how-to

comedy writing / how-to / storytelling — No Comments
22
Dec 09

Third Thought Is Best Thought

This is what fancy pants comedy writers talk about in the writers rooms of famous shows: First Thought, Second Thought, Third Thought.

First thought is what everyone thinks of. It’s the joke that 20 people post on Twitter or Facebook. It’s “any relation? Ha ha” when they hear your name is Bush. It’s the first joke that springs to mind — what a lot of people might think is funny. Problem is, comedy relies on surprise. Once you’ve spent any time laughing at jokes, first thought jokes are no longer funny. Because they’re not surprising. They pop into everyone’s heads immediately because we’ve all heard them before. The first thought joke for the picture above would be — “I said medium rare.”

Second thought is what only a few people think of. You take the first thought and build on it — make it more outrageous, more extreme, more prosaic, more defined. Or go in a new direction. If first thought was kind of hacky (meaning obvious, direct, familiar, easy), change course for second thought and take a new angle on the subject. Go literary, go personal, go dirty, go big instead of small (or vice versa), go against the grain of the subject. Second thought is what only a few people think of, because they’re creative and original enough to see things abstracted at that next level. Second thought joke for the picture above would be — “It comes with its own special sauce.”

Third thought is what only you think of. Third thought is what happens when you take second thought and build on it even further, creating a whole new animal. Or you blow past first and second thought altogether and find a completely original, fresh take on the subject that only you, with your unique set of experiences and emotional make-up, could have seen. There’s a reason why so few people make it to third thought: it’s difficult to discipline yourself to always search for the fresher take, to hold out for the joke that only you could have thought of. And you’re not going to make it on every joke. But trying for third thought every time is what will shift your comedy writing to the next level. Third thought joke for the picture above would be — “Aunt Dot’s gonna put her money where her mouth is.”

For most good comics, third thought is automatic. They immediately see and discard all the first thought jokes, they may consider a few second thought jokes, then they land on the third thought joke that’s really them. That’s how they become known for having a unique voice — because everything they say is something just they would say.

Storytelling is comedy writing that isn’t necessarily trying to be funny. Using the tricks of comedy writing — like first thought, second thought, third thought — will sharpen your stories.

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advice / how-to / marketing — No Comments
15
Dec 09

How To Create A Global Phenomenon Like Tim Ferriss

I went to college with Tim Ferriss, author of “The 4-Hour Workweek” which has been on the New York Times Business Bestseller list for two and a half years straight. He’s very smart and very practical.

In this video he explains how to create a global phenomenon for less than $10,000. If you make stuff you want other people to find, you must see this.

Get more real-world advice about marketing and how to be Jason Bourne at Tim’s blog.
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advice / how-to — 3 Comments
6
Dec 09

How To Solve All Your Problems, Fast

Be honest.

It’s that simple. Be honest, all the time. With yourself and with others. Your problems will go away.

We lie because we feel the truth is unacceptable. Whenever you lie, you diminish yourself. You send yourself a signal that you matter less than the feelings of the person you’re lying to. You help neither of you. You create problems.

There are many ways to lie. Every time you tell yourself you have to do something you don’t really want to do, that’s a lie. If you work at a job you hate, that’s a lie. If you’re with a person you don’t love — or if you feel you can’t tell him or her anything about you — that’s a lie. You betray yourself — by acting like you like someone you don’t like, pretending you don’t feel violated when you do, saying you don’t want something that you do, keeping your mouth shut when you have something to say — and when you betray yourself, you chip away at your integrity, your boundaries, your wholeness as a person.

Don’t tell any lies. Start small: don’t tell any lies for an hour. Hold yourself to it, and see how freeing it is. Because all the decisions have been made for you. You don’t have to apologize or feel guilty or feel sorry — you made a pledge to yourself. You’re being honest now. Then do it for an entire day. Then take it from there. What you’ll find is everything else falls into place — because you’re no longer conducting your life as a negotiation of other people’s needs and feelings and opinions but instead as an expression of your own.

Tell the truth in your writing, and your writing problems fall away. Cliche, lagging, dullness, explaining, vagueness, awkwardness, predictability, wandering, flatness, imprecision, thinness, weakness, laxity, jerkiness, wordiness, passivity, exposition, choppiness, boring, talkiness, slowness, undefined, static, tired — these are problems of not telling the truth. The minute you force truth front and center into every moment of your story — every moment of your life — your writing leaps off the page. You don’t have to worry about all that other stuff.

Don’t tell the truth, and it shows up on the page and in your life. Fix it in one area, and you fix it in all areas. Don’t settle for any less than you deserve — full honesty, full integrity, vital boundaries, pages that live.

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T.V. writing / comedy writing / drama / dramatic irony / future / how-to / jokes / screenwriting — No Comments
17
Nov 09

Your Story Boils Down To One Joke

Your story is one joke. Even if it lasts 10 seasons. It’s one joke. At least — it should be if your Prius is running on all fuel cells. Whether you’re writing comedy or drama, your entire premise boils down to “. . . but the joke’s on them.” Where “them” = your main characters.

The joke isn’t necessarily funny. But it has that thing that all jokes share: surprise. We start in one world, and we wind up in another, with the old world blown up in our face. That’s what a joke is. When it’s short and tight and sharp, it’s funny. When it depends on context and character, it’s dramatic irony.

Dramatic irony is what happens when we know more than the characters do — because we know them better than they know themselves. Because we perceive something in the situation they don’t. Because we’ve picked up clues they’ve missed. So the joke is on them: they strive, struggle, blithely unaware of what’s about to happen. And we enjoy it. Because when we know more than they do, tension builds as we watch them struggle to find out what we know — because the joke’s on them. And we win. We’re in the superior position.

Dramatic irony happens when a character doesn’t know he’s in a joke, and he’s surprised by the punchline.

Dramatic irony is the joke your character finds least funny right now. Because we want them to suffer. Because that’s what we find funny — or alarming — or affecting — or profound.

Your character may run into variations of the same joke over and over, or she may live out the consequences of the joke slowly over the course of the story. The joke must be clear, and your entire story must boil down to this one joke. To test this, see if you can answer “how is the joke on them?” about your story. Here are some examples:

People survive a plane crash only to fight for their lives against mysterious Others who force them to confront their past lives. (LOST) (joke’s on them.)

A boss loves his office like family but taints everything in it with his incompetence. (THE OFFICE) (joke’s on him — and the other people in his office.)

Humans create a race of machines who now want to destroy them. (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) (joke’s on them.)

These are TV examples, but it works for all stories.

Distill your story to its essential joke — ask how is this situation a joke on them? — and then repeat that same joke on a larger and larger scale, with greater consequences, until you reach your conclusion or 100th episode. Here’s my post on how to tell a joke.

Telling jokes keeps you tight and light on your feet. And it’s fun. Try it.

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T.V. writing / dialogue / drama / how-to — 2 Comments
1
Nov 09

You Always Talk About Yourself. (How To “Mad Men” Your Series)

You always talk about yourself. That’s what your boyfriend/therapist/mime teacher always says.

And it’s true: everything you say is about you.

“You’re so selfish.” [Translation: I'm so selfish. I hate that quality in myself, but I also love myself. I'm selfish. Loving selfish you is another way to love myself.]

“You should be more careful about the impression you make.” [Translation: I should be more careful about the impression I make. When your choices lie outside my comfort zone, I react with alarm, as if your choices reflect me.]

“You’re young. You can do anything you want.” [Translation: I think I can no longer do anything I want. I feel badly about that, and I think I'm doing you a favor by planting the root of that chain in you.]

“You’re beautiful and free.” [Translation: I'm beautiful and free.]

Write dialogue that reflects the person who speaks. Take “Mad Men” for example. Nuanced and layered, the show’s characters speak to each other as if they were mirrors in which they see themselves.

“Who are you?” says Don when the spark of a new life arouses him — Joy in Palm Springs and Miss Farrell near the beginning of their affair. Who is this exciting, fresh, new life? Can I inhabit it? Who am I? Whoever she claims to be might be who I am, because now I’m with her.

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” says Don to underlings. Whoever they think they’re talking to must be who I am.

When Betty uncovers his web of lies, she asks him “What would you do, if you were me? Would you love you?” This single line sums up the entire series. Every character goes around wondering, asking, finding out what they would do if they were another person — and whether they could love themselves if they were. That’s what advertising is — asking the consumer “What would you do, if you were this other kind of person? Would you (finally) love you (then)?. Every question Don asks is a variation of ‘Would you love you (if you were me)?’ — when he asks ‘who are you?’ — ‘who do you think you’re talking to?’ — he’s always asking ‘would you love you?’

When Betty asks it, she asks it of herself. ‘What would I do, if I were you? Would I love me?’ Because she is Don — when she accuses him of changing his name, he says “People change their names. You did.” Every interaction is a mirror.

How do you “Mad Men” your series? Look for the parallels. The symmetry. If a character does something once, make him do it again, in another form, to himself or another character. Make every interaction a chance for each character to see himself in another — or walk away blind to the reflection in the pool. Write every line of dialogue as a container, a frame, in which to display their image of themselves — what they see when they look in the mirror. Because that’s all we ever do when we see other people: we see ourselves.

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advice / how-to / writing — 7 Comments
19
Oct 09

How To Be Profound: Top Ten Tips

So your neighbor is all “why won’t you stop calling cheese stores and telling them you’re throwing a benefit for the homeless they have to donate to” and you’re all “I jack fancy cheese stores out of cheese because it’s profound.” Because everything I do is profound. Because I’m doing it, it’s profound, and the fact I’m doing it means something. Tricking fancy cheese stores into donating me cheese is a mirror standing before my life, showing me what I am.

My superhero power is a curse: I see meaning in everything around me.

A life is a novel in practice: meaning and symbols and structure and symmetry lie everywhere you look, waiting to be exposed. Being profound means that even when your life centers around tricking fancy cheese stores into donating you free cheese, you see meaning.

So here they are, MY TOP TEN TIPS for how to be profound:

  1. Go Beneath The Surface. First, show us what’s on the surface. What’s on the surface is a symptom of what’s beneath the surface. Profundity is like acne: it erupts all over your face as an expression of your body’s secrets. So once you’ve established what’s on the surface, you’ve got a basis to ….
  2. Drill Down. Reject face values. Whatever you see on the surface of your world — your parking ticket, the pollution in the bay that bars you from surfing, the garbage juice you just poured all over your apartment — exist as indicators to show us what’s really going on. Parking tickets are society’s notices that we shouldn’t linger here, this isn’t our place. We can’t surf because we live in our own filth, waiting for the rain to wash it all away into the toilet that is our bay. Garbage juice … eh, see Reason #2. Why the fuck doesn’t it rain inside?
  3. Get Open. If you are closed, it’s going to be a hell of a lot more difficult to see how things relate to one another. Because you’re too busy guarding the fortress, making sure none of them relate to you. But once you make efforts to open up, you can …
  4. Connect. See the connections between one thing and another. How does one thing resemble another? What’s bothering you? What makes you angry? What does it remind you of? Anger is a flag that something is important. What makes us angry often reflects in our own life.
  5. Get Free. Some people fear connections — between ideas, between things, between themselves and others — because they’re afraid of being tied down, afraid of tying this Buzz Ballads II 2-CD disc compilation to the time you drove around all night in Atlanta listening to that song about rubbing lotion on someone, wondering if some boy was home and if not what he was doing and why he wasn’t home and with whom wasn’t he home, to the times you used to sit out on the curb as a child waiting for your father to get you and wondering the same thing. They’re afraid of tying these things together because of the fear there’s no end, no bottom, and because of the fear that once locked into one series of connections, that’s it. You’re done. You’re never done. Once you choose freedom, you’re always free, and all the things and people in your life can say and do whatever they want, and you’re still free. You’re never tied down to one story.
  6. Understand. How do you interpret what you see around you? It doesn’t matter whether it’s right or wrong. It’s true and it matters because you say so. Your understanding is a precious gift you share with the rest of us. And you share it by how you show one character looking at another, how you focus on a specific object on a table. That look and that object help us see your understanding through your connections, and they help us form our own.
  7. Get Bigger. Some people live a small life and tell small stories. Others choose to be profound. A life isn’t small because of a person’s profession or status or friends or attractiveness: a life is small because a person chooses not to grow. Every time we’re faced with an obstacle we make a choice: we shrink or we get bigger. Profundity gets bigger, and circles in other people under its wing, and takes the long view, and the deep view, and the transparent view.
  8. Get Inclusive. The most shallow people and ideas are the most exclusive. Anything that excludes — people, ideas, interpretations, experiences — clings to the surface, fights any effort to discover the meaning therein. Because that meaning is dark. Being profound means going deep, going broad, getting significant, including everything and everyone. I’m looking at you Hollywood.
  9. Get Pervasive. Profundity understands the way you do anything is the way you do everything, and the way the world does anything is the way the world does everything. Everything is the same all the time, and nothing really changes though things appear to change all the time. What looks to us like change are things happening on different scales or in different forms, and it’s our job as storytellers to reveal how these things have not changed but are in fact the same. Profundity is intense, thorough and complete.
  10. Find Origins. The roots of our current world originate in the past. To change the future, we change the present. Profundity honors the link between today’s garbage juice and the garbage juice of every waitress job you’ve ever held, and the garbage juice of the world, today’s parking ticket and tomorrow’s medical lab results and the mountain of social paperwork that documents and drives us through our roles in life, as determined as we are to resist.

Okay! Now it’s time to get out there and be profound.

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