"I had no other talents and I liked writing short stories. I’m certainly that kind of person."įorrester fell into comedy by accident.
In any craft you take up you’re going to collect concrete insights and information about how to do it. I have yet to find any textbook with usable insights into comedy writing which is a surprise because there is so much that can be conveyed. You Don't Have to Be a Comedian to Write Great Comedyįorrester told ScreenwritingU Magazine, "I was a student once and I was desperate for knowledge about comedy writing and I could never find anything that was of much value. Here are some of Forrester's rules of writing comedy. Have you written a comedy pilot for the next great TV series? Enter the ScreenCraft Comedy Screenplay Competition here. He later directed episodes of the show and eventually became the showrunner, winning another Emmy in 2007.
He then went on to write for NBC's The Office, an American-version of Ricky Gervais's British comedy series of the same name. And then you would go off for two to four weeks - we got a lot of time on those episodes! There was a time when you got four weeks? That’s a f***ing luxury now!" And you’d pitch one, sometimes two stories, and after that, the head writer would decide what stories we were going to do. For the most part, the way it worked was that the writers would just go into isolation and try to think up an entire episode in enormous detail, then come in and pitch the whole thing at a story conference - from Fade In to Fade Out, tons of jokes. He then went on to write for The Simpsons from 1993 to 1997.įorrester told Variety, "The Simpsons, when I was there, seemed like a joke-writing contest, in a weird way.
We share his thoughts and elaborate on his wise words to offer screenwriters some simple rules and guideline that they can apply to their own comedy writing.įorrester won an Emmy for his work on The Ben Stiller Showin 1993. We've searched through a couple of interviews with the talented comedy writer, director, and showrunner, which we've adapted to five rules and guidelines featured within these discussions. Emmy Award-winning showrunner of The Office, Brent Forrester, shares his rules of writing comedy.