the comedy action, but
invent something that is germane to the plot and natural to the
situation. If you can do this you can write comedy, but until you can
get a laugh in every scene you are not writing comedy, no matter how
funny the central idea may be. As a rule the central idea furnishes
the comedy for only one scene; not for the entire play. In comedy you
must play faster, work harder, and strive constantly for the natural,
unforced laughs. And remember that the editors go to vaudeville shows,
the same as you do. They know the old sketches and the whiskered
jokes. If they wanted them they would write them themselves."

The success of a comedy composition lies fundamentally in the novelty
of its plot, or in some new and interesting phase of an old situation;
it prospers in proportion to its interest-holding qualities, its
natural logic, its probability, and the constant humor of the
individual scenes and situations. There is a wide difference between
comedy and comic pictures, and the difference lies chiefly in that
comedy depends largely for its humor on the cleverness displayed in
the construction of the plot, whereas the comic picture is usually
merely a series of funny situations arising from one basic situation,
but having little or no plot. In the "comic," the scenes are loosely
connected, while the humor of the picture depends upon the uproarious
fun in each scene. These comic pictures, usually of the slap-stick
variety, would naturally be classed as farces; but even in photoplay
it is possible to produce a better and more natural brand of farce
than that which depends for its humor upon the silly antics of
different characters in a series of loosely connected scenes, which
have no logical or consistent plot.

There is steady demand for the unusual and genuinely humorous light
comedy--by which is meant the kind of photo-comedies that approximate
the legitimate plays usually employed as vehicles by Mr. John Drew and
Mr. Cyril Maude. They may treat of society, of business life, or of
life in the home, but on account of the light, airy, and subtly
humorous way in which the situations are developed they take far
higher artistic rank than may be accorded to farce. There is also a
good demand for comedy-dramas in which there is a strict regard for
dramatic values in handling the different scenes, and in following out
the plot, which has its serious elements, but in which the
comedy-element remains comedy from f