Today was the third workshop at the Funny Bone. Today Jeremy Essig talked to us about writing and writing exercises. He gave us three writing exercises; one called Free writing or Morning Papers, where one writes for a defined amount of time or space (like 10 minutes or 2 pages) and doesn't allow the pen to stop moving. It gets out a lot of subconscious thoughts that could potentially result in writers block.
The second exercise Jeremy got from a workshop he attended. It involved bubbles. That makes is sound way reputable, but once I explain, it should make sense. The main bubble contains your topic, or maybe just one part of your topic, and there are connected bubbles in which you answer the five W's (Who What When Where Why). You can also answer "How" and anything else you want, they'e your bubbles. The point of exercise is to come up with as much as you can about a certain topic. It's always important to know what you're talking about.
The third exercise reminds me of college algebra. More specifically the Pythagorean Theorem. The Pythagorean Theorem states that a2 + b2 = c2. Now typically, math is not funny, no matter what my college algebra teacher at MACC said. Instead of the letters standing for the sides of triangles, here "a" stands for one subject, the main subject of your joke. "b" stands for a second, usually unrelated (hopefully somewhat random) noun or idea. In the workshop today, Jeremy used one of my bits as an example: the bit compares being a cashier at Sam's club to playing a game of Tetris. Here, being a cashier at Sam's club is "a", and playing a game of Tetris is "b". "c" of course stands for the speed of light. I mean funny. "c" is funny. The point of this exercise is to create a comparison between two unlikely things, combinging it with the bubble exercise may help.
There was another exercise we kind of touched on, but only briefly when talking to one of the guys in the class about a bit they were working on. Basically it's Role Reversal. If you're working on a joke that involves, say, a mechanic and how they screwed something up, describe the scenario as it happened to you. Then try to retell the scenario as it happened to the mechanic. Being able to tell a joke from a different point of view can make a joke more relatable, and possibly less jarring or offensive.
The underlying theme I think in the exercises above is know what your talking about, which is something Joh Morgan talked about last week, and (I think) supports how I compare comedy to a science. That and respect the Bubble.