Jokes: Set-Up vs. Inherent

In the past, I have told people to not take the easy joke. While I still agree with that, I had only scratched the surface of what I meant. The real idea is that there are two basic approaches to comedy: setting up a joke, and making a joke from a situation.

The set-up is what I called the easy joke. It is easy to create and it is easy to see coming. The beauty of set-ups is that whatever joke you come up with, you can set-up a situation where you can tell it. The problem with the set-up is that it is very obvious because the characters would never say the things they are saying unless they are setting us up for a specific joke.

Inherent jokes are far more natural, though potentially limited. Have you ever watched a bad movie and made jokes about it with your friends? That's inherent comedy. It naturally comes from a given situation. The difficulty of these jokes is that you have to find and uncover them. But because they are more natural, they will be funnier.

In terms of writing, it is easy to lose the distinction between a set-up and an inherent joke. When you write, you have to create stories and situations. If you are writing humor, you will also have to write jokes. So if you are creating a situation and you know jokes are coming, aren't all of the jokes going to be set-ups?

Not quite. The key word to the equation is 'natural'. Characters, even in a comedy, are defined. There are things they say and things they don't. There are realistic situations and there are absurd ones. If you are creating realistic situations, and if you have natural dialogue, then you are not setting up jokes. Some people are just funny and they say funny things. They make a witty comment or give sarcastic remarks. You can't really set up the situation for these comments the way you set up a man walking into a bar.

My personal belief is that we shouldn't be a little funny. We should have funny things happening all the time. In regard to set-ups and inherent jokes specifically, I like this format (assuming a 4-panel comic strip): set-up situation, joke based on set-up, continue story, inherent joke. Essentially, I'm putting two joke in one comic. You could also see it as getting more mileage from a single premise.

Regardless of what you call it, the point is that I am keeping the audience laughing and I am keeping them guessing. Comedy is all about the unexpected, so whether you choose4 to do a set-up or an inherent joke, make sure you spice it up.