How to write comedy scripts with laugh out loud dialogue.
Learning how to write comedy scripts that make readers laugh out loud is no easy task. But if you’re writing a comedy, your dialogue had better be damn funny. Not jokey. Not just a comment. Not just blue throwaway humor, but I’m-dying-from-laughter funny.
When wondering how to write comedy scripts with super funny dialogue, think of all the dialogue you’ve read in spec scripts with weak jokes or line deliveries.
Now multiply that by a thousand. Because that’s how many different execs, producers managers and studio readers were left nonplussed by the humor in all the comedy scripts they read last year.
The best way to avoid the above scenario is to make your characters truly witty.
When your characters say something witty and different to elicit a laugh, the reader will be impressed and think you’re a better writer than maybe you are. So take more time giving your characters a razor-sharp wit and it will pay off in dividends.
But the question is, how do you do this?
How to write comedy scripts with wit.
How do you make all the gags feel like they’ve been written by a professional comedy writer? How do you give the characters Woody Allen-esque one-liners?
One great way to give your characters fantastic lines is to not spend hours wracking your brains to come up with an amazing joke yourself but modify an existing joke. There are literally millions of jokes out there ready to be adapted to your comedy scripts.
Say you have a guy in your comedy screenplay who’s really immature. You could spend ages trying to come up with a funny joke about how he acts like a 14-year-old. Or, you could head online and run a search on “jokes about immature men.”
Within seconds you’ll find an abundance of gags ready to be adapted waiting for you. For example:
“Men are like government bonds… they take so long to mature.”
This can then be easily adapted to a one-liner said by one of your characters along the lines of:
“He needs to grow up. I’ve seen government bonds mature faster.”
You get the picture. This will immediately give your characters the comedic edge over most others out there in spec-script land.
The idea is to take the initial joke and adapt it or be inspired by it, not outright lift it from the internet into your comedy script.
But still… isn’t this stealing?
Some newbie writers love to complain “You can’t do that. It’s stealing!” But the fact is there are literally millions of jokes out there.
The chances that an exec or manager is going to recognize that a one-liner in your script has been adapted or inspired by one them is close to zero.
Obviously, in an ideal world, we’re all gifted with the ability to come up with completely original zingers off the tops of our heads. But most comedy writers (even professional ones) need a little help.
Take Woody Allen’s joke in Annie Hall about him wanting to do to his ex-girlfriend what the government had been doing to the country for years. This is an adaptation of an old Jack Benny joke.
But does anyone really care? Does anyone think Woody Allen’s not funny because he adapted an old joke? No. (Unless you’re one of those Woody Allen haters, of course.)
How to write comedy scripts which contain characters who aren’t witty.
But what about characters that are just generally “comedic” and not necessarily witty?
Take George Clooney’s character, Everett, in O Brother Where Art Thou? We would argue he has the funniest dialogue in the film. But it’s his sidekicks, Hogwallop and O’Donnell, who are arguably funnier.
The Coens achieved this by giving each of the characters a voice. They each have their own speaking style and very little of what they say comes across as “jokey.” This is because the humor comes from naturalistic (or humorously unnatural) voices, individualized within each character.
Great advice, we know: “Just write like the Coen brothers, stupid!” While we realize how difficult that is, our point remains: Give your characters a point of view and base any humor coming from them off of that point of view. This the basis of all great comedy writing.
You could also try fleshing out fully-formed characters using this screenplay character development method.
Your characters’ voices should then become clearer for you and, just like everyone you know has a different sense of comedic voice—for better and worse—so should your characters.
How to write dialogue in a comedy script: conclusion.
If you want to know how to write a comedy script with dialogue and characters that make studio readers, agents, and managers double up with laughter, here’s what you should do:
• If you have a “witty” character, make sure that their jokes are super funny by modifying and being inspired by existing jokes found online.
• If you have a “comedic” character, make sure that how they act rather than what they say makes them funny.
Do this and your comedy scripts will be head and shoulders over 99 percent of the specs out there and studio readers will be that much more likely to give it that RECOMMEND grade you’re looking for.
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How do you come up with jokes for your characters or make their personalities as funny as possible? What do you think of our methods to punch up your comedy scripts? Let us know in the comments section below.
Enjoyed this post? Read more on how to write good dialogue and comedy scripts…
On the Nose Dialogue Examples and How to Stop It Killing Your Script
How to Write a Screenplay That’s Unlike Any Other in 6 Steps
Script Dialogue: If Your Characters Are Just Talking You’re Doing It Wrong
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