Writing Comedy to Timers

During writing exercises we often recommend setting a time limit and not stop writing until it’s done.

One of the problems we can fall into when writing comedy is thinking that our ideas are not good enough and then not writing anything at all. Improv comedy is great for encouraging us to just commit to whatever is in our head. You’re live on stage and don’t have the time to sit and think about the best response. You have to commit and see where that goes. And doing this helps us build great and hilarious scenes later down the line.

We can simulate this feeling from improv by writing to timers. For example if we give ourselves 1 minutes to write at least 10 themes/ topics for later brainstorming. We don’t have much time so we have to write down anything and everything that comes to mind. We have to commit to something.

We may also find ourselves in a situation where we still have 30 seconds left but can’t think of anything, this is a great place to keep pushing and not stop writing. Sometimes we get the most interesting or unusual ideas by pushing through this and just putting whatever comes to mind on paper. So don’t stop until the timer is done. See Following Writing Exercises and Specific Amount of Ideas