Bonus free comedy script idea at the bottom of today’s post if you couldn’t come up with one – Inspired by Kylie Jenner!

Remember, the deadline for Comedy Showdown is… June 17th! (find out how to submit here)

Now, if you’re a well-behaved screenwriter, you did all your homework this week. You wrote down your character bios AND you sketched out your outline. But hey, if you’re one of these ‘fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants’ screenwriters and you didn’t do any of that because you plan on winging it? I’m not going to discriminate. There’s something “in the moment” about comedy that rewards improvisation.

However, starting now, I’m going to hold you to it. Cause we’ve got one week to write our first act. Only one week to write an entire act, Carson?? Are you crazy!? I am crazy, yes. But this isn’t as difficult as it sounds. The perfect comedy script length is 100 pages. That means we can divide our script down into four literal quarters at 25 pages a piece. Your first act, then, is going to be 25 pages. This means that you’ll be writing about 3.5 pages per day.

This also means you’ll be writing roughly two scenes per day (if that makes it any easier). I don’t care if you’re the slowest writer in the world. Two scenes a day is not difficult. You’re not writing a novel where you’re filling up the entire page with text. This is a screenplay. There’s 80% more white background than this is black text. So, come on. Don’t be a baby. You’ve got this.

Now, before we get started, it’s important for me to remind you of the number one killer of written pages: SELF-JUDGEMENT. Think about it. If you never listened to Critical Voice when you were writing, you’d be able to write 50 pages a day. It’s only Critical Voice that stops you. Tells you this isn’t a good enough idea for a scene. This is a dumb character. Brenda would never say that. This scene doesn’t even make sense. This dialogue is awful.

We’re going to re-invite Critical Voice back to the party for the rewrite. But, for your first draft, I need you to send him away. It’s better to accept that there’s going to be a lot of bad writing in this draft and you’re fine with that than it is to let the Critical Voice take over and stop you from finishing your script. So pack up his bags and tell Critical Voice he has to find somewhere else to stay for the next five weeks. Tell him to call Late Night Pizza Order Voice and stay with him. God knows I don’t need that guy around.

Okay, so, we’re trying to meet some key beats in the first act.

1) TEASER – You have to decide if you want a teaser or not. A teaser is basically a scene that is more about hooking the reader than it is establishing a narrative. Teasers are best known for appearing in horror movies. But they can be used in any genre and tend to give the reader a scene that establishes what the feel of the movie will be. For example, a horror film will start off with a scary teaser. An action film will start with an action teaser. And a comedy will start with a funny teaser. A teaser in a comedy probably shouldn’t be more than four pages.

2) CHARACTER SETUP – If you don’t want to do a teaser, you can start straight with character setup. You might say, “Well, Carson, why can’t you just start your comedy with a character setup scene that’s just as funny as if you went with a teaser?” In an ideal world, that’s what you’d do. But what I’ve found is that comedies will often revolve around a grounded hero. And it’s hard to start right off the bat with some crazy scenario that your grounded hero has been thrown into. It’s easier to control the scene and the setting in a way that best sets up the character for the audience. For example, in Meet The Parents, we meet Greg at his nursing job tending to a patient. It’s a mildly funny scene as Greg has to do some uncomfortable stuff to the patient. But it’s more about setting Greg up as this dainty non-masculine presence who won’t be tough enough for his fiance’s big tough father. It’s far from some gut-busting hilarious teaser.

3) THE CHARACTER’S LIFE – After you’ve given us a scene or two to set up your hero, you want to set up other key characters in your story. Sometimes, for example, you’ll be writing American Pie, which follows four different protagonists. So you’ll need this time to set them up too. Once you do that, you want to set up your character’s everyday life. We have to see the normal for the abnormal to have the intended comedic effect. We have to see the hustling bustling 10,000 family member getting-ready mornings in Home Alone for the Kevin being left home all alone in that big house to have the proper effect.

4) SETTING UP THE PLOT – You are also going to be taking this time to set up the plot of your movie. This is the exposition stuff that the reader needs to know in order for the plot to work. This is when you’ll be establishing that there’s a wedding (in The Hangover) and that the guys are going to Vegas for a bachelor party. This shouldn’t be a separate scene from the character setup and character life sequences. It should be woven in with them.

4) INCITING INCIDENT – This is the moment in your story where a major problem will be presented to your hero. This problem is the whole concept of your movie. It’s one of the easiest scenes to write because it’s the whole reason you wanted to write the script in the first place. This is the moment where Kristin Wiig becomes aware that her best friend who’s getting married has a new best friend who will be getting in the way of all her bridesmaids duties. There’s a lot of debate about when the inciting incident should happen. The truth is, it’s different for each movie. Sometimes the inciting incident happens in the very first scene. Sometimes it’s ALREADY HAPPENED, such as in the case of Zombieland, where the zombie problem began before the movie started. In The Hangover, it’s when Doug, the groom, goes missing, which I think doesn’t happen until 25 minutes into the movie, if my memory serves me correctly? So feel this out. But, if you want to go by the book, it usually happens between pages 12-15.

5) THE RESISTANCE – This moment is often referred to as “The Refusal of the Call” and it basically refers to your hero not wanting to deal with the problem. People don’t like change. They don’t like their life upended. So it’s only natural that when some big problem drops into their lap, they resist. And the great thing about comedies is that this section can be really funny. Because it’s funny when somebody is scared to do something or resists something. So have fun with this part, which usually lasts 2-3 scenes.

6) ACCEPTANCE – After resisting all they can, your hero realizes that he has no choice but to go off on the journey. Or maybe he doesn’t realize that and he’s pulled into the journey kicking and screaming, like some of the characters in Jumanji. It’s a comedy so you can fun with this. This scene or group of scenes will be the last sequence in the first act. By the way, when I say “journey,” I don’t always mean literally. There is a literal journey in the hilarious movie, Eurotrip, because the characters, you guessed it, go on a journey through Europe. But sometimes ‘journey’ is symbolic. It could be Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell trying to co-exist for the sake of the family in the movie, Daddy’s Home.

Now, don’t worry if your comedy doesn’t fit into this formula. The main beats you want to take care of are setting up your characters and setting up the plot. And then just try to be funny along the way. It’s a comedy so you’re always trying to create scenarios that give you the best opportunity for laughter. And that usually comes from constructing scenes that place your characters in conflict or, at the very least, make them uncomfortable.

In the new movie, “Yes Day,” on Netflix, the writers are tasked with setting up a mother who’s very strict. So they come up with a scene where there’s a parent-teacher conference and the teacher plays a video presentation that the mother’s son made in class, and it’s a video that juxtaposes his mom against a number of famous dictators throughout time. That’s a funnier scene than just having a mom yell at her kid. That’s all you’re trying to do as a comedy writer is be creative and search out the scenes that create the most opportunities for laughs.

25 pages by next Monday.

YOU CAN DO IT!

BONUS COMEDY IDEA FOR ANYBODY WHO WANTS TO USE IT – If you don’t have a comedy idea, here’s one for you, inspired by the recent events with Kylie Jenner setting up a GoFundMe page to pay for surgery for her friend. The surgery costs 60,000 dollars. Kylie Jenner is worth a billion dollars. Yet she sets up a GoFundMe page. Anyway, here’s the idea. It’s titled “GO FUND ME” and it follows a guy who attempts to set up a GoFundMe page for his life, so he doesn’t have to do anything. Have at it!

The “Frank and Beans” scene in There’s Something About Mary is in the argument for funniest movie scene of all time.

And since we’re trying to write a great comedy script of our own, it’s imperative that you study scenes like this.

Let’s start with the basics of comedy. Every good joke needs a setup and a punchline. The way it usually works is that the shorter the amount of time there is between the setup and the punchline, the less funny the joke is. Or, maybe I should say, the less *impactful* the joke is.

The reason for this is obvious. You have less invested in the punchline. Imagine the best knock-knock joke in the world. The most you’ll get out of it is a big laugh. You will never get a long extended laugh out of a knock-knock joke.

That doesn’t mean quick setups and punchlines don’t have their place in comedy. Of course they do. In fact, while you’re setting up your big comedy scenes and set-pieces, you should be using short and medium length setups and punchlines along the way.

With There’s Something About Mary, a big reason the Frank and Beans scene is so funny is that the Farrelly Brothers spent the previous fifteen pages setting the punchline up. Fifteen pages is a lot of screenplay time. It’s one-eighth of your entire movie. So if all you’re doing is setting this scene up in that time, it *better* be a funny scene.

What does set up look like? As I’ve stated here before, “setting up” comedy is about BUILDING UP THE STAKES. Making the stakes as high as you can make them. The higher the stakes are during the scene, the more we’re going to laugh, because it’s important to us that the character succeeds.

Once your stakes are in place, your goal should be to destroy your character. Throw him in the worst situation imaginable. Make it look like it’s impossible for him to succeed. And then keep bombarding him with obstacle after obstacle.

Comedy, probably more than any other genre, requires you to be awful to your main character. Humor comes from struggle. So of course you want to make things bad for your hero. That’s the way to make them struggle. If you’re nice, there’s nothing for them to overcome, and, therefore, less opportunity for funnies.

What’s been Ted’s focus in the first fifteen minutes of the movie? He’s fallen head over heels for this girl from school, Mary. Your first love is a big deal. But the Farrelly Brothers know that the more of a fluke Mary liking Ted is, the higher the stakes will be. Getting a cute girl to go to prom with you is one thing. Getting the most beautiful girl in the world, the kind of girl Ted will never ever have a chance with again ups the stakes dramatically. So the Farrelly Brothers come up with this clever idea that Ted helps out Mary’s mentally disabled brother, which is the main reason she falls for him.

Let me be clear. This scene isn’t one-tenth as funny if Mary is just some cute girl Ted is going to prom with. By shaping all the variables to make this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Ted, it sets us up for the scene we’re about to watch, where Ted goes into the bathroom, and then, when he zips his pants up, accidentally catches his special parts in the zipper.

The combination of high stakes and “what’s the worst thing you can do to your character right now” are what ignite the series of laughs that follows. What’s the worst thing that can happen? He can’t unzip himself. What’s the next worst? The family learns what’s happened and comes to the door.

Now here’s the thing with a comedy set piece, like this one, which you’ve spent the last fifteen pages setting up. You can KEEP THROWING THINGS AT YOUR CHARACTER to your heart’s desire. You can’t do this scene with a short setup. There’s not enough meat on the joke to keep milking it. But when you’ve set things up as much as the Farrelly Brothers have here, you can KEEP THROWING INCREASINGLY DIFFICULT OBSTACLES at your hero.

So first the dad comes in. Okay, that’s not what Ted wants but at least it’s a guy. But then the mom comes in. Oh god, his prom date’s mom is seeing him in the most vulnerable state he’s ever been in. The Farrelly Brothers smartly realize that, while new people coming in is funny, you have to find jokes in other places as well. So they add this whole segment where the parents aren’t even sure what they’re looking at and need some explanation. After they’re unable to convey to Ted what their question is, the dad makes the analogy, “Are we looking at the frank or the beans?” This then sets off the special needs brother, outside, who starts yelling, “Frank and Beans!” repeatedly.

We’re using a very simple comedy tool here. ESCALATION. We’re making things WORSE and WORSE for your hero. Every time we think it can’t get worse, it does. Now the policeman shows up in the window. Now the fireman shows up. Again, this doesn’t work with just any setup. It only works because we’ve spent 15 minutes setting up this scene.

Another brilliant thing that the Farrelly Brothers do is they don’t show us what’s happened at first. They, instead, show us EVERYBODY’S REACTION to it. Reaction comedy is some of the funniest comedy out there. Watching somebody do something stupid can be humorless until we see the baffled reaction of someone else nearby. So every time somebody looks at Ted’s zipper situation, they’re beyond disgusted. And, every time we see their disgust, we laugh.

Also, like any good comedy writer, you’re not just relying on the setup to do the work. You’re still looking for secondary jokes to occasionally throw in there. One of my favorites happens when the dad brings in the wife and justifies it by saying, “Don’t worry. She’s a dental hygienist. She’ll know exactly what to do.” The line isn’t funny if the dad says, “Don’t worry, she’s a nurse. She’ll know what to do.” It’s the “adjacent profession” aspect of her job that makes the line funny.

That’s another thing about comedy. You have to turn your logic brain off a lot of the time. Your logic brain sets up your plot for you. But some of the funniest lines don’t make complete sense, like this one. What would a dental hygienist know about this situation? You tend to find those lines when you turn the logic off.

Another funny line comes from the policeman: “What’s going on in here? The neighbors said they heard a lady scream.” As if things weren’t humiliating enough with Ted’s literal manhood dangling by a zipper, now he’s being mistaken for a woman.

Another small but funny joke is that the dad isn’t taking the situation as seriously as he should. He thinks it’s kind of funny and begins treating Ted like a prop. “Come here,” the dad says as he grabs Ted. “You gotta see this,” he says to the cop, showing him Ted’s zipper fiasco. This is a subtle but important detail in comedy: Contrast leads to laughs. When someone is in extreme danger and somebody else recognizes that danger and tries every way they can to help them, there’s nothing comedic about that because both characters are on the same wavelength.

But when a character is in danger and another character is casual about it, now you’re going to find comedy because there’s a big contrast between what’s happening and how it’s being responded to.

The Farrelly Brothers do that with another joke as well. What is a cop supposed to do when someone is hurt? They’re supposed to help, right? What’s the first thing this cop says to Ted? “What the hell were you thinking??” There’s a contrast in what he’s supposed to say compared to what he does say. There’s no joke if the cop starts acting really concerned.

In fact, that’s a great way to find jokes. Think about how a character SHOULD ACT and then have them ACT THE OPPOSITE WAY. It doesn’t always work. But when it does, it’s hilarious. The fireman comes in. They show him Ted’s situation. He does not say, “Oh my god. Are you okay?” He just starts laughing at Ted.

A joke that’s kind of interesting here is the mom with the bactine spray. She occasionally sprays Ted’s penis when he’s not looking. I’ve found that these types of jokes don’t work well on the page because they’re “visual gag” jokes. Visual gags can be funny. But they tend to be stuff you find on set. I wouldn’t waste script pages on them. Spend that time trying to come up with lines like, “What the hell were you thinking?”

The scene ends in a funny way as well. The Farrelly’s take all the power away from Ted. This falls in line with the rule: Make things as bad as possible for your character. Ted’s trying to convince them that he’s fine and he can deal with this himself. They ignore him and tell him what they’re going to do to him (unzip it).

So, to summarize. Your set-piece comedy scenes need to be well set up. The more set up you do, the higher the stakes will be. The more we’ll care about the character’s situation. The more engaged we are, the more we’ll laugh. Once you have them in the situation, treat them terribly. Keep throwing obstacles at them. Keep asking, “What’s the worst thing I can do to them in this moment?” In between big jokes, look for clever secondary jokes. You’ll find a lot of jokes through contrast. Also, play with what is expected versus what you actually do to them.

If you follow this blueprint, you too will write a hilarious scene.

And make no mistake, one great comedy scene can make a script. It really can. Because if somebody dies laughing during a big scene of yours, they will want to make your movie, even if the rest of the script isn’t perfect. Because they know they can try to make the rest of the script funny. So there’s a lot of incentive to writing that big hilarious set piece scene.

Good luck!

Genre: Comedy
Premise: (from Black List) A depressed, progressive woman stuck in a conservative small Texas town starts micro-dosing the entire town with marijuana to make them all get along.
About: This script finished with 10 votes on last year’s Black List. Noga Pnueli has written one of my Top 25 scripts – time loop comedy, “Meet Cute.” So I’ve got high expectations today!
Writer: Noga Pnueli
Details: 112 pages

I think the above video best conveys how subjective comedy is. It’s one of the reasons I don’t review a lot of comedy scripts on the site. I always feel like the x-factor of whether I, personally, believe the writer is funny, gets in the way of me being able to accurately assess the script.

A comedy script can be perfectly executed in terms of structure, theme, and character. But if the comedy’s not my cup of tea, I’m still going to hate it. And things get even trickier when you’re trying to assess whether the writer’s not funny to you or not funny period. Because it would be nice if you could definitively say, “Comedy is not your strong suit. You should write in another genre.” But then someone would have to explain to me how people enjoy The Trevor Noah Show and Adam Sandler movies.

The good news is, I *KNOW* today’s writer is funny. She’s got a script in my Top 25 called “Meet Cute,” a time loop rom-com. So I know we’re going to get some mad comedy lessons. At least I hope so. When in doubt, place your faith in Noga Pnueli.

30-something Estee lives in Jacksboro, Texas. Estee is a “lifer.” That means you’re one of these people who gets stuck in the small shitty town you grew up in because you’re too afraid to leave.

But it’s even worse for Estee because she’s the only liberal in town. She works at a bakery where her boss won’t even bake a cake for a gay couple that comes in. This infuriates Estee so much that she gets in an argument with her boss and he fires her.

While stumbling through town hating life, Estee sees that Jacksboro just opened up their first marijuana dispensary. Estee’s never smoked pot in her life so she tries it out and “ohmmmmmmm,” all of a sudden she’s as relaxed and happy as she’s ever been.

So she gets an idea. She makes pot brownies and starts handing them out to people so that they can experience the same things she did. And they do. Which inspires her to make bigger batches of pot brownies. And then pot cookies. And then pot cakes. Which she delivers to everyone. Except, they don’t know they’re all being drugged.

Amazingly, when they figure it out, they’re not mad. They want her to continue low-key dosing them up. You see, as God-fearing Christians, they can’t be seen buying marijuana in town. This way, they get to to get high without the stigma.

When the pot store owner, who kind of has a crush on Estee, realizes what she’s doing, he informs her that he can no longer take part. Which means her entire operation of “Make Town Happy” will fall apart. Which means everyone will be angry and miserable again. Including Estee. So she has to figure out if there’s any last-minute substitute that can provide people with true happiness. What she ends up finding is the last thing she expects.

Initially, I liked High Society. When it comes to comedy, you want a writer who’s actually comedic. I know that sounds obvious. But you can tell a comedic writer by the way they write. For example, here’s an early excerpt from the script….

ESTEE, 30’s, is what is locally referred to as a LIFER, aka a woman who never left her pathetic hometown and whose wasted potential has made a home atop her shoulders like a ton of bricks.

She is currently avoiding her existential woes by baking complicated SOURDOUGH RYE BREAD in her kitchen.

Pay particular attention to that second sentence. Because there are thousands of ways you could’ve written it. You could’ve written, “Estee is currently baking bread.” “A miserable Estee shoves bread dough into her oven.” “Estee kneads the dough for some bread she’s making.”

You get the idea. These sentences convey the same thing Noga wrote. But they do so in a non-comedic manner.

The phrase, “is currently avoiding her existential woes” is a lot more clever, thoughtful, and funny, than simply saying, “is currently baking bread.” The word “complicated” is also relevant here. “Complicated” paints more of a picture for the reader than if the word wasn’t included. It creates a bit more of a comedic edge, particularly when you combine it with the phrase preceding it.

Funny phrasing and word choices, as long as they’re not overused, are a great way to “write funny.”

Unfortunately, despite Noga’s inherent comedic talent, she runs into the most common comedy problem of them all, which is that she doesn’t have a potent enough premise.

Comedic premises can be deceiving. They can seem funny. But a funny logline doesn’t mean you have 100 minutes of funny. It may only mean you have 30 minutes of funny. And the only way to learn this, unfortunately, is to write a handful of crappy comedies. Only through the process of failure do you get a feel for how long a comedic concept can last.

High Society is a 30 minute premise. How do I know this? Because it’s a South Park episode. They have a very similar episode on South Park. And even they struggled to get their concept to the 23 minute mark.

Why doesn’t this concept have legs? Well, we get to the part where everybody is consuming marijuana and chilled out before the midpoint of the script. So, then, what’s left? We’ve already achieved the funny part mentioned in the logline. What now?

The next plot development is: will the town realize they’re being drugged? Is this a funny development? I would argue it isn’t. There is some conflict involved because there are consequences to what Estee has done. So there’s a dramatic reason for us to keep reading. But I wouldn’t say there was any *comedic* reason for us to keep reading. The script isn’t presented in such a way where this reveal will be treated with a laugh.

Then, we finally get that reveal and guess what? Nobody has a problem with Estee doing this. In fact, they all like it. So, ummmmmm, where is the conflict in the movie? Estee literally has zero problems now. She’s drugging people. They like it. Why, exactly, are we still watching this movie? There’s nothing left to be resolved!

Noga seems to realize this so she comes up with this minor conflict whereby the marijuana shop owner says he’s not going to sell her pot anymore. But, at this point, I don’t care. Too much conflict has been sucked out of the story.

If there’s one thing to learn about comedy today, it’s that if you don’t take care of your plot, your comedy won’t matter. If your characters aren’t engaged in some level of compelling conflict that has genuine stakes attached, then we don’t care what happens to your characters. And people won’t laugh if they don’t care what happens to your characters.

I don’t even know what Estee wants in this movie. Why is she even doing any of this? It’s an important question because, if we don’t know, then we don’t know why it’s so important for her to succeed. And without a need to succeed, there are no stakes. The guys in The Hangover cannot, under any circumstances, lose their friend eight hours before his wedding. The stakes are so high that we’re extremely engaged in their mission.

Not so with this one. I get that it’s pot comedy and that this type of comedy is a little more chill. But I’ve seen pot comedies with high stakes and lots of activity (Pineapple Express). So while I’ll give High Society a puff. I’m not giving it a pass.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Make sure that your comedy concept provides stakes that will last 100 minutes. I see too many comedy writers who dive into a comedy script with stakes that get you to page 40. And then they spend the rest of the movie flailing about trying to be funny. This is important, so pay attention. Characters are the most funny when they have something to lose. Therefore, if it’s muddy or unclear what your characters have to lose, chances are, nobody’s laughing. I wasn’t ever clear what Estee had to lose in this movie.

Genre: Horror
Premise: (From Black List) Summer on a secluded campus takes a dark turn for three college girls when a supernaturally sexy mystery man begins haunting their dreams.
About: This script finished on last year’s Black List with 12 votes! The writer, Shea Mayo, has written a couple of short films. But this is her big breakthrough screenplay!
Writer: Shea Mayo
Details: 108 pages

Maisie Williams for Indi?

I originally picked this one because I thought it was a comedy and I wanted to analyze some comedy to get us all in the right mindset to write our own comedy. But about 25 pages in, I realized this was more horror than comedy. By that point, it was too late to stop. So what did I think?

All-female college student, Indi, has just been informed by the administration that her sexual assault case by a male staff member at the college isn’t going to move forward. Angry and exhausted, she meets up with her uptight friend Samantha and her cardio-obsessed pal, Gabby, for a little girl support.

That night, Indi has a lucid dream where a dreamboat named Cal emerges from the woods and wants to love up on Indi. Still recovering from the assault, Indi says no thanks. Cal looks confused. You get the sense that no one says no to him.

The next day, the girls decide they’re going to spend the summer here on campus instead of going home. It’s going to be Girl Power for the next three months. Except then it isn’t Girl Power because, all of a sudden, Samantha’s got no time to hang out. She always seems to be… sleeping.

That’s okay because Indi still has Gabby. Maybe they can run a marathon or something. Nope. Gabby – who never has a boyfriend – is all of a sudden talking about a new mysterious secret boyfriend. And then Gabby is asleep all the time, too. What’s going on here??

The answer comes when a fourth girl, Bridget, shows up on top of the local bell tower naked and jumps to her death. Bridget, it turns out, was always sleeping as well! That’s when Indi realizes they’re all connected! It must be that lucid dreamboat Cal sucking her friends into his clutches and controlling them.

So Indi sets off to learn about this dream demon, who, it turns out, makes women become obsessed with him so that he can control their every thought. But that’s not even the most evil thing he does. His existence is designed to not only torture women with how sexy he is, but to make sure that nobody they tell believes them. Since Indi is the only person who knows Cal is real, it will be up to her to somehow infiltrate her friends’ dreams and save them!

It’s pretty clear why this made the Black List.

It’s not just a horror script. It’s a horror script with a social message.

Although I’m not sure that message is as clear as the writer intended it to be. Cal is a stand-in for women not being believed. But what’s weird is that Indi, the one character in the script who’s been assaulted, is also the one person not involved with Cal. It’s the friends, who haven’t had any such experiences, who get stuck with Cal. And they both like him a lot. So while there is a message, it must go through several translation apps before we understand it.

As I’ve stated before, it doesn’t matter how noble your message is if your reader isn’t engaged. And that’s another issue this script had. The first half of the movie is people sitting around talking. You guys all know how much this bothers me. Characters waiting around and sitting around doing nothing outside of talking to each other – that’s narrative death.

You need your characters to be active. And all three of these characters have been constructed to be the opposite of active since the central concept of the movie is about going to sleep. Which means you’re constructing your narrative around putting people in bedrooms so they can sleep. I would’ve recognized that right away as an issue and made sure I had a plan to tackle it.

A critical mistake was setting this during the summer. By setting it in the summer as opposed to the semester, you strip away the only thing that’s keeping your characters active. If it’s the semester, they have to go to class, they have to study for tests, they have to do loads of extracurricular college activities. You need that stuff so that your characters always have something to do.

Which makes your central concept better as well since Cal is sucking away the girls’ energy, which would make them less productive, which would upset their studies, which could potentially make them lose scholarships or drop out of classes. The stakes become much higher.

The stakes aren’t high when the only thing you have to do that day is prepare for that nights’ bonfire party.

Had there been higher stakes and more activity from the characters, I would’ve liked this story more and resonated with the message more. But, as it stands, it felt like people hanging out, talking, sleeping, and then, in the last 40 pages, a mad dash to save the hero’s friends. Wasn’t my cup of tea.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: If you’re having to come up with places for your characters to go in your story, there’s a good chance your narrative is broken. Characters should always have goals. If not end-of-movie goals, more immediate goals. These will dictate where your character needs to be and what they need to do. Naomi Watts, in The Ring, is following clues in the haunted video tape because it kills whoever watched it in seven days and her son watched it. So she always has something to do. She always has another lead to follow. If you’re constantly having to come up with locations for characters to meet in their next scene – coffee shops, bonfires, bars – that means your hero isn’t active. They do not have a goal to pursue. And while skilled screenwriters can sometimes get away with this, it tends to be the equivalent of a plane in a full-on nosedive. There’s no way to recover.

We’ve got three months until the Comedy Showdown deadline (June 17). Three months is plenty of time to write a script. And that’s what I’m going to help you do. Every Monday, until June 17th, I will be guiding you along in the process. This way, you don’t have to think about when and where to work. I’m going to provide you with every step. All you have to do is do what I say.

By the way. I don’t want to confuse anyone but I already know what the next Showdown (which will take place in September) will be. It will be a Sci-Fi Showdown. I’m not officially announcing it yet. I’m just letting you know, in case comedy’s not your thing, you can use this time to write your sci-fi script, and then have a whole extra three months to make it perfect.

So, what is going to be required of you? A minimum of two hours a day of writing. And, yes, you’ll be writing seven days a week. You have that time. You may think you don’t. But I promise you you do. Chris Dennis, who wrote Last Great Contest winning script, Kinetic, has three children. And he still managed to write two screenplays over the past year. So you have time. Just stop watching so many stupid Youtube political videos.

While I’ll be stressing comedy during this exercise, I’m basically going to act as a script-writing motivator. I’m going to give you tasks and your job will be to complete them. So even if you’re not going to enter Comedy Showdown, feel free to write a script in another genre. When else are you going to have an angry website owner standing behind you with a whip?

Last week, I gave you your first task. Come up with a concept. If you failed at that, I’m going to offer you a last second comedy concept hack. One of the easiest ways to come up with a comedy idea is to take a movie in another genre and simply turn it into a comedy! Take John Wick… and turn it into a comedy! Take a heist film, like Triple Frontier… and turn it into a comedy! 1917 made hundreds of millions of dollars on top of the one-continuous-shot gimmick. Why can’t you make hundreds of millions of dollars on a one-continuous-shot comedy!? The possibilities are endless.

Okay, so we’ve got our concept. Now what?

I need you to brace yourself.

And make sure you’re sitting down.

This week… IS ALL ABOUT OUTLINING.

Your outlining will be broken into two sections. The first section will be three days and consist of getting to know your characters. The second section will be four days and consist of writing a physical outline.

Day 1 will consist of getting to know your main character. Specifically, you’ll want to know what their fatal flaw is. While the need for a fatal flaw in every movie is debatable, it’s not debatable in comedy. In comedies, your main character needs conflict within himself about SOMETHING. Something needs to be unresolved. Your hero may be aware of what that something is. Or they may not.

Happy Gilmore has anger issues. That’s his flaw. That’s what he needs to resolve. Seth Rogen in Knocked Up isn’t ready to be an adult yet. That’s what he needs to resolve. Columbus in Zombieland struggles to connect with others. That’s what he needs to resolve.

Your concept will usually tell you what your hero’s flaw is. Bridesmaids is about a bridesmaid who has to compete for attention with the bride’s new friend. The flaw we give to our main character, then, is pretty obvious. Jealousy. Kristin Wiig has to resolve her jealousy by the end of the story. That’s the thing with this stuff. It’s not rocket science. The answers are often right in front of you.

Next, you’re going to do a character biography. I know that all of you hate character biographies. So I’m going to give you an option. But, first, for the purists out there, I want you to write between 2-5 pages of some key details in your hero’s life. I want to know where they were born, where they grew up, what their relationship with their parents was like, their first kiss, their first sexual encounter, their religion (or lack thereof), their best friends, the most traumatic thing that ever happened to them, their current relationship (or marriage), their education, their job, and finally, whether they’re happy or not in life. And, if they aren’t, why?

What you write isn’t important. In fact, you may never look at this document again. The idea is to get you thinking about your character. And that’s what this exercise will do. I guarantee you’ll come out of it learning something exciting about your hero.

If you don’t want to write a biography, go ahead and open up a new document in Final Draft. And I want you to write out, in script form, the beginning of your main character’s day. The more detailed you are, the better. This will achieve the same thing. It will make you think about who your character is. You can learn a hell of a lot about someone by how they start their day. Is it timed to the second and perfectly ordered? Or is it wake up whenever you want and figure out what to do on the fly? Have fun with this. We’re writing a comedy.

Day 2 will be focused on your secondary characters. I need you to write down two things about everyone outside of your main character. I need to know their fatal flaws. And I also need you to assign them a DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC. Almost all the characters in a comedy are funny. What you’re doing now is deciding HOW THEY’RE FUNNY. And you do that by assigning them a defining characteristic.

If we’re to use The Hangover, Alan’s defining characteristic is that he’s the world’s most socially unaware person. Stu’s (Ed Helms) is that he’s paranoid about everything. Phil (Bradley Cooper) is selfish and hates his life. If that sounds like a weak defining characteristic, that’s because it is. Of the three main characters in The Hangover, Phil is the most forgettable. Which is why getting the defining characteristic right is so important. It will decide how funny and how memorable that character is.

Day 3 will be focused on whichever one of the first couple of days you weren’t able to finish. If you still don’t feel like you know your main character, get back in there and write more of that biography! If you still have secondary characters to figure out or don’t feel like your defining characteristics are strong enough, go back in there and keep working.

Day 4 is going to be about about figuring out your structure. You want to know what your first act is going to be about, your second act, and your third. If you need help, remember that the nicknames for these acts are the SETUP ACT, the CONFLICT ACT, and the RESOLUTION ACT. So I want you to think about how your concept can be extended out into this construct.

Let’s look at the famous Chevy Chase comedy, Vacation. The first act is going to be setting up the members of the family and the family dynamics. The second act is going to be the drive. This is where the characters attempt to get to their destination. You’ve going to want to come up with a series of obstacles that get in the way (this is the CONFLICT ACT and obstacles create CONFLICT). And then the final act is them getting to their designation, only to find out it’s closed.

Days 5, 6, and 7 are going to be physically outlining as much as you possibly can about the movie. Your starting points should be the inciting incident (usually, this is the thing that causes the problem that the main character must now deal with – like Seth Rogen getting Kathryn Heigl pregnant in Knocked Up). The first act turn (page 25 in a 100 page script) is when the character goes off on their journey. The midpoint shift (page 50 in a 100 page script) is when something major happens that changes the entire dynamic of the plot. In The Hangover, this is when Chow informs our protagonists that he has Doug and will kill him if they don’t pay him back his 80,000 dollars. The end of Act Two (page 75 in a 100 page script). This is always an easy plot point to figure out. It should be your hero’s lowest point where he’s given up on achieving his goal. And, finally, your ending. You don’t have to know your ending just yet. But it helps to know it early because then you can start writing “set up” scenes throughout the script.

If all you accomplish is figuring out those pillars, you should be good to go. But I would encourage you to add as many checkpoints to your outline as possible. Checkpoints are any scene idea or plot development that you come up with. If you’re writing Borat 2 and you know you have a scene where the daughter goes to a doctor for breast implants, that’s a checkpoint scene. If you know you want Borat and the daughter to split up somewhere around page 67 (midway between the midpoint and end of second act), that’s a checkpoint scene. This is how they write Avengers movies. The writers just figure out where all the checkpoints are so they know where to write to.

Another option for outlining is the sequence method. This is where you divide your script up into eight sections. If the script is 100 pages long, each section will be roughly 12 and a half pages. Some writers like this because it turns this big endless 100 page black hole into more manageable chunks, each of which are, essentially a “mini-movie.” So instead of writing one big movie. You’re writing eight mini-movies.

And you’re using the exact same methods as you would in a big movie. You want to come up with a goal, some stakes, and some urgency for the first mini-movie. Then you come up with a new goal, stakes, and urgency for the second mini-movie. And just keep doing that all the way down the line.

Guys. Comedy is one of the most structured of all the genres. It is in your best interest to spend 14 hours this week outlining. It will make everything so much easier when it’s time to write.

And that’s it.

Next Monday, we’ll start writing the script!