Ideas for Comedy Writers
Page 11
But what if every single detail in his dream was wrong? Our hapless hero might not realise anything is amiss at first – though your readers should quickly realise that he’s heading in the wrong direction. More and more things go horribly wrong, yet he still insists on following the exact details, just as he saw them in his dream. And so the comic effect is magnified.
See how many stories you can come up with that are based on this simple idea – you should easily be able to list over 100. In fact you’re more likely to run out of time than ideas. When you’ve made a long list, pick the best ones and get writing!
181. Storyline – Misunderstanding the rules.
This would make a good comic scene in a novel, play or movie. Two characters watch a sporting event, such as American football, baseball, or cricket. Neither of them understands the rules, how the scoring works, the names of the teams, the names of the players, or what positions they play. One of them attempts to explain it to the other person, or perhaps they both try to work it out together. They might get some of it right, but they’ll also make plenty of hilarious mistakes and misunderstandings.
[VARIATION 1] A foreign person sitting nearby attempts to explain the rules to them. He uses broken English with a heavy accent and they don’t understand very much of what he says, just the odd word or two, which they misinterpret. Of course, the foreign gentleman might just be being friendly, and know no more about the game than they do.
[VARIATION 2] One of the characters tries to explain to someone (a child perhaps) how a piece of equipment or a gadget works, without really having any idea. The child will work it out very quickly and start pointing out his errors.
182. Storyline – My new laws.
A police officer in a small community is bored rigid. There’s no crime and he has nothing to do. Not only that, but he’s expected to raise money for the regional police force by issuing fines – but he never issues any. He’s always at the bottom of the league table, and he’s becoming a joke. There are two options: transfer to a city-based job or invent some new laws. He decides on the new laws.
Suddenly everyone is falling foul of his laws and paying hefty fines. He’s delighted – and so are the local council, because he’s splitting half the money with them. There’s so much money coming in that they can afford to cut taxes. This delights the locals too – until they work out that they’re paying more in fines than they ever did in taxes. So they decide to take action. They don’t want to hurt their friendly policeman, but perhaps they could get him into a compromising position with a woman and send photos to his boss or the local newspaper. What other action might they take? Refusing to pay fines, insisting that their cases are heard outside the community where the laws don’t exist, tearing down the police station (or bricking it up), stealing his bicycle. Yes, all of that – and much more!
183. Storyline – Nirvana postponed.
Our hero believes that you keep living your life over and over, reincarnating, until you finally achieve a perfect life and go to Nirvana. So his aim is to make this his perfect life. But he finds his goal confounded by all sorts of problems. Other people cause him endless trouble, and he finds himself hating some of them. He seeks therapy to overcome his anger and hatred, though he doesn’t know if he’s already blown his chances of reaching Nirvana. Perhaps the therapy will prepare him for Nirvana and he’ll still be allowed in. Well, he can but hope.
But hating people is just one of his problems – his therapist soon uncovers plenty more. And what if this therapist is a conman who rips him off, or gives him extra therapy for problems he doesn’t even have. He might think he’s achieved a state of (near) perfection, but all he’s done is proved how gullible he is.
Nobody is perfect, and our hero is nowhere near perfect – as just about everyone who has ever had any dealings with him is keen to point out. So, will he achieve Nirvana at the end of this life? Not a chance. So it’s reincarnation … and yet another go at this thing called life.
184. Storyline – Notworkers.
This story involves four employees at the same company. They might be humble cubicle-based workers, or they might be senior managers with their own private offices. Somehow they contrive to do absolutely no work whatsoever. If they’re at work at all then they’re chatting, sending emails to friends, gambling, looking at porn, shopping and booking holidays online, playing games over the company network, trying to date as many of their colleagues as possible, and so on. But finding them in the office is a rarity. More likely they’ll be playing golf or tennis, staying in plush hotels on ‘business trips’, attending ‘meetings’ (somewhere where alcohol is served of course), running their own private companies, and so on.
Expert illusionists, they somehow manage to give the impression of working harder and achieving more than everyone else in the company. They win awards and bonuses for productivity and innovation – often for work on products they’ve never even heard of. It’s all down to management skill, delegation, covering each other’s backs, bluffing, getting their secretaries to do all their work, claiming credit for other people’s work, lying about where they are, and so on.
Perhaps they do actually work, they just don’t remember it. Or perhaps they get drunk and come up with absurd ideas for new products. Laughing their heads off, they scribble down the details, add a few (probably rude) diagrams, and send it to the company’s research and development department – which not only takes their ideas seriously, but worships these creative geniuses like gods.
185. Storyline – Protect and serve?
What if an ordinary citizen became the victim of a computer error and was called up to serve the country in some way. Let’s imagine that it’s one of your neighbours – a decent, hard-working mother or grandmother. Perhaps she’s does some voluntary work in a charity shop or takes in laundry. Not knowing how to complain about her call-up papers, and having failed to convince anyone that there’s been a mix-up, she reports for duty. Her skill at solving cryptic crosswords and sudoku leads to her being assigned to work in a code-breaking and encryption centre. What happens next?
Does she do a great job and save the country? Does she make everyone tea and sandwiches and knit them scarves in return for working extra shifts – perhaps leading to her being awarded a medal for increasing productivity? Anything could happen – and it probably will.
Her motto has always been ‘you have to make the most of what you’ve been given’. So she should be pretty successful, no matter how absurd and unsuitable the job she’s given. She’s a bit of a stick-in-the-mud though and insists on doing every job properly – her way – which will undoubtedly put her in conflict with her superiors. But if she’s doing such a great job she just might get away with it. Or they might court martial her for insubordination. You can guarantee that she’ll emerge as a hero by the end though.
186. Storyline – Seeing double.
After getting double vision while very drunk, our hero’s boss now thinks there are two of him. Our hero uses this to his advantage. He manages to double his pay by pretending to be two people. He can also blame his non-existent twin for any delays or mistakes. I’m sure you can think of many more examples. But what about the disadvantages? Will he be given twice as much work to do, or will he find a way of getting out of it? Perhaps he’s can delegate the extra work to his staff. What if one of them realises what’s going on and tells the boss there’s really only one of him? What if his boss wants to see both of them together? He might have to use mirrors, pre-recorded video links, apologise (convincingly) for his twin’s unavoidable absence – or just get his boss drunk again. There’s lots of fun to be had here!
187. Storyline – Spy chain.
In this story, three dim-witted private detectives decide to spy on each other – for a reason you can decide. The public soon realises that whenever they see one of them the other two will follow along shortly afterwards. They might even ask ‘How are your friends today?’ Whichever detective they say this to stare
s back at them blankly. He has no idea what they’re talking about, or who these ‘friends’ might be. ‘Oh look, here’s one of them now,’ someone might say, pointing to the lamp-post where the second detective is lurking. ‘Coo-ee!’ she calls, then goes on her way. The first detective continues with whatever mission he has set himself for the day. And the second detective comes out from behind his lamp-post and sets off in hot pursuit. And then the third one comes along, pursuing the second one. Who is paying these detectives? Is it a rich person doing it for fun? Do these detectives ever work on other cases? Who or what is the detective at the front following? Or is he trying to escape from the others? There’s lots of scope here for confusion, double-crossing, double-bluffing, and endless fun.
188. Storyline – The music business.
As you’re probably aware, some musicians can be notoriously unreliable. They get drunk or drugged, injure themselves, get attacked, get into fights, have bizarre accidents, get arrested, or simply wander off. So we have a rock band about to set off on a major tour when one of its members goes missing. They’ll be fined an eye-watering amount of money if they don’t perform, but since the missing musician is a key member of the band, they have a serious problem. Can they track him down, sober/patch him up (or whatever needs doing to him) and get him onto the stage in time for the first performance? Or perhaps they could recruit someone else to replace him temporarily – preferably someone equally famous, or even more famous, so the audience won’t start a riot if he’s not there. Should they let the police or the press know that he’s missing presumed drunk / stoned / injured / kidnapped / dead? Or is it better to keep that quiet for now? What happens in your version of the story? Will they find him in time? Where was he, and what was he doing? Is he in a fit state (mentally and physically) to perform? Will they be able to go ahead with the tour, or will they have to pay the fine and bankrupt themselves? Or will something else happen? It’s your story so it’s entirely up to you. Just remember that it’s a comedy, that musicians and everything connected with the music business can be pretty unpredictable, and that anything can (and probably will) happen. Have fun!
189. Storyline – Undercover.
Here’s an idea for a humorous crime story. An undercover police officer infiltrates a criminal gang only to discover that every member of that gang is also an undercover police officer. Who is the gang’s leader? Have they actually committed any crimes, or will they commit any? Perhaps their gang becomes even more notorious than the real criminals they set out to catch in the first place. Do any criminals try to join the gang? At what stage do the members of the gang find out that the others are also police officers? What happens then?
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