One of the things I have been thinking about lately, because of Scurvytown episodes and my attempt at being funny/ writing satire, is comedy writing.
What makes something funny? What is the science behind laughter? Hell if I know, but I plan on taking some of the joy out of humor and reading some scientific articles on the subject, in addition to books form people who are successful in the field of comedic writing.
Have you ever made an entire room erupt in laughter? That feeling, that instant gratification, there’s something to be said about how powerful it feels to have been the direct result of the neural firing that causes laughter. Is it neural firing? Hell, I dunno how brains work.
It’s curious, to me, this feeling of greatness, from something so intangible, something so unmeasurable, and I really want to know more about it. (Though suddenly it occurs, there is such a thing as a “laugh-o-meter.”) But I hope to take a humorous poke at this subject, because that would obviously be the most appropriate manner by which to take the bitch down.
I wrote out a list of possible topics to consider, and I won’t repeat it here, but I hope to learn more about this extraordinarily fun craft, and how to become better at it. It truly is one of the greatest feelings I’ve known, to make a group of people laugh, or to bounce into a room and light it up, or even to get a healthy round of applause at a poetry reading. So it really makes sense that I would want to figure out ways of being effectively funnier, examining the rhetoric of comedy, and the acidic bite of satire.
It is true what they say: you need to read more to write more. So I need to start reading more things that are tailored in the manner I love to write, and then take the research a little further. With my background in science, I immediately think to start there: methodically.