8 Comedy Principles Screenwriters Should Try

__Screenwriters study structure. They study character arcs and dialogue. They probably don't spend nearly as much time studying the mechanics of why things are funny and the structure of jokes... but we're going to fix that today.

Comedian and comedy coach Robert Mack joined David Perell's How I Write podcast to break down the mechanics of great jokes, drawing on Mitch Hedberg, Steven Wright, and Jerry Seinfeld as inspirations.

The principles behind a punchline and the principles behind a great scene have more overlap than you'd expect. Check out their discussion below.

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Comedy Is Reality from a Skewed Angle

This is Mack’s number-one rule. To tell a joke is to surprise, and surprise usually comes from perspective, not from information. Hedberg's two-sentence joke as the example (“I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too”) has zero setup, zero backstory, and is completely self-contained. It takes a hard left turn because of his point of view, and the result is a shock of humor as your brain puts the two things together.

If your comedy scenes need a lot of runway before the laugh lands, the angle probably isn't skewed enough. Learn from the best comedy movies.

Learn Incongruity

When two things that shouldn't coexist occupy the same space, the brain often resolves the dissonance with a laugh.

Steven Wright built a career on it, as Mack points out. Incongruity is what happens when there is a sudden, surprising, or absurd mismatch between what is expected in a situation and what actually occurs.

For screenwriters, this is a character tool. The funniest people in films are often incongruous by nature. Wrong place, wrong instincts, wrong era. A character might be put in a situation, and you expect them to do something or behave a certain way.

But the wonderful thing about people is that they’ll often surprise you, and do so hilariously.

Bait and Switch

This is more about joke set-up in Mack’s discussion. You’re priming the audience with a certain, familiar situation or premise. It might lead to automatic tension—maybe you’re talking about something that’s deathly serious. Start to take them down that path, but then turn around suddenly and surprise them.

Craig Ferguson loved this kind of joke when he was in late-night TV. It often followed a pattern of, "You've got A and B. One is (list of insulting characteristics that seem to describe A)... and the other one is A."

Think, “You've got a studio executive and a Magic 8-Ball. One of them gives you vague non-answers, has no real insight into the future, and everyone still makes major decisions based on what it says... and the other one is the Magic 8-Ball.” Yuck, yuck.

Screenwriting is not always as rigid as these types of patterns, but you can apply similar approaches. Leave clues in a scene that seem to suggest one thing, but then give the audience a twist to surprise them with a second thing. Build tension and exploit expectations.

Sometimes the audience will beat you there, and that’s okay, too. You’re still getting investment from the viewer. If your audience figures out the subtext or the turn one beat before the character says it out loud, they're locked in. That just means you don’t have to explain what’s funny, because the audience gets it.

To learn more, read about sketch comedy writing at SNL.

The 40-Year-Old Virgin Credit: Universal Pictures

Truth Is the Starting Point

The great Sid Caesar once said, “Comedy has to be based on truth. You take the truth, and you put a little curlicue at the end.”

So comedy is a kernel of truth that gets built on. The exaggeration only works because the truth underneath it is recognizable.

If your comedy character or situation isn't rooted in something real, the jokes will feel manufactured. This is why it’s so important that you know the motivations of your characters, and the audience can see them, too. Can we understand what they want and why? Can we root for them? Chances are, their underlying goal is going to be human and relatable, no matter the setting.

Start there, and then no matter how ridiculous their situation gets, we’ll be along for the ride.

Winning Isn't Funny

Charles Schulz said it first: “Winning is great, but it isn’t funny."

No one connects with a character who has everything figured out. Their story isn’t interesting. Both comedy and compelling drama live in the gap between wanting and getting. In other words, conflict! Give us conflict.

Carol Burnett is widely credited with originating the phrase, “Comedy is tragedy, plus time.” Much of comedy is inherently sad or pathetic in some way. Think of great recent comedies— The 40-Year-Old Virgin is about a guy who can’t find a woman. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is about a guy who can’t get over his ex. Bridget Jones’ Diary is about a woman in a slump.

There is so much opportunity for fun in sadness. The catharsis can feel very similar.

Word Choice Is Important

In prose, timing lives in sentence rhythm. On screen, it lives in editing and performance. But it starts on the page, specifically in the word you choose and where you put it. This will usually apply to dialogue.

They show a wedding speech example where the groom says, “We’re expecting… everyone to have a great time.” The context (being recently married) and the word choice (expecting) lead everyone to think he’s talking about a pregnancy. But he’s not, and his little pause and the word choice are what take people there.

Screenwriters who want sharp comedy need to be precise at the word level, not just the structural level. Your actors can only work with what's on the page, unless they’re comedy geniuses giving you a dozen alts.

Curb Your Enthusiasm Credit: HBO

Name the Universal Small Thing

This is what they call “The Seinfeld Technique,” but you could apply it to all of Larry David’s work, especially later in Curb Your Enthusiasm. Find a small, universal annoyance, give it a name, and exaggerate it.

And David’s character hates everything —wobbly tables, private bathrooms, people who are slow in buffet lines, people hogging cabinet space in a shared kitchen, you name it. It resonates because, yeah, all of those things are actually annoying. But then Larry makes situations ten million times worse every chance he can by confronting the annoyances. And that’s funny.

For screenwriters, this is a character-building exercise. The most specific, named quirks tend to be the most universal, and they're the ones audiences remember.

The Rule of Three

You know about this one already, probably. In writing, things tend to happen in threes. You have three acts, or a beginning, middle, and end.

In comedy, the first instance is the groundwork. The second gives the audience pause, a chance to recognize the pattern. The third instance is often so ridiculous that it earns the laugh. And the third breaks the mold of the first two.

Mack points out that this applies beyond comedy, so you’re not restricted in use. In screenwriting, it plays out in callbacks, escalating jokes, and scene structure.

Two setups and a subversion are a reliable machine.