Writer Series: The Comic Toolbox: How to Be Funny Even If You're Not by John Vorhaus

Whether it is the slapstick comedy of a Stephanie Plum novel, the clever witticism of any of the Jasper Fforde books or even the more middle school humor of Dave Barry, if done properly, humor can be a very useful and fun tool.  It highlights ideas, gives lifeblood to a story, and makes characters likeable and interesting.  The unfortunate thing is that with writing it is completely up to the reader’s imagination and ability to get the joke.  Without any visual clues, voice pitch or back and forth interaction something you thought was hilarious could fall flat, be misinterpreted or be viewed as trying too hard.  Those consequences can make us hesitate to interject that healthy dose of comedy into our writing, but thankfully, for those of us wavering there is hope.  Our redeeming grace is that comedy, like any other tool in a writer’s arsenal, is a skill that can be dissected and developed.  Because of The Comic Toolbox freedom is within our grasp.   We the writing masses can be liberated from bad jokes, throw off the shackles of lame humor and get out from under the yoke of hesitation.  

I first came across The Comic Toolbox when it was recommended in one of my writing classes.  Vorhaus’s story structure (found in chapter 7) was suggested as a worksheet to help construct a synopsis, and I have personally found it a really great device for developing storylines, especially since I favor fill-in-the-blank story creation.  So when I sat down to read this book, my highlighter poised and ready, and my pen and paper handy to write down brilliant insights bestowed on me by the comic alchemist, as John Vorhaus calls himself, I had every intention of being funnier by the end of my journey.  And as it turns out I had plenty of chances to use my highlighter, though whether or not I am funnier is a matter of opinion.  Personally, I thought I was pretty dang hilarious before I started the book, so I can only imagine how great I am now.  And my imagination is probably the safest place for my comic talent to remain (I wouldn’t want to overwhelm anybody with my greatness).

I felt pretty safe in John Vorhaus’s enthusiastic hands, not only because this book is so well known, but also for the rest of his resume.  He has worked in more than 30 countries for production companies, film schools, television networks and as a consultant on the development of scripts and television series.  Some of his own credits include Married… with Children, Head of the Class, The Sentinel, and The Flash.  He is a member of the Writers Guild of America with over a dozen books to his credit.  With teaching stints at Northwestern University, the American Film Institute and the Writers Program of the UCLA Extension he is no stranger to actually teaching real live people to use his methods, always helpful.

John Vorhaus expertly breaks down comedy into individual elements before showing how to combine and utilize them to hopefully create the desired effect.  The expressively-written chapters are of a reasonable length with exercises directly interjected into the body of the text.  Being published in 1994, does mean his examples are a bit dated and while I understood most of them some were a little too old for me to get.  The important part, though, is that I still understood the point he was trying to make (but really the Mary Tyler Moore Show and Taxi were kind of old even in ’94 … I’m just saying).  There is a lot of information to take in during the course of this book and I did have to work at staying on topic as I made my way through it, but I think it is worth the effort.   

With Vorhaus’s help I learned not to find the idea of creating humor so overwhelming and to add extra levels to my creative process.  He does a thorough job explaining his techniques and uses formulas and step-by-step instructions to give the reader a chance to emulate them, which I love because the application part is generally the hard one for me.  My hope is that by employing these tools, my writing can be more engaging and multidimensional.  I mean, who doesn’t want to be funny?  Also a lot of his points are not just for comedy, but can be applied to universal storytelling and used to help produce impactful writing.

One of the biggest immediate rewards of this book was using the techniques to break down one of my favorite sitcoms, The Big Bang Theory.  I felt rather clever when I could identify the mechanics of the process, which means I could grasp more of the information than I expected.  Raising Hope will be my next effort; you know for “educational” reasons and not just because I like it (guess who gets to be Queen-of-the-Remote for a while).  But truthfully, a real life application of these new tools is something I am going to have to work at layering in, and I think it will be more helpful when I have a specific project in mind rather than just general information to absorb.  With a specific project I think the whole attention-wandering aspect of my first read would be cut down and being able to zero in on the particular bits of wisdom pertaining to my actual needs will make it all more alive for me.  

We all can have a chance to enrich our writing with humor.  And with a little - or more likely - a lot of practice using the techniques in The Comic Toolbox even you could someday legitimately claim the title of comic alchemist.  Because, really, in the in the end who couldn't stand to be a little funnier?