Developing Humour out of Everyday Situations

Vipul D Shah noted that a writer should seek out characters from among his surroundings and then develop them with one's imagination.

"The characters have to be unique as well as identifiable", he said. Comedy serials stipulate that the protagonists have a unique peculiarity, a certain style and a background, on the basis of which interrelationships and his reactions in adverse situations can be fleshed out.

In his address on developing a comedy, Shah said that the genre is yet to get its due in a developing television industry like the Indian one, accounting for the high incidence of slapstick comedy current here. and stressed on the need for imagination and a good memory to develop humorous characters in a script. One's surroundings often provide the best fodder in developing interesting character profiles, he said, and regaled the audience with snippets of his own experiences. The important points a writer has to bear in mind are-

• What the characters want out of life
• Interrelationships between characters
• How the characters react in adverse circumstances
• Characters' background/ general behaviour
• Characters' peculiar humour style that has to be developed.