DAY 126: Make any dialogue you’ve written sound more natural.

I feel that my dialogue tends to be natural.  My issue is that I need more comedy techniques and formulas in my writing.  I don’t want to be OK or even good at comedy writing, but GREAT.  So as I continue to embark in educating myself and growing as a writer, I feel that this task today is redundant in essence, so I will challenge myself today to add more comic structure into my screenwriting.  I already marked another daily task to do one small piece of writing using some of the comedy formulas I’ve been reading about.

The chapter in this comedy writing book I am reading is having me complete some “Simple Truth” exercises.  Simple truths are formed by taking the literal meaning of a key word and using it to surprise the audience, who’s automatically interpreting the expression with its traditional reference.  An example is if someone says “call me a taxi,” the person responds with “okay, you’re a taxi.”  The exercise is to complete the cliche with my very own simple truth tag (or payoff line). I will attempt my own, then follow up the bottom with the one the book provided.

1. Every 12.5 seconds, some woman in the US is giving birth. And every 12.5 seconds, some woman in Afghanistan is creating death.

2. Boy: Are you free tonight? Girl: Depends on what you were looking to do.

3. My girlfriend was faithful to the end. Then we got on the highway and she started having phone sex with her other boyfriend.

4. We never serve women at the bar. We only let you eat sushi off their naked bodies.

5. Why was George Washington buried at Mount Vernon? Because the Illuminati were playing poker.

6. Cleanliness is next to godliness. If you pass Home Depot, you went too far.

7. Judge: The court awards your wife $200 a week for support. The rapper’s posse awarded her $200 a week for blowjobs.

Here are the sample pay-off lines the book provided:

1. Every 12.5 seconds, some woman in the US is giving birth. We’ve got to find that woman and stop her.

2. Boy: Are you free tonight? Girl: Of course, did I ever charge you?

3. My girlfriend was faithful to the end. Unfortunately I was the quarterback.

4. We never serve women at the bar. You’ll have to bring your own.

5. Why was George Washington buried at Mount Vernon? Because he was dead!

6. Cleanliness is next to godliness. No, in the dictionary, go-getter is next to godliness.

7. Judge: The court awards your wife $200 a week for support. Defendant: Gee, that’s very nice of you judge. I think I’ll throw in a few bucks myself.

DAY 42: Pick a bit. Try to write a topper for them—not tags, but full-blown jokes that improve the bit by being there.

A topper is a joke that comes after a joke.  The topper tends to be funnier than the previous joke.  These 2 bits than link together to help improve your overall set.

Original Joke:

RELEASE PARTIES: Saw the Playstation 3 price went down.  Still cant afford it. I mean I gotta cash in grandma’s bonds and refi just to be able to make the down payment on this fukin thing.  Meanwhile some untalented 16 year old pop shithead is singing about puppies and hula hoops walking around with diamond shoelaces that cost more than my old man made at GM working for over 30 years, is getting these Playstations two @ a time at some asanine release party…and why do we have release parties…DVD release parties, CD release parties…some people in Canada are still having VHS release parties…soon they’re gonna be like “Hey! Lets have a release party, Swingline’s gotta new stapler comin out…My Indian neighbor just invited me over to his release party of the new curry spice that’s gonna stink up my apt. hallway… And in case any of u ladies are interested, I brought some KY Jelly so u can meet me in the stall and we can go have our own little release party.

Topper:

TENTING LIKE A MORON: It’s terrible how much these gaming systems cost.  I mean some some people are sitting outside for days waiting for the next best thing.  These fuckin morons are out there in tents on a Wednesday and the system doesn’t even go on sale till Friday. The best is that half these idiots are waiting for absolutely nothing! You got 100 people in tents with only 30 Wii’s available for sale. No food or water for the majority of them. They gotta have idiots making Taco Bell runs cause they lost in rock paper scissors. You better hope somebody in line is Red Bulled up and stayin awake, so you assholes don’t get killed.  Cause in some of those random Texas towns people are getting killed by either other assholes in line or by the hillbillies who live near the damn Best Buy.   I can see the hillbillies now. They come running outta the mountains and while everyone’s all zonked out at 4 AM, they start gnawing on your hairline.  The dad’s looking at his inbred son (imitate hillbilly) “you better eat that arm there boy, cause those city folks ain’t waking up.  Yes father.”  Next thing you know you’re waking up and BA-LOW!  You get a shotgun to the face.  Then we’re all reading about 17 people dead and eaten at a Best Buy and cops got no traces.  But good news!  There’s plenty of Wii’s available!