So last weekend I spent in a theater at one of the VFS buildings doing a comedy writing seminar with John Vorhaus. This is the guy who wrote The Comic Toolbox or, as the person who introduced him marvelously spoonerized, Atomic Coolbox.

I got in free via VFS, but if this guy comes to your town, I have to say he's worth the money (really, I have to say it, it's part of the deal). Very tactically dense, in a way my classes haven't been so far. They're ramping up from sort of touchy-feely "get in touch with your creative spirit" stuff like the incredibly annoying Natalie Goldberg (Yes, we get it already, you're a buddhist. Like Steven Seagal.)

Don't get me wrong, they're ramping up quickly to some pretty intense stuff, but right now the big "here's stuff you can use" came from Vorhaus and he did a great job of it. I can be funny sometimes, but it's always been a hit or miss kind of thing, and I couldn't say exactly why it worked or didn't work. I came out of it with a pretty good sense of what makes a character comic, and how to start with whatever part of the overall equation is nailed down, like a character type or a situation or theme, and work backward from that to come up with other things that will maximize the humor of that thing. Very useful stuff.

I also learned something very useful about pitching (by screwing it up and missing the target) that I'll have to talk about later.