Afterthought exercise - positive / negative

Your mama's so thin...

To summarise this article: There’s an apology, an explanation of the exercise and then the exercise itself. Enjoy!

My dear subscribers, I apologise my writing schedule has been a bit chaotic. Summer time means bike time for me, and I thought I could do the digital nomad thing - or as my friend Amy calls it “Tax cheat with WiFi”. I am back now so not only am I back on schedule, but I’ll make up for dropped weeks by adding in a few extra ones. Here’s the paid exercise I promised in the Afterthought series. Make sure you read this article first:

Afterthought. Punchlines that keep punching.

I, like many feminists have kinda gone off Louis CK after “the incidents” but my memories are much clearer from the mid 00s than any more recent time, so this always stuck in my head a as a really good example of “positive/negative”. Perhaps his F bomb seems a bit dated now for a straight man to say, but heck it’s full of attitude ain’t it?

Louie’s joke has a simple and authentic premise “How could people possibly have a problem with gay people?”. No thought should go unexplored in your set, no question unanswered. Particularly if you have an opinion or definitive statement. Any good comedian should look at things from every single angle - at least at the writing stage. Then you edit it back to the gold after some rigorous testing on stage.

Obviously there are people out there that do have a problem with gay people, and act as if it does affect their lives. What is going on in their heads? A “First thought” would be the literal: they must be religious nuts, perhaps they’re closeted, they’re just sad and full of hate. All of these things are probably true, we should go beyond, because the funniest solution is the most surprising. Louis CK flips the script from negative “Homophobia is pointless” to positive “Homophobia has a point”, and the result is silly, visceral and visual - my favourite type of comedy.

…It's not like you have to avoid two gay guys blowing when you're trying to mow your lawn. Or you're eating cereal and two dicks touch together in front of you... btw is that how gay guys have sex? Just touch their dicks together?

Also this piece is full of extra afterthoughts where he reflects on the things he’s saying “is that how gay guys have sex? Just touch their dicks together?” WE KNOW YOU KNOW IT ISN’T YOU SILLY MAN.

Now to the exercise! The setup to this exercise is similar to “Flip The Attitude”

Exercise: Flip the attitude

But whereas that is focused on attitude (feelings and persona) this is more focused on afterthought (world-building and joke writing) of course you absolutely should bring attitude in to this exercise as well, and vice-versa.

Positive / Negative Exercise