Comedy Writing Samples; Woody Allen's Without Feathers

Please join the class in reading the short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" by James Thurber. Then, let's discuss the story you read for homework: "The Ransom of Red Chief".

• What makes the story funny or humorous?

After examining the stories, let's discuss some tips about writing humorous stories.

• Use your notebook to record your dark, evil, sad or angry thoughts. Comedy often comes from a dark or hurt place in the human psyche. Start with what makes you cry, what makes you angry, or what makes you scream in frustration. Make a short or long list in your notebook. We'll mine this later for ideas.
• Let's read "Selections from the Allen's Notebooks". Writers, as you know, often write down their thoughts or ideas for stories, poems, or plays in their journal. Sometimes daily observations or diary-like entries get mixed into your journal. Much of comedy comes from incongruity or nonsense. Note how Allen sets up a typical situation, then pokes fun at himself or starts with a sensible or logical thought, then derails this logic with a ridiculous or incongruous or absurd statement. 
• Another good place to look for humor is by parodying any serious literary genre or art form. Non-fiction works are often best to poke fun at in comedy. It's a good idea to parody either that which you love (so much that you can poke fun at it, or something that you hate for the same reason.) Make a list in your journal of fiction books, films, TV shows, or media, or list genres of non-fiction that you love or hate. Get a healthy list going. We'll see some examples of what a comedian can do with these allusions and forms. 
• Let's continue reading Without Feathers. As we read, please note the following:
• The title: Refers to Emily Dickenson’s poem: “Hope is a thing with feathers.” Ergo, if you have no feathers, you have no hope.
• "Selections from the Allen Notebooks & The Early Essays": Both these essays parody the publishing industry’s love affair with memoir, creative non-fiction, and publishing a well-known author’s private writings after they have died. Hence, the humor of these weird insights into the famous “Woody Allen” journals. Traditionally, creative essay form always used the same form: the word “ON” and then the subject of the essay.
• "Examining Psychic Phenomena": The supernatural is always a good subject to parody. In this case, a review of a newly published “non-fiction” book on Psychic Phenomena. Look up Psychic Phenomena on the internet to see the sort of thing Allen is parodying.
• "The Guide to Some of the Lesser Ballets": When you attend an opera or ballet, inside your program, you often get the story synopsis. Since opera is usually in another language, and ballet is hard to follow if you don’t know the story, these sorts of program notes are helpful in interpreting the performance. Allen, of course, is poking fun.
• "The Scrolls": A few years before the book was published, the Dead Sea Scrolls were uncovered. In the early 70’s this sort of thing caused a lot of controversy between religious scholars and scientists. They wondered if these scrolls were part of the Bible. Allen is also Jewish, so the humor relates to this fact as well. Even the Bible can be parodied in comedy.
• "Lovborg’s Women Considered": The playwright Henrick Ibsen is the bane and love of many literary scholars and theatre students. Woody Allen is poking fun of the field of literary criticism (scholars who write about books, authors, and their “private” lives). Eilert Lovborg (a character from Ibsen's play "Hedda Gabler" was a notorious womanizer and sexpot, before he shot himself unheroically.)
• If you are so inclined you might wish to start a comedic story or "essay". Use incongruity, hyperbole (exaggeration, overstatement, innuendo, or understatement), and ridiculous situations, settings, or characters. Some ideas include:

1. Your writer's journal has been lost and buried for 100 years. When it is uncovered, what do scientists (or scholars or clergy or the common person) think of you? Do they consider your writing insightful, prophetic, scandalous, inspired, dangerous, etc.? 

2. Like Gorey's "The Unstrung Harp" tell the story of yourself as a famous author.

3. Pick a favorite or hated non-fiction type of book and write a parody of that form. For example, a game manual, a how-to book, a cookbook, advice about how to raise children, a self-help manual, astrology, a bestiary, a history of some alien or forgotten race, a textbook, an advice column, etc.

4. Write the performance companion notes for a play or opera or musical or the liner notes of an album that should never have been made.

5. Rewrite a well-known scene from a Shakespeare play (perhaps a lost scene from Romeo & Juliet, for example) or rewrite a well-known fairy tale or Bible story with annotations.

6. Write a silly rhyming poem or children's book, like Shel Silverstein or Dr. Seuss. Take a look at these links for inspiration. Silverstein. Dr. Seuss.

HOMEWORK: Please read pg. 11-34 (or what we didn't cover in class today).