Top ten words beginning sketch writers should know.
Sketch vs. Skit
Lay people may think there's no difference between the word sketch and skit but to comedians (especially sketch comedians) there's a big difference.
A skit has connotations of informal performances like at a camp, club, school, or church. The purpose of these are typically to educate or entertain and aren't usually scripted.
A sketch however, has a script, blocking, props and has typically been rehearsed, polished, and refined by the group or director.
Some of the confusion might be because both sketches and skits can be humorous but a sketch is typically more professional and its focus is to cause laughter.
Exposition, Context, Setup, Laying Pipe
“You know she won't agree to that.” Have you ever walked into a conversation halfway through and tried to pick up the pieces? Or maybe you started on a friend’s favorite tv show halfway through the season? Without some explanation it can be really hard to follow what’s going on. In sketch it’s important to quickly establish the basics. Unless you’re deliberately doing a blackout (see below.)
With a sketch you only have a few seconds to catch attention and help the audience understand who’s who and what’s going on.
A tool that can help is pretending you’re a reporter and you need to ask the famous 6 ‘W’ questions of your writing. Who, What, When, Where, Why, and hoW. Okay, “how” doesn’t start with a ‘W’ but hey it ends in one!
“Who” are your characters, what are their relationships to each other, what’s their main deal? Are they a slob? Are they super passionate about horses? Whatever the audience needs to know about who they are to understand why it’s funny that they're the ones in the sketch.
Another approach is to create characters from humorous situations. Who’s the worst type of person that would hate to be in this sketch?
For example, if the sketch is about how everyone in the family keeps throwing their stuff all over the house, a Dad who has the character trait of being a clean freak could be the perfect combination to make the sketch funnier.
“What” In the above example might be that the dad is trying to get ready for dinner. Or maybe he’s trying to clean up for an event with friends? Is it the end of the day and everyone is arriving home from school and work to get ready for dinner?
“Where” is simple in this sketch example, they’re at home. How could one convey that in the stage directions, slug lines, or dialog? A line like, “Welcome home kids, how was school?” could do the trick.
“When” can be important for increasing the tension in the sketch. Is everyone coming home 10 min before Dad’s meeting? Is it late in the day and Dad’s exhausted? Is it at 4am in the morning and Dad’s barely awake? Using when can be a powerful tool to show the passage of time or the state of the person.
“Why” is a powerful question to ask about the motivations of each character. Why is this meeting so important to Dad? Is he trying to impress? Is he trying to get a raise, get votes, ask a favor? Use why to help inform what the character’s motivations and drives are.
“How” Dad's family throws their stuff all over the house can show the motivations of the other characters. Do they throw with malice, ignorantly, playfully? “How” gets at the emotions and feelings of the characters about their world and each other. The setup of these in the first page of the sketch can be tricky, but when done right it can pay off with big laughs all through the rest of the sketch!
In joke writing the exposition is the setup of the joke. Which for topical comedy frequently sounds similar to a news headline.
Premise or game
Have you been with friends and asked “but what’s the movie ABOUT”? They might explain by referring to the premise. In a movie the premise is the concept or idea that starts the story.
In sketch comedy it’s similar. Other words that people use to talk about this concept are: unusual thing, turning point, call to action, inciting incident, bit, game, plus, twist, blow. It’s the strange or weird thing about the situation or character(s).
Premise is also used in improvisation. In improv comedy a premise based scene is when a performer begins a scene with a game or premise in mind. Premise is the opposite of an organic scene. Organic scenes are where actors find the game or unusual thing as they go along.
Comedic device or humor mechanism
Comedic devices or humor mechanisms are tools with which to craft a premise, game, or joke. Some common examples include fish out of water, parody, mapping or combination, and time travel.
Stakes, Goals, Wants, & Problems
High stakes gambling, big important stuff that could be lost. Relationships, lives, money. Stakes are important in any story. It’s what makes the audience care. It’s the WHY people are trying to do what they’re doing. What are the consequences to the characters and why does it specifically matter to them?Beat
Just like in music, comedy can use timing to great effect. The premise, game, or unusual thing usually repeats a few times. Each repetition is a beat. It comes in handy when talking about a sketch. E.g. “In beat two I think they should be riding a camel”.
Heightening
One of the goals of sketch comedy is to build momentum to get more and more unusual, absurd, emotional, and big (note: one can heighten by getting smaller, a smaller and smaller glass of water for example). Heightening is how we describe this building action. If the unusual thing is that someone is shy and worried about their date stealing their identity, the first beat could be not making eye contact, then putting a paper bag on their face, then only talking to the date via phone call, then putting on a voice scrambler.
Wherever you start the absurd behavior make sure to end at the top of the mountain by the end of your sketch. It can be helpful to write out a list of possible actions for the game and then rank them from least to most intense to be able to get the best heightening out of a piece.
Jordan Peele gave some advice about heightening “Once the audience understands the comedic game, you have to . . . heighten it past where they think the next heighten is going to be”.
In improv it’s the same except done on one’s feet.
Standups also use the principle by saving their most impactful joke for the end of their set.
Button, Blow, or Out
It’s the final thing before the end of the sketch. It’s best practice to end on a final joke or the highest example of the unusual behavior.
Many times sketches end by circling back to the beginning. A person who’s been trying to solve a problem may have made some progress but then a very similar version of the same problem starts all over again.
Some Sketch shows just flow one into the other without ending a sketch. This makes it easier as the writers don’t have to come up with an ending.
Callback
A callback is when you reference an idea or joke that was done previously. Audiences can feel particularly tickled with these if done properly. With the right spacing a reference back to it allows the audience to make connections to a previous funny experience. It’s like you’ve built an in-group joke for them in the time it takes to run the sketch or standup set.
Blackout
There’s at least two potential meanings to a blackout. One is simply a word written in the script for the tech person to turn off the lights.
The other is in reference to a quick joke played out on a stage. Blackouts are simple. They’re typically very short compared to sketches and just have one beat of one game or one joke. They typically have a reveal of one of the “W”s talked about above.