4 Ways to Punch-up Your Comedy Script
Posted on: Oct 10, 2024

Teaching someone how to be funny is like teaching someone how to ride a bicycle—you can teach the proper techniques, but the person riding has to feel it out and do their best to not crash into a mailbox. That being said, adding humor to your writing is fantastic and, I would argue, the best way to keep your readers engaged and excited to read your material.
Let’s dive into some tips on how to make your writing more funny.
Write with Authenticity
To quote the great Mr. Rogers, “Anything that’s human is mentionable and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable.” When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting and less scary.” While Mr. Rogers was talking about being vulnerable and sharing our feelings, this quote applies to comedy as well.
Believe it or not, your audience wants you to be as raw, authentic and vulnerable as possible, and the number-one reason why is because they want to make sure they’re not the crazy one. They also want to know that we share a common human experience with them. To circle back to Mr. Rogers, if something happens to you, it’s human; therefore, your audience will empathize and laugh with you because they know it could happen to them.
When you write from this place, the funny will come, because, life in general is pretty damn hilarious. Your mundane, normal, everyday interactions can be a breeding ground for humor, irony, joy and incredible laughter. One way to test if something happened to you is funny, is by telling your friends and family the story. If they laugh—especially if a lot of them laugh—you know there’s something there. If you want a bigger testing ground, post the story on social media, either as something you say on camera, or by trying it out at a local open mic.
Make Observations
Along those lines of us having a common human experience, start noticing trends, patterns and strange, silly things that happen in your day-to-day environment. Take note of these observations and start sharing them with people, either verbally or through your writing. You’ll notice from the common chuckles and nods that the people you share this with have had the same experiences, and are glad you pointed this out.
These don’t have to be life-changing revelations. Sometimes the smaller the observation, the funnier it can be. Here are a few observations I’m working on developing as jokes:
- Why are the receipts at CVS longer than the Dead Sea Scrolls? Is this entirely necessary? I bought a seltzer, you’re handing me a novel.
- There’s nothing more thrilling than getting an email from a company I don’t care about telling me that they updated their terms and conditions. Thank God, I was really worried about those Pringles terms.
Juxtapose Opposite Things
A major part of writing comedy is crashing two completely opposite things together to bring out the funny. For example, I wrote an email inviting my friends to my birthday party on a boat, and to describe what it’s going to be like, I said, “Imagine Coachella meets Captain Phillips.” These two references are almost completely in diametric opposition. It would not be as funny if I wrote, “Picture Coachella meets Lollapalooza,” because they’re almost the same thing.
Argue the Impossible
A great and somewhat treacherous path to making your writing funnier is to argue for the impossible. If done well, this technique can lead to engaged, tremendously thought-provoking laughs. If done wrong, you might get canceled (hey, no pressure).
Arguing for the impossible means to pick a somewhat universally agreed-upon topic and argue for the opposite. Examples include, “Karens are awesome,” “The Make-A-Wish Foundation sucks” and “We need more DJs!” This technique works so well because the foundation of getting laughs is surprise, and nothing is more surprising than arguing against something we all mostly agree upon. Again, it can be like walking a tightrope, but if you pull it off, your audience will love and respect the degree of difficulty. If you don’t, there’s always teaching people how to ride a bike.
Brendan Fitzgibbons is a comedy writer and actor living in Los Angeles. He’s written for Comedy Central, The Onion, NBC, HuffPost and Bravo. As an actor, he’s appeared on Comedy Central, MTV and “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.” His podcast, “Spiritual As****e” was named a Top Indie Podcast by Stitcher.
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