A comedy writing exercise that turns the voices in your head into comedy gold!

Generate reams of comedy material with this simple exercise that utilities your internal editor and other voices of descent in your noggin.

Most people except the very enlightened — and liars — have a little voice in the back of their head droning on about all sorts. Mostly it’s singing The Macarena, or replaying countless personal traumas in such vivid detail that you involuntarily scream “YOU BITCH!” out loud at the checkout at Aldi. It can have it’s uses though, it’s the main reason you haven’t died yet or made out with your cat, and wear clothes when you go out.

First base

However for comedic purposes the internal editor can be very unproductive; it might tell you these kinds of things about a comedic idea:

It’s been done before
Most topics have been covered before, but not by you. As long as you add plenty of details and your own point of view then you can avoid being hack. You should try and write material that only you are able to tell.

So I broke up with my girlfriend… it wasn’t so bad because she isn’t real!
- A.N. Open-micer

Too personal
No such thing! People are too tightly wound and polite these days, it’s amazing to be vulnerable and open. Your audience will always tell you if it’s too much information, and then you can just add an afterthought or 10 to tell them why they are dead wrong. Of course oversharing can be a thing, EG you are inauthentically going to uncomfortable places because rude=funny.

Boring
As long as it’s funny, no subject is off limits. Some of the best comedians of our time are able to make comedy from the most mundane topics. Nothing is boring if you care about it, and convince us why we should care too. If you are boring yourself however, that is a problem. It’s trying to do material you don’t care about any more. You can fake it, but best to move on with fresh material if you can.

Not relatable
Making an obscure subject funny is all about making it relatable. People might not have an encyclopedic knowledge of Star Trek The Next Generation like you do, but they still know the heroic leader, the horny first officer, the scantily clad empath, the boy genius — and it might be a lot of fun to relate it to peoples worlds even if they’re ignorant enough to have missed this masterpiece of contemporary sci-fi !

It’s not funny… etc
In some cases, you might be right — but you don’t know. The only people that can really tell you are the audience. If you think an idea had artistic merit when you first thought of it, it probably still does. Don’t throw away perfectly good ideas when you probably just need a sandwich or a nap.

A sandwich

Your internal monologue likes to drone on all day, so why not put it to work? When I’m writing comedy I like to imagine a cacophony of different editors from all walks of life. Different age groups, nationalities, sexual orientations, intellect levels and political persuasions. When I write I imagine what they might say about the things I am saying and I write even more jokes based on that, e.g.:

I lost a dangerous amount of weight one year, and people only encouraged it:

(dumb insta-girl) You have such a cute skeleton!

(douchey boy) Your small frame will make my penis look big

(mom voice) With your rapid weight loss, you finally have my approval. I die now, here is my money (whispering) don’t spend it on food!

Exercise: The voices in my head

Aim of this exercise: Whenever you write anything, you should look at it from a variety of angles, voices and attitudes. It’s best that you use voices that are familiar to

you (like the ones in your head) rather than assuming the voice of someone you’ve never thought about. If you use different voices, not only can you expand out your material but it negates a lot of interfering thought of people thinking “hey — why didn’t they mention this thing?” or “well that’s not everyone’s opinion”. The more views you explore the more rich your material will seem.

Think about that voices in your head, where do they come from? Who is criticizing you day and night? Do you have those thoughts that make you shiver? Who was there that made you feel so bad forever? Write a list (Oh we’ll be writing lots of lists!) of these people! They don’t have to be real people; often the people in our head are symbolic of those we wish we were, or constantly judge us, but of course they’re all “us”… hopefully. Maybe there’s some positive voices in there too (that’s just not my personal experience). You can come back and add and take away from this list at any time. Keep it as a constant. Have these people or entities around on post-it notes, or in a comedy notepad. Draw them out, make models! You should really be able to picture them.

Also try not to make these voices too nice. Gym bro shouldn’t be understanding that you can only make it to the gym once a week. That’s what LOSERS do, that’s how many times puny weaklings go — he’s done bigger shits than you! If mum is sometimes disappointed in you and sometimes very proud in real life, just take the negative version (it’s much funnier), she doesn’t SLEEP at night because you’re a lesbian (I’m sorry mom!!).

• Mum

• My awkwardness

• People with 6 packs at the climbing gym

• “Real” people

• Germans who judge me for not speaking German

• Cool people in their late 20s you’re always trying to impress

• Internal editor

• Instagram moms

Make a list of at least 5 true statements about yourself, they don’t have to be funny. Note what comes up as you write these things (could they be more voices?).

1. I spend too much time on my phone

2. I am very untidy

3. I love coffee

4. I would like to be skinny

5. I love baths

Go through your list of things and ask all of your voices what they think of that thing. Get really into the character of that voice, feel them and smell them. Do their voice. Write down anything that comes up and of course don’t edit. The only wrong way to do any of these exercises is not to write, so just let whatever comes out flow. If you change voices half-way through so be it. If you switch to a new voice, awesome — write them down! If you can’t name the voice, jot something down and come back to it later — see if they come up again. If it turns into a 2 way conversation, amazing! Write down your response too! If the voices interact, let them! If a voice doesn’t say anything, just skip the fool! Don’t worry about being funny, we’re just generating ideas at this stage.

These voices that nag you and eat away at your self-confidence. They work for you now! As writers, pretty neat huh?

You’ll see this is potentially a very long exercise if you play out the whole thing. When you edit back I bet you’ll find you have some really good stuff. Don’t feel the need to finish it all in one session, you can see I haven’t!

I spend too much time on my phone

Mum:
Well, yes, you do spend a bit too much time on there, I wonder what you’re doing on there all the time! You are good with computers though. I don’t know why you get so angry when I ask you to look at my phone. I’m only asking how to get a photo from my gmail to my iPad for the 200th time, it’s really not a big deal. You seem to giggle a lot on that phone, you giggle more than you do when we’re talking. It’s weird we don’t have so much to say to each other, I can talk to everyone for hours. Like Judy, her husband just died — Alzheimer you know. If I get Alzheimers I’m buying an indoor bar-b-q and gassing myself, that’s how you do it I read it in The Times. The jewellery is in the socks in the second drawer, the gloves, in the Wimbledon 1994 video case in the garage.

Awkwardness:
OMggg everyones judging me because I’m on my phone and not engaging in the conversation. Why can’t I just be a sociable cool person all the time, I just don’t feel like interacting right now and this article on how to make a bubbly water tap just seems so interesting right now. UGH no wonder everyone is better friends with each other than me, ohh I feel so awkward I’d better go to the toilet and do a buzzfeed quiz entitled “Rank you favourite French Cheeses and we’ll tell you which passage from the Holy Torah you are.”

6 pack gym people:
Ugh it’s that phone bitch again, no wonder her climbing is whack, she can’t even do 5 press-ups cause she’s on that damn phone bro. Not living in the moment at all, not connected to her body — just eating more calories than she needs and smearing icing on her stupid phone screen. I have an old Nokia, old Nokia people are better than everyone else. I don’t need Google Maps, I navigate with the stars. I don’t need Facebook, I like faces, and books. I get laid all fricking day, bro!

“Real” people
I have a smartphone (it’s made by a local firm from reusable parts). But sometimes I forget I even have it, I’ll just get lost in a book for 20 hours. It’s sad when I see you addicted to the screen, you should go for a hike and just leave it at home! I much prefer to take mushrooms in the woods with my best friends, and carve a canoe. I like my phone, sure — but it’s just a tool. It’s not my life. We have no screens allowed in our bedroom, and I that’s a rule for everyone in my polyamorous web. You are sad and puny and I feel sorry for you.

who judge me for not speaking German
Ja, here in Germany ve don’t use the phones as much — it’s linked to attention deficit and brain wilting. If I were you I would put down ze phone and pick up a copy of some A1 German learning books so you can speak to a German baby. A German baby speaks better German than you — that must be very embarrassing. OK I will go and eat a white sausage now.

ople in their late 20s you’re always trying to impress
Ya like even for our generation you use your phone a lot old-timer, you have to unplug — have you tried Vipassana? It’s a 10 day meditation retreat. You’re old so youre probably posting the same blurry profile picture on Facebook 5 times with a bunch or random punctuation as the caption. Anyway everyone my age has an apple watch, you don’t have one because you’re too poor, we have money because we work at tech startups where everyone micro-doses LSD. Once I went to Berghain for 20 days straight which is crazy because it’s closed in the week.

People shouldn’t know how long you spend on the internet it’ll be unrelateable, like it really is a lot. And don’t say sad stuff about your Mom because she might read it and feel sad. You’re writing this for a book, do you really think it’s good enough I’m not sure. Are these examples clear? You said before that the voices could converse but yours haven’t. This really is a long exercise I think you’re going to put people off by having a long exercise, maybe make it 5 examples actually that’s a genuinely good idea! Thanks editor!

I am untidy

Mum:
(And so on)

Thanks for reading! This is part of my as yet unpublished book “The Authentic Comedian”. I’ll be releasing more chapters and exercises in due course. Please get in touch if you’d like to know more.