for some reason, they believe it and they believe it is a useful thing to say or do right now.
Comedy can also result when a character does the thing that we, because we are so polite and a credit to our mothers, would never say or do. How would the people around your character react in that moment?
For more on writing humor, read my interview with Lisa Doan at NaNoWriMo’s Young Writers’ Program blog.
Julie Duffy
Julie Duffy is a writer who likes to think she is funny. She is the host of StoryADay May . She sometimes juggles and knits, though rarely at the same time.
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Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version
After trying and failing to find the right character for this prompt, I decided to write a story entirely through limericks, about a writer unable to write and taking rather dramatic steps to find inspiration. It wasn’t the laugh-out-loud funny story I expected, but the character’s actions and solution were amusing enough to make it count, I’d say. ^_^
I would never imagine that I would write comedy. I learned a lot
Julie, I love funny things, and I love this prompt! I didn’t love what I did with it, however, my first draft is meh, at best. I derived some comfort from the interview that you linked into the prompt post. Beginning, middle, end, check, but my “funny” needs work.
And remember, funny doesn’t have to be ‘laugh out loud’ funny…a lightness or surprising wordplay can fit the bill, too.
Glad the interview was helpful. I remember thinking “ahhhh!’ when Lisa said she never lets a joke rest on the first attempt!
Inspired by your BTTF reference, I wrote a ridiculous piece of nonsense involving karaoke & time travel. Thanks for the chuckles!!
Excellent!
Fun prompt. I re-wrote a scene where the main character confronts a snake in her kitchen in the middle of the night. In the original version, she’s terrified. In today’s version, she talks to the snake, throws things at it, and crawls across the kitchen counters and stove to get to her cell phone to take a picture of the snake.
I fleshed out yesterday’s hundred-word story into a tale about a wannabe band who can’t get a gig at a bar because the manager of the bar hates their drummer. They bring down the house performing “Smoke on the Water” on Guitar Hero, DrumMania, the karaoke machine, and Dance Dance Revolution. (I know, not possible, but c’mon.) That gets them the gig.
Nothing laugh-out-loud funny, no pratfalls, but a humorous tone throughout and a silly, desperate way to achieve their goal.
I love comedy! And find writing it technically challenging. Thank you so much for this prompt, Julie!
I turned to my favorite (non-AI) online character generator which always gives such weird and quirky character summaries, they are practically comedy gold all on their own. I ended up with just shy of 2,000 words about a 500-year-old dude who gets booted from Alchemical University for possessing mind-altering potions, and has to earn a degree at a regular school to redeem himself. Super fun!