Writing the Comedy Blockbuster: the Inappropriate Goal by Keith Giglio (review)

One might argue that the last thing the world needs is another book on writing, yet screenwriters keep reading because you never know where that next wisp of insight and inspiration might be found. Writer-producer Keith Giglio has just published a book that makes the effort worthwhile, a guide that offers a fresh approach to writing film comedy, titled Writing the Comedy Blockbuster: The Inappropriate Goal.

The book opens with a foreword meant to encourage and inspire, while also hinting at the tremendous hurdles that all screenwriters face. A hypothetical scenario illustrates how a "high concept/low budget" comedy script might quickly result in a big sale, and a personal anecdote recounts how the author's career was just as quickly threatened when at one point his work was labeled "too soft." The message is clear: in a business where it is incredibly difficult for writers to succeed, "it's less difficult to sell an original comedy" (xviii). Or, Giglio writes, in the playful tone used throughout the book, "Tina Fey kicks Bruce Willis's box office ass" (xix).

The book is then divided into three parts, starting with a brief "How to Use This Book" chapter that suggests how people might work along with the text depending on their needs (e.g., while starting a screenplay, selling a screenplay, or using the book as a course text). This introduction is very short and the how-to instructions sparse; the chapter accomplishes little and perhaps should have been omitted.

The next chapter begins with a cautionary tale about inadvertently creating derivative work, a sin the author committed when starting out, and Giglio declares that a comedy writer always "needs to be reading funny, thinking funny, writing funny, and watching funny" (2). Making the point that a writer must know his field's genres if he hopes to create original work, Giglio launches into "A Criminally Brief History of Film Comedy." Going decade by decade, from slapstick silent films to the latest wave of female-driven comedies, Giglio identifies important conventions, lists representative films that the reader should screen, names key writers and directors, and sometimes provides a brief historical context for the era. Then he segues to a section titled "The Subgenres of Comedy," which lists what most consider to be the traditional comedic genres of film fiction, from farce to musical comedy. The descriptions in this chapter are an odd mix of fully detailed and barely there, but somehow that works— they are all informative and entertaining, and the author's obvious love of film is infectious and motivating.

In the next chapter, Giglio offers his recipe for comedy blockbusters, naming three primary ingredients: inappropriate goal, inappropriate behavior, and inappropriate dialogue. Focusing on the first element, which rated subtitle status on the book's cover, the author states, "The inappropriate goal is the most important event/ action in your story. Everything will emerge from the goal—the logline, characters, plot devices, and resolution" (29). He explains the concept and provides examples that show how a main character's poor decisions can spawn comedic predicaments powerful enough to drive a story. Then, in the same chapter, he segues to the subject of creating loglines. This might seem a strange shift but is actually wise, given that both tasks—creating a story engine and defining a story's essence (with elevator-pitch brevity)—should be linked. And as Giglio knows, the best time to decide these things is early in the writing process, not after a meandering first draft has been completed.

If I have a complaint about this section, it is that although inappropriate goals and behavior are amply explained and illustrated, little attempt is made to follow through on explaining how one writes inappropriate dialogue—an important subject due further exploration.

In part 2 of the book, the author switches gears to focus on character development. He begins by illustrating how "[c]omedy is inherently the fool's journey" (47), giving examples of how characters...