What you'll see on your computer screen with ComedyWriter...

The Scratch Pad is the space where your ideas accumulate. It functions as a basic word processor. In the Scratch Pad, you can:

• type text in directly
• search for and replace words
• copy and paste text either from the Windows clipboard or from other forms in ComedyWriter
• manipulate the displayed font
• edit collected ideas

Click here to see what the Scratch Pad looks like.

In ComedyWriter the "idea" is the basic unit. It consists of a phrase or sentence with the title of one or more lists in brackets (e.g., [Place]). Generally speaking, the program will process these ideas by inserting random selections from these lists in place of the bracketed titles. Consider this example: What if [Famous Person] had been a(n) [Occupation]?

The program came up with, "What if Cinderella had been a(n) TV weather forecaster?" (Pumpkin front moving in around midnight tonight; 10% chance of glass shoe in the morning.) In searching the Famous Person list, ComedyWriter selected an entry which read, "[Character]." Since this is obviously another bracketed list, ComedyWriter in turn opened the Character list and randomly chose "Cinderella." By embedding lists within lists, where appropriate, the power of substitution is multiplied many times over.

Clicking on Open will take you to the proper Idea Form where you can substitute list entries for the bracketed list. Click here to see the Idea Form.

You can see that the bracketed list titles in the original idea are replaced with boxes on the Idea Form. The titles now appear above the boxes. Clicking on the Random button will cause the list box or boxes to fill with new random entries from the appropriate list(s). Directly under each list box is a check box labeled "Locked." You can alternately check and un-check this box using the mouse, or space bar if it is in focus. When the box is checked, the current entry is "locked" and an entry will not be substituted in the box when Random is selected.

Each Idea Form contains an empty text box in the bottom left corner titled, "Your Response." This is a space to type your reaction to the idea in its fleshed out state, or any notes you wish to make. Whenever the Copy button is clicked on an Idea Form, the entire idea will be copied to the Scratch Pad, followed by your response. In this way you can continually build up material for later refinement. On forms with list boxes, the list boxes will fill with a background color after a successfull Copy. On other forms a message box will momentarily pop up.

Where a Help button would normally appear, each Idea Form contains a button labeled Advice. This calls up a page which repeats the idea in generic form and offers specific suggestions to fulfill its comic potential. You can access the Help Index form from the Advice page.

The Idea Build form allows you to create your own ideas for manipulation on a special Idea Form. Build is perhaps the most powerful form in ComedyWriter, for it gives you free rein to experiment with ideas unforeseen by the author. One suggestion for using this form is to generalize a title or expression. That is, take an existing phrase and turn one or more words into list titles instead of the specific words. For example, think of a movie title -- how about "Beverly Hills Cop?" Build this as "Beverly Hills [Occupation]" and see what you come up with (Beverly Hills Anthropologist). You can see that the possibilities are nearly inexhaustible. Click here for an example.

One of the most important features of ComedyWriter is the database of lists. These extensively researched lists contain the raw material for comic embellishment--excerpts from daily life, history, popular culture, etc. Listen to any comedy routine and you'll hear frequent references to our shared knowledge. These references set a baseline which we can then twist or rearrange to create humor. Here is the screen which allows you to browse through the "lists". Click here to see the Browser List

If you have a word or phrase already in mind, you can quickly search the lists for instances of your target phrase. Click here to see the Word Search screen.

The Scene form provides an easy method to build a setting using three elements which make up a scene: character, location, and environment. This is accomplished using a preset sentence to be filled in. Click here to see the Scene Maker screen.

These are just a few of the many screens within ComedyWriter to help you be funny. Others include:

The Idea index screen: Your gateway to the preset "ideas"
The Idea Build screen: Create and store your own new ideas
The Partner Form: Get inputs from the brain of ComedyWriter itself.
The Goofy Graph: Plot relationships between illogical elements.
On-line Help and Advice: Expert help - just a mouse click away.
Sample ComedyWriter files.
Printed Manual: Thorough explanations and comedy writing examples.