3 Ways to Know if You're Passionate About Writing Comedy
If you want a career as a comedy writer or performer, you must be passionate about the art form. There’s no use wanting to be a plumber if you don’t like dealing with a lot of crap. Comedy is EXACTLY the same.
A career writing and performing comedy is way too hard if you’re not passionate about it. To put up with rejection, hecklers, weird working hours, long stretches of unemployment and – if you never do “crack the big time” – little or no retirement fund, you must be doing it because you love it.
So, how do you know if you really want to do this as a career? If you can relate to at least two of these things, writing and performing jokes might just be for you.
You listen to or watch the same comedy routines, sketches, films or TV shows over and over again.
When I was younger, I’d listen to my Monty Python, Steve Martin or Lenny Bruce albums not once but hundreds of times over. The way most people listen to music. I’d even make my friends listen to them on repeat until I realised that was a good way to lose friends.
The average person will watch a comedy show, enjoy it, and then never watch it again. What’s the point? They’ve already heard all the jokes and know all the punchlines. But when you’re obsessed with the art of comedy, you’re listening or watching how it’s done.
You’re fascinated by the rhythms, the beats, the timing of the jokes and how they’re performed. You want to work out why using a two-second pause in a specific instance is funnier than only pausing for one point five seconds, how they came up with the idea and, in the case of something like the ‘Spanish Inquisition’ sketch, why the term “comfy chair” is so funny.
And there’s a difference between a comedy “geek” who can quote the entire ‘Spanish Inquisition’ sketch and someone obsessed with how the routine is put together and what makes it funny so that they can write and perform their own version.
If you’re not only amused by the jokes but fascinated by why they’re funny, you’re on the right track.
You’re always writing down ideas
All comedy (and drama) starts with an idea in your head or from something you’ve seen or heard, and – at some point – you need to write it down. If you don’t, you’ll forget it and be kicking yourself later.
If you’re passionate about being a comedy writer, this should come naturally. It’s just something you do. I have hundreds of A4 spiral notebooks in my cupboard and thousands of Word docs on my computer full of ideas for sketches, stand-up bits, movies or tv shows. Most are rubbish, but at least getting them down on paper gets them out of my head and makes room for new ones.
Let’s face it. Writing down comedy is a big part of being a comedy writer, and if you’re not doing that you’re not really into it.
You want to make funny stuff, no matter what
I’m an old fart. You can tell by the way I use the term “old fart”. But when I started out, there was no YouTube, TikTok or Instagram. There weren’t even any video cameras! But I knew I wanted to do comedy, so I’d perform stupid shows in front of my parents. This prompted them to buy an 8mm film camera just so I’d leave them alone.
It was the best thing I’d ever owned, and now my friends, already sick of me making them listen to my comedy albums, were forced to perform in sketches I’d written.
It’s much easier today to film things and get them out there, so anyone can do it. But not everyone does. Others might do it for a while and get bored when they haven’t got 1000 “likes” on their first TikTok sketch. But, if you think about writing and filming funny things every day, not just because you want to make it a career but because you enjoy it more than anything else you do, that’s another good sign you have the passion for comedy that you need to carry you through.
This list is by no means final, but the bottom line is comedy is hard, and if you’re thinking about quitting your steady job and pursuing the life of a writer-performer, you need to be committed. If you’re doing at least a couple of the things on this list, you are well on your way.
Good Luck!
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