Why Write Sketch Comedy?

Why not write a novel (like everyone else)? Or a screenplay, or a TV pilot, or a play, or maybe you should really do standup? Maybe you should open a restaurant.

Ok, don’t do that.

Here’s the thing: you have ideas. You’re just not exactly sure what to DO with them.

You know that some ideas want to be TV shows more than movies, other ideas want to be novels more than plays. Or, maybe you’re into improv and you’ve got characters you’d like to develop, but there’s a lot of different ways to take each character, and it’s hard to know what to focus on.

So how do you figure out what to work on?

This is a great reason to write sketch comedy.

The beauty of sketch comedy is that it teaches you how to select and develop ideas:

• Sketch is collaborative and you get more feedback more quickly.
• Sketch ideas can be easily discarded or iterated quickly.
• You can write for yourself, you can write for other people, and they can write for you.
• You can get experience writing, directing, producing, acting, and exposure to each of these areas informs the others and helps you get better at what you care about faster.

Idea selection and development is arguably the most important part of writing that most writing classes skip over, and this is really unfortunate. There’s a lot of talented people who have wasted a ton of time working on the wrong things or on the right things in the wrong way.

This is how so many people end up with half-finished novels and screenplays and dreams that never get realized and skills that never improve.

To help you avoid wasting your time – rather, to give you the best chance at being successful on your terms – this class uses a different approach.

How Is This Sketch Writing Class Different?

There are three key differences.

First, you will learn an Idea Management System.

As Linus Pauling said, “the best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas.”

Capturing, organizing, and storing ideas is a foundational skill that is crucial to success in writing of any kind. I’ll help you find a way to pull bits and pieces of gold from your everyday life, and when the time comes to write, you’ll already be sitting on a pile of treasure.

Second, we will focus on Four Comedy Frameworks:

• Story
• Joke
• Character
• Game

These frameworks are ways of discovering and amplifying what is funny and developing insight about yourself, your ideas, and the people in your life.

Sketch classes tend to focus almost exclusively on character and game because sketch is seen as deriving from improv (which focuses on character and game). In contrast, most creative writing classes focus on story. I have never seen a sketch class teach joke structure.

To me, sketch writing should be thought of as writing, not an advanced level of improv, and in writing, the key structure is story. To be fair, improv is extremely useful in discovering and developing sketches, and improv is also where most sketch performers come from, and I love improv, and improv improv improv.

That said, joke structure is of great importance because jokes require thinking deeply about topics and premises that access what’s special about you, and joke structure is elegant and simple.

Third, you’ll learn story structure better and faster with Story Puzzles.

Story Puzzles are a kind of problem set to help you learn the emotional and conceptual mathematics that exist in the DNA of all stories. You’ll be able to apply what you learn here to storytelling in any medium.

Why Learn Sketch Writing From Me?

Hi – I’m Benjamin E Taxy. My primary expertise (and obsession) is storytelling. I was a ghostwriter in LA for many years, helping other people write books and screenplays. While I was doing that, I learned how to write sketch and put up a sketch show from Jeff Michalski, founder of the Second City ETC. I learned how to write jokes and do standup from Judy Carter, best-selling author of The New Comedy Bible. Then I got hired off an improv stage by Seth McFarlane to work on Family Guy. Then 9-11 happened. Seth was supposed to be on the plane leaving Logan airport, but he overslept. That’s when I knew I needed to leave LA.

I moved to Santa Fe, kept ghostwriting, and founded Santa Fe Improv. Over time I developed a consulting practice where I train engineers in storytelling so they can bring other people on board with their ideas (read: sell tech).

In my experience, a lot of people who write professionally are very talented and have their own unique way of working that doesn’t really transfer. If you consume content where writers talk about their process, you know there are very few consistent patterns.

This is where my experience as a ghostwriter has paid dividends. My job for many years wasn’t simply to imitate someone else, it was to help them find their own voice, discover their own process, and do their best work.

That’s my goal in working with you. Not to train you to do what I do, but to help you discover how to do what YOU do.

How Will the Class Work?

The class will combine Instructional Content (i.e. lectures), very brief timed exercises (to get you past your inner critic), small group collaborative development sessions (to give you feedback quickly), and the chance to pitch and get comments from me in front of the full class. The class will be delivered over Zoom on Saturdays from 2-4pm MT. For specific dates, click the Sign Up button.

There will be 30-60 minutes of optional Homework each week, and an optional Reading List from which I will extract key content to discuss during class. Overall, you do not need to do any homework or any reading. I get that this may feel a little scary, and showing up is enough.

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