Getting Useful Feedback on Comedy Writing: Why Most Writers Do It Wrong
A piece from the Himared comedy writing collection — crafted for writers who think in punchlines.
Orla Dempsey has been running a comedy writing workshop in Dublin for six years. She is specific about what makes feedback on comedy material genuinely productive versus what wastes everyone's time.
Orla Dempsey: Writers keep asking their friends if something is funny. Friends who want to be supportive give you useless information. You need to watch a stranger read it.
Why most feedback processes fail
Social pressure corrupts comedy feedback almost completely. When a friend reads your material, their response reflects the relationship as much as the writing. Polite laughter and genuine laughter look identical in a living room setting.
- Friends avoid identifying specific weak points to protect the relationship
- Writers often read their material aloud in a way that compensates for structural problems
- Group workshops sometimes produce consensus toward safe, inoffensive edits
What actually produces useful information
Orla structures her workshops so writers submit material anonymously and observe responses before identifying themselves as the author. Watching someone read your work in silence, noting where they pause or lose interest, provides information that no verbal critique can replicate.
She also distinguishes between structural feedback and personal taste. A reader saying they did not find something funny is data about that reader. A reader identifying exactly where they stopped following the logic is data about the material.
The uncomfortable part
Good feedback on comedy writing often means sitting with information that is hard to use immediately. The revision process for a single joke can take longer than writing it originally did. That timeline surprises most writers who are new to the craft.