Is This Channel for You?

Do you do stand-up and want to do better?

Do you write humorous stories and want to tighten them up?

Are you working on a novel and want to pull that Shakespearean trick—making someone laugh for a moment only to plunge them back into tragedy?

Do you have a screenplay that needs punching up?

Are you working on a horror novel and want readers to relax for a moment before you scare them to death?

Do you write songs that poke fun at the human condition?

Are you a cartoonist looking to sharpen your characters and their dialogue?

Well then, welcome to Decoding Comedy. I can’t promise that everything here will help you every single time with every project you tackle. But I can promise to give it my best shot. As you’ll see, I’m searching for common principles and techniques that work across genres and vastly different art forms.

Please feel free to disagree—or to point me toward new artists whose efforts deserve celebration and a spotlight. Anyone bold enough to attempt making others laugh deserves our support and appreciation. It’s not easy. Time and again, humor and comedy are noted as the single most difficult aspects of the writing craft. We’ll explore why that is, but we all know that opinions and tastes vary widely. You’ll see early on that my comedic bent leans toward the family-friendly, self-effacing, and generally gentle forms.

For the most part, I’m not a huge fan of takedown humor, snarky jabs, cruelty, or generally mean-spirited and foul-mouthed material. Sure, it can be done in ways that please large audiences and make the practitioners tons of money—no denying that.

But the only time you’ll see me saluting anything in the vein of attack is when it’s directed at powerful and cruel people who are beating down those who are vulnerable and weak. I believe in the kind of humor and writing practiced by American journalist Finley Peter Dunne: “to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.”

So, why study comedy?

To learn how to bring more joy and laughter into this sorry world we share. I think that’s an honorable and important pursuit—worthy of our time and passion.

But it isn’t easy.

Comedy is wide-ranging and includes authors, artists, and material that will delight some while offending others. If you follow me and my explorations, you’ll probably find that you disagree at times—perhaps often, and in some cases, more often than not.

That’s OK. You’re free to express your disagreement in the comments, as long as you keep it civil.

I’ll be pulling material from a variety of sources and bouncing around among artists and genres.

To what end? All the better to gain insights and improve my own work through a broader understanding of technique.

So let’s get to it.