Today's exercise is courtesy of Basil White, a comedy coach, standup comic and joke writer who lives in Washington, D.C.
This is a favorite technique of mine to use when I'm coaching or brainstorming comedy. We also use it in my comedy workshop. Choose something that's weird, stupid, hard and scary. There. You've thought of it already, before you started thinking "oh, no, can't use that, it's
one or two of them, but it's not all four." Yes. That one, Write it down. Well done. Now write what's weird about it. This is your weird line. Write what's stupid about it. This is your stupid line. Write what's hard about it. This is your hard line. Write what's scary about it. This is your scary line.
Now for Level Two, where the dollar values are double. Write four separate lines about your weird line, one line each for what's weird, stupid, hard and scary about your weird line. Then do this for your original stupid, hard and scary lines. Now you have twenty lines about what's weird, stupid, hard and scary about your topic. That's six more than you need for a sonnet. The magic happens at Level Three. Take your favorite line from Level Two and make another set of weird, stupid, hard and scary lines for it. Comedy erupts at this level because at this point, you're explaining the humorous nature of your humorous explanations, which puts us in the mindset of being funny in a way that keeps the writer's editorial voice out of the way of getting something on the page.
Moon.
Weird: The moon just kinda hangs there, sometimes glowing, sometimes knowing but never showing how or why it got there.
Stupid: It's just a hunk of rock that reflects the sun's light at night so we have some semblance of light. That and it doesn't have a brain.
Hard: The moon is a rock.
Scary: The moon only comes out at night. It seems to peer into the soul, a hanging eye in a raven sky, watching and waiting...
Perhaps the moon was a sentient being and what's left is the carcass of a once-forgotten god. The craters left in Moon's face are pimple scars, reflecting the emotional trauma the other planets put it through for being a stupid rock. Moon possessed similar, and at times superior, physical toughness to it's rival planets. The pimples only caused the other planets to fear a disease or genetic imperfection had run amok through the galaxy and emotional torment over the next four billion years left the Moon scarred in places even the acne couldn't reach. The only saving grace for Moon was Earth. Earth eventually adapted to Moon's constant groaning and comforted Moon whenever possible. Unfortunately Moon was too stupid to understand that Earth was only trying to find some peace and quiet during Moon's sleep-deprived fits.
