It's fun to learn how to
write comedy.

Nate Fridson (NF) knows how to write comedy. He was kind enough to spend some time with me and let me know how comedy writers such as himself find their material, test it out, and have fun with their craft.

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Having seen Nate perform, I am well aware of his ability to combine humor, memories, conflict, and more to further the audience’s love of his comedic repertoire. This interview proves that writers of all genres can find inspiration in the same themes and learn how to write comedy that is special and enjoyable for them. We all just have to be a bit more observant in order to note all the intricacies that make life grand and writing extremely worthwhile. In this way, we can all find the humor that exists in writing and begin to understand on an even greater level that knowing how to write comedy is something that takes time, patience, and practice, much like anything else that you desire to know more about.

How long have you wanted to be a comedian?

NF: “Liking stand up comedy is one of the earliest memories I have. I have early memories of watching stand up comedy on TV and always being fascinated by it. I knew too early on [how much I liked comedy] for how late I started on it. I didn’t start until I was 21. My first show was at 21. I should have started earlier.”

Where do you get your inspiration?

NF: “I have no idea. I just always thought comedy was an incredible form of expression and I was funny early on in my life. I just thought it was great.”

Nate hits on a great point here. You don’t necessarily have to know where you get your inspiration. It might come solely from within you, or it may come in the form of subconscious activities that constantly race through your brain. As long as you know you love what you do and you think it’s “great,” as Nate says, that should be all that matters in making your writing dream a reality.

Did anyone ever tell you that you should be a comedian? To whom do you owe your success?

NF: “Plenty of people told me I should be a comedian. Friends of mine told me. I actually took a communications class in college and the whole class had to write reviews of everyone’s speeches. On one of mine, someone said I should do stand up. So, I’m sure there are more people than I know [who told me to do comedy]. Of course, my family told me. Also, my fellow comedians who have encouraged me and whom I have talked to many times.” Nate also says that he owes his success to “anyone I have ever written a joke about.”

How do you test your jokes?

NF: “Sometimes if I’m talking to a friend, but pretty much I only test jokes off of other comedian friends. If I’m talking to someone and we’re kind of bouncing ideas off of each other, jokes kind of happen organically, but mostly I just go on stage and do them. The trick is not letting the audience know you care, or just diving under the bus for the audience. Just kind of showing them that you think that joke is stupid too. It does upset me [if they don’t like a joke], but I try not to get really rattled by it. It’s upsetting, but it’s a natural part of the process. It is exciting; it’s what keeps it interesting. There is fun in anxiety.”

At this point, when I heard Nate say the word ‘anxiety,’ I immediately thought of how anxious I feel when I go to get my blood drawn. The entire experience scares me, but as soon as it’s over, I’m fine. It’s as if I should never have been nervous about it at all. Fortunately, having a comedian with me at the moment provided a perfect start for a comedic connection. Nate went on to say that, “Comedy is like getting your blood drawn. It’s a personal thing. It can be extremely painful. Getting blood drawn in the greater scheme of things does more good than my writing a joke about an argument I had with my girlfriend. Ultimately, a pint of blood can save somebody, but I don’t know what the other [joke about my girlfriend and the fight] does for the greater good.”

That’s what comedy, and good writing in general, is all about, right? Learning what works and what doesn’t. Taking criticisms and compliments and capitalizing on or diminishing the value of certain topics so that the very most can be taken out of the context of the written or oral communication being presented. The metaphorical connections that can be made between different events and ideas also lend themselves well to the writing of good, and often ironic, humor.

What is the best part about being a comedy writer?

NF: “You definitely have to work at it. I can’t speak for everybody, but I have to work at it. My favorite part is coming up with a new idea and slowly smoothing it out until it’s the thing that works. Until there are no extra words, until it has the right rhythm to it, so I can get it down and learn how to do it. I have a tendency to write a joke and it’s usually very wordy. Most comics probably feel this way. If a joke is too wordy, it doesn’t get as big a laugh as it could. It doesn’t hit as hard, and it kind of disrupts the flow of the set.”

The idea that Nate brings up about being brief and succinct in his comedy writing can be fine tuned for any genre of writing. Getting to the point and avoiding a vast amount of unnecessary words can be extremely influential in terms of your readership and how your readers feel about your writing.

What tips can you offer aspiring comedians?

NF: “Write as much as possible. Get into good habits of writing a lot, every day. Try to write every day. Included in that is re-writing. Know that it’s okay to not do something even if you’re in love with it. Get on stage as much as possible. Don’t turn anything down. It’s just good experience to get on stage, and an awful set-up for a show is a fun story for later. You’ll always have that. Another tip is to try not to be terrible to other comedians or people you meet doing comedy unless it’s a last resort. This is meant for when you see people in general, and not necessarily while you’re on stage. Different people develop differently and there’s no reason to be mean to others. They might get better, first of all. And if they’re really bad, comedy has a way of being self-policing.”

Even though these tips are meant for aspiring comedians, all writers can gain from these words of wisdom.

Writing a lot, and scheduling time to write, is important for all aspiring and current writers. Re-writing is a highly important component of the writing process as well. The idea of knowing it’s okay to not perform a joke just because you’re in love with it is a priceless concept. All writers must realize that just because a line or paragraph or chapter seems perfect doesn’t mean it’s perfect for the poem, story, or other piece of writing you are doing. Save it for later. It will most likely come in handy down the line, even if the moment is not right for it right then and there.

Nate’s tips for aspiring comedians continued when he said that, “Plagiarism doesn’t work in comedy either. Plenty of people steal, but you can’t actually copyright any material until it’s recorded. I try to be very conscious, and usually when I write a joke, if a joke seems to me…if it reminds me of somebody in style, in subject, I’ll call a friend of mine who knows a lot of comedy and ask, ‘Does anyone already do something like this?’”

What comedy legends have you had the opportunity to meet?

NF: “I met Greg Giraldo. He passed away in 2010, but I had seen him perform at the Comedy Castle in Royal Oak, Michigan and he was fantastic. He’s a comedian I really admired. I still really admire his work. His work lasts and his material is fantastic.

“I also met Gilbert Gottfried. Somebody said that the whole thing with him is that whenever you have the urge to do something like that, to go nuts, to write jokes like that [being obscene and such], just think of second show Friday. Think of doing the late show Friday at some awful comedy club in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of yokels yelling at you.

“Dave Coulier was very nice. I’ve actually worked with him a couple times, Once in Louisiana and once in Ohio.

“I don’t really follow the structure of any of these comics, per se. Of those three comedians, the comedy [I write] is most like Greg GIraldo’s. I don’t think I’m really very much like him, though. He was a really great, great writer, and he had a really good mind.”

NF: “Two great pieces of advice: one is to not worry about having a message or saying anything, but just to be funny. I got that advice from guys around the Detroit scene who had been doing comedy. It was in my first year, I think. They gave me that advice, and it was good because most people who get into comedy…maybe not most, but a lot of people who get into comedy admire certain comedians. If you like comedians like say Pryor, Carlin, Chris Rock, or Doug Stanhope, these are guys who have subjects. They are social commentators. They have things to say about life. When you’re a year in, you don’t know if you’re funny yet. It’s better to just be funny and write good jokes. Not even write good jokes yet. Just try to convey you’re funny to the audience.

“Another good piece of advice: a guy told me after I’d been working for a few years that you should never write a joke where you literally fall down on stage. Because if it’s hilarious, you have to do it every night, and it’ll kill you. Be careful what you’re doing up there. You don’t want to get stuck relying on something.

“People should do open mikes as well. That’s where you get your start. My first show was actually a contest. It was called Last Spartan Standing at Michigan State University. I did okay. Most people do really poorly. I obviously had a lot to learn. It was a great experience and I was a different person as soon as I was done with my set. I have a vague recollection of what the set was actually like. Even watching the rest of the show, I felt different.”

Which pieces of advice did you find the least helpful?

NF: “I can’t think of any specific advice as much as I can think of, you know, seeing comics who were further along than I was with the wrong attitudes towards comedy. It’s not so much actually the advice they gave me as seeing someone acting in a certain way, not willing to do certain shows, having to be convinced to do certain things. You have to be very open to a lot of different things to do comedy. A sense of entitlement is a really dangerous thing to one’s development as a comic. To think you’ve arrived and you don’t have to do certain shows anymore and stuff like that. These ideas do more harm than good.”

What do you think of Saturday Night Live in terms of comedy writing?

NF: “I don’t love every minute of every show, but I think there’s a lot to enjoy. It’s a funny thing with SNL. No matter what year it is, people end up saying that it was better a few years ago. At some point, it has to have been good.”

The same can really be said about any type of writing. If you’ve ever loved something someone has written, and then you eagerly await the next piece of writing he/she does, you might be disappointed if it isn’t up to the same caliber as the first piece you read. Living in the moment and writing what applies to you and makes you happy is all you can do to make writing enjoyable and relaxing, rather than a bothersome and unappreciated activity.

What types of questions have people asked you in the past about your comedy?

NF: “Just a bunch of drunks asking if the things I say are true. ‘Are you really Jewish?’ ‘Do you really have a girlfriend?’ Then it’s pretty much, ‘do you want to do a shot?’ If the show was really good, they want it to continue. They want to keep hanging out, which is nice, if you like to drink and they’re offering free drinks.”

If you could ask your comedic inspirations any question(s), what question(s) would you ask and why?

NF: “I would ask, ‘How do I do this?’ You can take a comedy class, but there’s no way to learn how to do comedy. They would have told me to just do comedy. Get on stage and do it. That’s a shared experience.

“I would ask how many times you do a joke before you throw it out. I was always curious to know. You write something, and especially if the subject matter or certain words appeal to you, even if it’s just not working, you’ll stick with it. You never really throw it out. Cannibalize your own material, absolutely.”

Who haven't you met whom you would love to have the opportunity to meet and/or work with?

NF: “Oh gosh, there are so many people. Chris Rock. I like him a lot. Louis C.K. Bill Burr – I highly recommend his stuff. He is fantastic. The funniest he’s ever been, which is saying a lot. He’s got quite the career so far. There are hundreds of comedians I would love to work with. I hope hundreds. Maybe not. Patrice O’Neal is really funny. Patton Oswalt is great. Maria Bamford. I’ve never worked with her. I’ve seen her. She’s really, really funny.”

Do you enjoy writing figuratively (metaphors, etc.) or literally?

NF: “Not all of my jokes are complete accounts of something that happened, but most of them are inspired by events that happened. A couple of jokes are completely false. They’re just silly things, the ones that are completely false. I just thought they were funny in the moment. Mostly it’s something that happens or I notice something and then it involves an exaggeration of some sort, which I think is fairly common.

“Keep a journal. I don’t sleep all that well, so I do a lot of writing at night, actually. I know I have a friend who lives in New York now, a fantastic comedian named Adam Sokol. He is a really, really great writer, and he once wrote a joke that he came up with based on a dream, and it worked. You figure you have the dream logic, so jokes require a twist on what you expect. If you’re writing a joke in accordance with dream logic, taking all that into account, it shouldn’t be funny in real life. But sometimes they are. That’s applying science and a formula to stand up, which is not really practical.”

What TV shows and/or movies/books do you enjoy watching/reading?

NF: “I really love to read. I think it’s important for writers of any sort to read often and to read lots of different types of authors. I try to keep a steady diet of fiction and nonfiction. It’s important to read. I’m reading a book on the history of basketball right now. Next in line I have a number of books, including a collection of Raymond Carver stories.

“I’m also a pretty avid sports fan. I watch a lot of the Detroit teams. It’s pretty sick how much I follow sports. I really like Ghostbusters too, in terms of movies.”

If you could describe your brand of comedy in just one word, what would it be?

NF: “That’s really tough. Short. I’ve been told that I’m very sarcastic. Funny. I wish there was someone I could hand this off to in order to answer this question.”

What else can you share about comedy and writing?

NF: “I do enjoy talking to the crowd quite a bit. I prefer it to not be a heckling situation. In fact, there’s a video on Facebook of me yelling at a heckler, and it’s very mean. I was very mean to the heckler, but he was a guy at an open mike night, and he was going to go up and do comedy, but he was heckling me. Talking to the crowd and getting into it with an audience member is a high risk/high reward type thing. If it goes well, it’s impressive to the crowd. If it bombs, you lose a lot of credibility.

“Another thing is that doing improv well is very, very difficult. It’s tough. Just like improvisers can automatically slip into stand up, vice versa is true too. It takes a lot of work. I don’t think I’m that fantastic of an actor.”

Nate took improv classes in high school at the Second City, and he plays the gamut of clubs from Michigan to Ohio to Windsor and more. Going to comedy schools or taking comedy writing courses is important for people to grow as comedians, and even to help writers of comedy find more devotion to their craft.

He was a semi-finalist in the New York Comedy Contest and he has performed at the Detroit International Comedy Festival. You can find some of his stand up comedy clips online. He is on his way to becoming a seasoned and sought after comedian whom we should keep our eyes on to say we knew (or had at least heard of) him when. His depiction of comedy writing and what it takes to make it great is extremely enlightening to those who enjoy writing in a wide variety of genres. His take on humor, creativity, and inspiration make him a thoroughly credible source for those who appreciate good writing and the comedic art form.

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