Sean Cooper

Attitudes

A while ago I made a post about my creative process, which is mostly how I treasure-hunt for subjects and strangeness to talk about. I didn’t get much into the mechanical nitty-gritty of how to write jokes, mostly because that side of things isn’t as interesting to me; also, there’s already plenty of information about it out there.

I’ve recieved a couple of “but how do you actually write jokes?” requests since then, so I should probably mention something about it (even if it’s just telling people where to look).

I read all the books about doing comedy that I can get my hands on (because I’m a geek), and most of them say exactly the same stuff. It would be redundant to spell out the basic formula to develop setup-punch jokes – the formula is in the name.

The challenge isn’t finding a joke-writing formula. If you’re interested in the A-B-C’s of joke writing there’s thousands of sites and YouTube videos about it and they mostly all say the same thing. The challenge is writing jokes that don’t look like they’re mass-produced from a simple recipe.

Something I do find useful is the “four attitudes” approach. It’s in The Comedy Bible by Judy Carter, but I’ve seen it around a lot so I’m not sure whether it’s actually her idea… Probably not, because it seems to used by approximately 100% of all comedians, ever.

The idea is that all premises are a situation combined with an attitude, and there’s four attitudes for Comedy: Hard, Weird, Scary and Stupid. They’re like the natural elements: You can pretty much take any topic and align it to one of those four attitudes to write a bit.

Take Dating, for instance. You can say “Dating is hard…” and explore why that’s true to come up with your material. Or you can just as easily do “Dating is weird. Dating is weird because…” and follow that line of thinking. And it works just as well with “Dating is scary” or “Dating is stupid…”

You can apply any topic to one of these four attitudes; travel, being broke, job interviews, rap music, politics, KFC, pets, families, celebrity chefs, war, the gym, hospital, relationships, Facebook, babies, Nazis, driving, religion, Centrelink, sharks, getting old, supermarkets, ghosts, public transport, diets, reality TV, sport, vacuum cleaners, whatever. The important thing is to keep the attitude consistent for the whole bit.

If you start with “Job interviews are scary…” or “Rap music is weird…” and explore that line of thought (your next line is “because..” and off you go), you can pretty easily create a bit that can be punched up with just a little hyperbole, juxtaposition, analogy, act-outs or even puns (if you absolutely have to). The format might not actually write all your jokes for you but it does makes it easy to put something solid together… much easier than people might suggest.

At this point you might be thinking “That sounds pretty easy but won’t people notice a formula that simple? Do comedians really do anything that basic?” and I’d say “No. Yes. You ask a lot of questions.”

Actually I’d recommend you go check out some stand up comedy specials, even your favourites and ones you know really well, and keep an eye out for this technique. I think you’ll see that most comedians are doing it most of the time and it’s such a part of the comedy landscape you don’t even see the structure of it like you do with one-liners. You’ll be amazed at just how prevalent the Hard, Weird, Scary, Stupid framework is.

Being an apprentice myself I’m passing it on this item because it isn’t mine, and some of my friends are looking for this info.

If you are looking for some stand up specials that are free on YouTube, I’ll offer these gems for your enjoyment:

Until next time!