I know this is going to sound very self-serving, and I apologize for it, but if you can write comedy, you can pretty much write anything, because it's the hardest. It's the most technically demanding, the most precisely evaluated form of writing. People know if it works or not. There's a big button marked 'fail,' and that's when nobody laughs.
Interpretation
Writing comedy requires a high level of skill and can be applied to various forms of writing.
In this quote, Steven Moffat emphasizes the challenging nature of writing comedy, asserting that if one can successfully craft humor, they possess the skills necessary to excel in any writing discipline. The precision required for comedy, where the immediate feedback of laughter determines success or failure, makes it a uniquely demanding craft that informs and enhances broader writing abilities.
In practice
Use this quote during a workshop on writing to emphasize the skills required for humor.
Demons run when a good man goes to war. Night will fall and drown the sun when a good man goes to war. Friendship dies and true love lies. Night will fall and the dark will rise when a good man goes to war. Demons run but count the cost; the battle's won but the child is lost.
It's a funny thing about stories. It doesn't feel like you make them up, more like you find them. You type and type and you know you haven't got it yet, because somewhere out there, there's that perfect thing -- the unexpected ending that was always going to happen. That place you've always been heading for, but never expected to go.
An awful lot of storytelling isn't really about making people understand - it's about making people care.
I don't want to think that the stories are finite; I want to feel that they can go on forever.
I'll be a story in your head. But that's OK. We're all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh? Because it was, you know; it was the best.
The trouble with a series as it gets older is it can feel like a tradition, and tradition is the enemy of suspense, and it's the enemy of comedy. It's the enemy of everything, really. So you have to shake it up.
The artist invites the spectator to take a journey within the realm of the canvas... Without taking the journey, the spectator has really missed the essential experience of the picture.
I often use nameless places in my work as a way of allowing the readers to create more of the novel and to make it potentially about their experiences, what they know, a city that they have perhaps seen on television.
Writers are lucky. Whatever the mood, no matter the longing, the writer can use his words to connect himself to any world he wishes to visit.
Every artist will one day face the moment when he or she is doing what he or she does after the style has passed and the art-world heat-seeking machine has moved on.
I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.
I'm attracted to images that come from a personal exploration of a subject matter. When they have a personal stamp to them, then I think it becomes identifiable.
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