How to Build Your Comedy Writing Network
A post about meeting other writers
Before we dive in… I’m co-teaching a humor writing Zoom workshop with The Onion’s founding editor, Scott Dikkers: “Comedy for All: 6 Ways to Make Your Writing Funnier.”
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Building relationships with other writers makes it easier to get more feedback and find more writing opportunities. It also makes your journey more enjoyable.
Sorry to use the robotic LinkedIn speak “build your network,” but it does get across the idea of “meeting people in your writing niche and adding them to your circle.”
But it’s not just about building the network, it’s about meeting the right writers and creating relationships with them.
Before we talk about specific ways to do this, let’s talk about some helpful mindsets.
Principles for meeting and connecting with writers
1. Actually spend time and effort meeting other writers
Building a great circle of writing friends doesn’t happen automatically. Or quickly. Well, if you live in Brooklyn, and you’re super gregarious, and you know a ton of comedians and writers already, and you do stunning work that’s getting published all over the place, then, sure, you’ll probably meet a lot of new writers automatically, in the course of living your life. You’ll probably get introduced to a bunch of great writers at parties and events and in random DMs. But for the 99% of us who don’t fit that description, we have to be proactive.
That means going through the not entirely natural motions of reaching out to people, introducing ourselves, following up, and forging relationships. This is real work. I don’t mean that in the sense of, “ugh, it’s so hard, it’s like shoveling snow in a blizzard.” Meeting other writers can be pretty fun, but the point is it takes consistent effort over time, just like the craft of writing itself.
If you’re, say, well past your college days and settled into the grind of a noncreative job, this can feel a bit alien. Befriending other writers can lead to various fears and anxieties, like “Will this person like me? Will they like my work? Will they want to be my friend and talk shop? What if they think I suck?” But I’d encourage you to simply put aside any fears of looking like a dweeb.
Getting occasionally ignored or even “snubbed” is more of an evolutionary-driven fear than an actual cost. If someone doesn’t answer your email, it doesn’t matter. You’re not worse off than before, and 90% of the time it’s because they’re too scattered and busy, not because they hate your guts.
The bottom line is not merely to be “open to meeting people”—but to be actively work on meeting people.
2. Be generous and cool to your writing friends.
Being generous and cool to your writing friends is the way. Yes, it will make them want to be generous and cool to you, but it’s also a more satisfying and human way to be.
To me, this means being generous with your time and your feedback, facilitating introductions that could help them (i.e. helping them network), sending paid work their way when you can, being a good listener who cares about their work, wanting to see them succeed, and generally being helpful in whatever ways you reasonably can.
For example, if a buddy asks for my feedback on something, I almost always say ‘yes.’ Or perhaps I say, “I’m overloaded right now, but give me a couple weeks. It’s in my queue.”
By the way, this doesn’t mean, “have zero boundaries.” It also doesn't mean “say ‘yes’ to every random stranger who shows up in your inbox.” It just means: act like a generous and cool professional to your friends and those you want to create long-term relationships with.
3. Take a positive sum view of your art.
The zero-sum attitude is toxic and destructive to anyone who makes anything, whether it’s art, business, comedy, or whatever.
It’s the view that all resources and successes are finite and that, therefore, any victory of someone else’s is necessarily one less victory of yours (or mine). According to the zero-summers, we’re all out here fighting and dying for a meager slice of a pie that can’t grow. This attitude sucks. It disempowers you. Lots and lots of people live and work with zero-sum thinking, even if they wouldn’t explicitly describe it that way.
The opposite view is positive-sum: our opportunities and successes are not fixed. We can all build things, grow, and succeed in our own way.
You’ll find some people who are just very positive-sum or very zero-sum, and everything in between, and this attitude can change within a person depending on the context.
We can side-step the big philosophical debate that arises here, but I’ll point out some pretty clearly true facts: Walking around with a zero-sum view of your creative life makes you more susceptible to envy and resentment towards other writers. And aligning yourself with zero-sum people—sorry to reduce them to a meager label—makes you more susceptible to the envy and resentment of others.
Zero-sum thinking especially makes it harder for you to connect with other writers and create real friendships based on genuine affection, respect, and a desire to see them succeed. You’re always worried that they’re about to steal a slice of your pie. It’s not a fun or productive way to live.
In short, be positive-sum, and try your best to surround yourself with other people who swerve that way.
4. Be open-minded and flexible about your writing relationships.
It’s hard to know how any one relationship or friendship with another writer will evolve. Maybe you’ll trade draft feedback that makes the difference between being published or not. Maybe you’ll co-write something that’s super creative that you would have never come up with on your own. Maybe your friend will facilitate an introduction to a literary agent or some other writer you’ve always wanted to meet. Maybe you’ll launch a podcast together. Or maybe none of those things will happen.
It’s helpful to keep your expectations low and your mind open about how any given relationship might evolve. You never know.
5. You can meet other writers in person and on the internet. Do both.
I’ve met cool, interesting writers both in person and online. It’s best to do both.
Practices to meet other writers
Depending on your writing niche, some of these practices will do better for you than others. If you’re very early in your journey, try as many of these as possible, then hone in on the ones that work better for you.
