A comedy writing masterclass from a writer of The Simpsons and The Office

Brent Forrester, a TV writer and showrunner who has written on classic comedies like The Simpsons and The Office, joined Arc Studio's Head of Writing Micah Cratty live during Let's Write Scripts and gave a masterclass on writing comedy. Check out the edited highlights of their conversation! Brought to you by Arc Studio screenwriting software. Start writing your script for free at https://www.arcstudiopro.com/?via=You... RSVP for the next episode of Let's Write Scripts at https://www.arcstudiopro.com/events Chapters 00:00 Intro 00:27 Meet Brent Forrester 01:00 Writing great character intros 02:45 How do you develop comedy writing skills? 05:24 Adding comedy to your script 08:06 Learning story structure in comedy writing 11:50 Comedy that isn't funny on the page? 13:19 Making characters funny without losing emotional depth 14:01 How do you know when a joke is going on too long? 14:52 Creating a strong ensemble without the characters overpowering each other 19:12 Chasing after industry genre trends 21:13 Balancing humor with furthering the plot 23:04 Jokes versus situational humor 25:53 Tackling the "Why now?" question from execs 28:29 Has what is considered funny changed over Brent's career? 29:56 Brent's parting words of wisdom