How Do You Choose Which Comedy Ideas to Focus On?

Loving the idea is the comedy writer’s equivalent of “sailing with the wind.”

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Alright, onto today’s Q&A…

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A reader asks about choosing among comedy ideas:

“How do you decide which humor/comedy ideas to focus on? I think we all have more ideas than writing time, so I’m wondering how you go about narrowing the list and prioritizing among your ideas.” — L.S.

This is a good question to reflect on, because there are several variables.

I prioritize like so:

First, the comedy headlines or concepts that feel most exciting to me get priority. If an idea feels so exciting that I can’t wait to write it, I trust that feeling, and I write it.

I know that fighting to write through a lukewarm idea is brutal. It can take forever. Conversely, enthusiasm for an idea often helps carry it to the finish line. Loving the idea is the comedy writer’s equivalent of “sailing with the wind.”

Second, when an idea immediately generates a lot of jokes and feels like it will be easy to write as a full draft, I give it priority. If it feels hard to actually generate jokes from the premise, I don’t necessarily kill the idea, but I rank it lower on my list.

This is subtly different from “loving the core idea.” Sometimes, I genuinely like the comedic concept, but it’s tough to figure out what to do with it. When I struggle to generate on-premise jokes, I know it will be an uphill battle—or sailing against the wind, to stick with the sailing metaphor.

Third, I pitch headlines to my writing group, and all else being equal, I give the ideas that my peers enjoy higher priority. However, if I truly love a specific idea, I don’t look for permission, I just write it.

Fourth, I give some thought to originality. How fresh is the concept? Does it feel unique and special, like “surely no one has written this idea before?” Or, is it exploring well-covered territory? I don’t let this issue be too strong a deciding factor. But as a tie-breaker, a more original concept gets more weight.

Fifth and finally, I consider whether the concept will push me. Have I written similar stuff before? Does it feel like a challenging concept? Could I learn something by writing it? Writing comedy that pushes you is underrated. Most people don’t do it.

And admittedly this runs psychically a bit counter to ideas one and two above. Those points are about writing lower friction ideas: ideas that invite energy and jokes. And this fifith point is about writing higher-friction ideas: ideas that push and challenge you.

There’s no contradiction between these points though. A comedy idea could be low friction insofar as it’s exciting, fresh, and you have lots of joke ideas. But it could be higher friction insofar as it’s doing something challenging that you’ve never attempted before.

When I pick an idea, I want to avoid bad friction (unexciting, non-generative premise) and lean into good friction (challenging and outside my comfort zone).

How do you pick your comedy ideas? Have you given it much thought? Drop a cool comment and let me know.