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✍️screenwriting ii review

Four comic premises

Written by the Fiveable Content Team • Last updated September 2025
Written by the Fiveable Content Team • Last updated September 2025

Definition

The four comic premises are foundational ideas that drive comedic narratives, serving as the basis for humor in storytelling. These premises provide a framework for creating conflict and character dynamics that can lead to funny situations, often utilizing exaggeration, absurdity, or misunderstandings to elicit laughter. Each premise offers a unique way to construct jokes and scenes, highlighting the absurdities of life through the lens of comedy.

5 Must Know Facts For Your Next Test

  1. The first comic premise involves the juxtaposition of opposites, creating humor through conflict between contrasting characters or situations.
  2. The second comic premise focuses on the absurdity of everyday life, taking mundane experiences and amplifying their ridiculous aspects.
  3. The third comic premise relies on misunderstandings and miscommunications among characters, leading to comedic situations and escalating conflicts.
  4. The fourth comic premise plays with social norms and expectations, subverting them to reveal humorous truths about society and human behavior.
  5. These premises can be combined or adapted in various ways to create unique comedic stories, allowing writers to explore different styles and themes in humor.

Review Questions

  • How can understanding the four comic premises enhance your ability to write engaging comedic narratives?
    • Understanding the four comic premises allows writers to create structured yet flexible frameworks for their comedic narratives. By knowing how each premise functions, writers can develop characters and conflicts that resonate with audiences. This insight helps in crafting jokes and scenarios that naturally evolve from these premises, making the humor feel organic rather than forced.
  • Evaluate how the use of misunderstandings as a comic premise impacts character development in a screenplay.
    • Using misunderstandings as a comic premise not only drives humor but also deepens character development by revealing their flaws, desires, and motivations. Characters reacting to these misunderstandings often showcase their personalities in exaggerated ways, which adds layers to their relationships. This dynamic creates opportunities for growth as characters navigate through their blunders, ultimately learning from their mistakes.
  • Create an original comedic scenario using the juxtaposition of opposites as a central premise and analyze its effectiveness.
    • Imagine a scenario where a meticulous accountant is paired with a free-spirited artist on a project. The accountant’s obsession with order clashes hilariously with the artist’s chaotic creativity. This setup effectively highlights the comedy inherent in their differences, as each character's approach leads to absurd results. Through their interactions, audiences can enjoy the humor found in conflict while also rooting for them to find common ground. This scenario exemplifies how juxtaposing opposites can reveal comedic gold by exploring human behavior's quirks.