Writing for Vaudeville Part 8

III. HOW TO BEGIN TO WRITE

As a monologue is a collection of carefully selected and smoothly blended points or gags, with a suitable introduction to the routine [1]--each point and gag being a complete, separate ent.i.ty, and the introduction being as truly distinct--the monologue writer, unlike the playlet writer, may begin to write anywhere. He may even write the last point or gag used in the routine before he writes the first. Or he may write the twelfth point before he writes either the first one or the last one. But usually, he writes his introduction first.

[1] _Routine_--the entire monologue; but more often used to suggest its arrangement and construction. A monologue with its gags and points arranged in a certain order is one routine; a different routine is used when the gags or points are arranged in a different order. Thus _routine_ means _arrangement_. The word is also used to describe the arrangement of other stage offerings--for instance, a dance: the same steps arranged in a different order make a new "dance routine."

1. The Introduction

A monologue introduction may be just one line with a point or a gag that will raise a snicker, or it may be a long introduction that stamps the character as a "character," and causes amus.e.m.e.nt because it introduces the entire monologue theme in a bright way.

An example of the short introduction is:

"D'you know me friend Casey? He's the guy that put the sham in shamrock," then on into the first gag that stamps Casey as a sure-'nuff "character," with a giggle-point to the gag.

The very best example of the long introduction being done on the stage today is the first four paragraphs of "The German Senator."

The first line, "My dear friends and falling Citizens," stamps the monologue unquestionably as a speech. The second line, "My heart fills up with vaccination to be disabled," declares the mixed-up character of the oration and of the German Senator himself, and causes amus.e.m.e.nt. And the end of the fourth paragraph--which you will note is one long involved sentence filled with giggles--raises the first laugh.

Nat Wills says the introduction to the gag-monologue may often profitably open with a "local"--one about the town or some local happening--as a local is pretty sure to raise a giggle, and will cause the audience to think the monologist "bright" and at least start their relations off pleasantly. He says: "Work for giggles in your introduction, but don't let the audience get set--with a big laugh--until the fifth or sixth joke."

The introduction, therefore, is designed to establish the monologist with the audience as "bright," to stamp the character of the "character" delivering it--or about whom the gags are told--and to delay a big laugh until the monologist has "got" his audience.

2. The Development

The "point," you will recall, we defined as the funny observation of a pure monologue--in lay-conversation it means the laugh line of a joke; and "gag" we defined as a joke or a pun. For the sake of clearness let us confine "point" to a funny observation in a monologue, and "gag" to a joke in a connected series of stories.

It is impossible for anyone to teach you how to write a really funny point or a gag. But, if you have a well-developed sense of humor, you can, with the help of the suggestions for form given here and the examples of humor printed in the appendix, and those you will find in the funny papers and hear along the street or on the stage, teach yourself to write saleable material. All that this chapter can hope to do for you is to show you how the best monologue writes and the most successful monologists work to achieve their notable results, and thus put you in the right path to accomplish, with the least waste of time and energy, what they have done.

Therefore, let us suppose that you know what is humorous, have a well-developed sense of humor, and can produce really funny points and gags. Now, having your points and gags clearly framed in mind and ready to set down on paper, you naturally ask, How shall I arrange them? In what order shall I place them to secure the best effect for the whole monologue?

Barrett Wendell, professor of English at Harvard University, [1]

has suggested an effective mechanical aid for determining the clearest and best arrangement of sentences and paragraphs in English prose, and his plan seems especially adapted to help the monologue writer determine a perfect routine. Briefly his method may be paraphrased thus:

[1] English Composition, page 165.

Have as many cards or slips of paper as you have points or gags.

Write only one point or gag on one card or slip of paper. On the first card write "Introduction," and always keep that card first in your hand. Then take up a card and read the point or gag on it as following the introduction, the second card as the second point or gag, and so on until you have arranged your monologue in an effective routine.

Then try another arrangement. Let us say the tenth joke in the first routine reads better as the first joke. All right, place it in your new arrangement right after the introduction. Perhaps the fourteenth point or gag fits in well after the tenth gag--fine, make that fourteenth gag the second gag; and so on through your cards until you have arranged a new routine.

Your first arrangement can invariably be improved--maybe even your seventh arrangement can be made better; very good, by shuffiing the cards you may make as many arrangements as you wish and eventually arrive at the ideal routine. And by keeping a memorandum of preceding arrangements you can always turn back to the older routine--if that appears the best after all other arrangements have been tried.

But what is really the ideal arrangement of a monologue? How may you know which routine is really the best? Frankly, you cannot _know_ until it has been tried out on an audience many, many times--and has been proved a success by actual test. Arranging a routine of untried points and gags on paper is like trying to solve a cut-out puzzle with the key-piece missing. Only by actually trying out a monologue before an audience and fitting the points and gags to suit the monologist's peculiar style (indeed, this is the real work of writing a monologue and will be described later on) can you determine what really is the best routine. And even then another arrangement may "go" better in another town. Still there are a few suggestions--a very few--that can be given here to aid the beginner.

Like ocean waves, monologic laughs should come in threes and nines--proved, like most rules, by exceptions. Note the application of this rule in "The German Senator."

Study the arrangement of the points in this great monologue and you will see that each really big point is dependent on several minor points that precede it to get its own big laugh. For instance, take the following point:

And if meat goes any higher, it will be worth more than money.

Then there won't be any money.

Instead of carrying money in your pocket, you'll carry meat around.

A sirloin steak will be worth a thousand dollar bill.

When you go down to the bank to make a deposit, instead of giving the cas.h.i.+er a thousand dollar bill, you'll slip him a sirloin steak.

If you ask him for change, he'll give you a hunk of bologny.

The first line blends this point with the preceding one about the high cost of eggs. The second line awakens interest and prepares for the next, "Instead of carrying money in your pocket, you'll carry meat around," which is good for a grin. The next line states the premise necessary for the first point-ending "--you'll slip him a sirloin steak," which is always good for a laugh. Then the last line, "If you ask him for change, he'll give you a hunk of bologny," tops the preceding laugh.

From this example you see what is meant by monologic laughs coming in threes and nines. The introduction of each new story--the line after the blend-line--should awaken a grin, its development cause a chuckle, and the point-line itself raise a laugh.

Each new point should top the preceding point until with the end of that particular angle or situation, should come a roar of honest laughter. Then back to the grin, the chuckle, and on to the laugh again, building up to the next big roar.

With the end of the monologue should come complete satisfaction in one great burst of laughter. This, of course, is the ideal.

3. How and Where to End

A monologue should run anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes. The monologist can vary his playing time at will by leaving out points and gags here and there, as necessity demands, so the writer should supply at least a full fifteen minutes of material in his ma.n.u.script.

"How shall I time my ma.n.u.script?" is the puzzling problem the new writer asks himself. The answer is that it is very difficult to time a monologue exactly, because different performers work at different speeds and laughs delay the delivery and, therefore, make the monologue run longer. But here is a very rough counting scale that may be given, with the warning that it is far from exact:

For every one hundred and fifteen to one hundred and forty words count one minute for delivery. This is so inexact, depending as it does on the number of laughs and the monologist's speed of delivery, that it is like a rubber ruler. At one performance it may be too long, at another too short.

Having given a full fifteen minutes of material, filled, let us hope, with good points made up of grins, chuckles and laughs, now choose your very biggest laugh-point for the last. When you wrote the monologue and arranged it into the first routine, that biggest laugh may have been the tenth, or the ninth, or the fifteenth, but you have spotted it unerringly as the very biggest laugh you possess, so you blend it in as the final laugh of the completed monologue.

It may now be worth while thus to sum up the ideal structure:

A routine is so arranged that the introduction stamps the monologist as bright, and the character he is impersonating or telling about as a real "character." The first four points or gags are snickers and the fifth or sixth is a laugh. [1] Each point or gag blends perfectly into the ones preceding and following it. The introduction of each new story awakens a grin, its development causes a chuckle, and the point-line itself raises a laugh. The final point or gag rounds the monologue off in the biggest burst of honest laughter.

[1] It is true that some monologists strive for a laugh on the very first point, but to win a big laugh at once is very rare.

IV. BUILDING A MONOLOGUE BEFORE AN AUDIENCE

When a writer delivers the ma.n.u.script of a monologue to a monologist his work is not ended. It has just begun, because he must share with the monologist the pains of delivering the monologue before an audience. Dion Boucicault once said, "A play is not written, but rewritten." True as this is of a play, it is, if possible, even more true of a monologue.

Of course, not all beginners can afford to give this personal attention to staging a monologue, but it is advisable whenever possible. For, points that the author and the monologist himself were sure would "go big," "die," while points and gags that neither thought much of, "go big." It is for precisely this purpose of weeding out the good points and gags from the bad that even famous monologists "hide away," under other names, in very small houses for try-outs. And while the monologist is working on the stage to make the points and gags "get over," the author is working in the audience to note the effect of points and finding ways to change a phrase here and a word there to build dead points into life and laughter. Then it is that they both realize that Frank Fogarty's wise words are true: "There is only one way to tell a gag. If you can cut one word out from any of my gags I'll give you five dollars, for it's worth fifty to me. Words are costly."

Some entire points and gags will be found to be dead beyond resurrection, and even whole series of gags and points must be cast away and new and better ones subst.i.tuted to raise the golden laughs. So the monologue is changed and built performance after performance, with both the monologist and the author working as though their very lives depended on making it perfect.

Then, when it is "set" to the satisfaction of both, the monologist goes out on the road to try it out on different audiences and to write the author continually for new points and gags. It may be said with perfect truth that a monologue is never finished. Nat Wills, the Tramp Monologist, pays James Madison a weekly salary to supply him with new jokes every seventh day. So, nearly every monologist retains the author to keep him up to the minute with material, right in the forefront of the laughter-of-the-hour.

V. OTHER SINGLE TALKING ACT FORMS

The discussion of the monologue form has been exhaustive, for the pure monologue holds within itself all the elements of the other allied forms. The only difference between a pure monologue and any other kind is in the addition of entertainment features that are not connected gags and points. Therefore, to cover the field completely it is necessary only to name a few of the many different kinds of single talking acts and to describe them briefly.

The most common talking singles--all of whom buy material from vaudeville writers--are:

(a) _The Talking Magician_--who may have only a few little tricks to present, but who plays them up big because he sprinkles his work with laughter-provoking points.