On Revision
The Gratitude List #39
“For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.”
- Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
One of the only times I ever asked a question in a job interview was before I got hired to write on MasterChef.
“Why do you want a comedy writer?”
“Because we want the show to be funnier,” the showrunners replied. Should’ve seen that one coming a mile away.
But this job, like every TV writing job I’ve been fortunate enough to have, is not actually all about just throwing in jokes and calling it a day. In fact, what these jobs are mostly about is making things crystal clear for everyone involved. And I do mean everyone: crew, contestants, hosts, a rotating crop of network-and-studio types, and, most importantly, the home audience. Everyone’s got to be on the same page about what’s happening, who it’s happening to, where it’s happening, why it’s happening, and how it’s happening. We’re all already showing up to set with the same goal—to make the best possible version of a TV show that we can—and my job is to make a map showing everyone how to get to the goal.
When I first started picking up these jobs, I didn’t know that. I thought I was here because I was clever and funny. Turns out, a lot of people working in this industry are also clever and funny. And when you’re working around a lot of clever, funny people, you have to let go of your ego and let the best idea win.
I had to learn very quickly how to check my ego at the door. I found that if I carried my ego around with me on set, I would take notes too personally, or act like a know-it-all or pedant, throwing unnecessary wrenches in the workflow. After a lifetime of feeling like a precious, special boy, I discovered through TV writing how to be un-precious in order to get the job done. If someone doesn’t like the words I chose, the great news is that there are always better words out there we can choose instead. But if I want to get to the best words, I have to get the first words on the page.
If I had a dollar for every time I’d written a line of copy that one of my bosses reads, then asks “what are you trying to say here?” I’d have an extra thousand bucks in my bank account. In the office, being combative in these moments is not the move, but curiosity is, because curiosity is what lets me remember that just because a sentence makes sense in my head doesn’t mean it won’t come out clunky when said aloud.
I think having a background in standup made this part easy, because so much of our job is comics is to constantly write first drafts. Several times a week, we take all the dumb little ideas we collect in our notes, say them into microphones, and hope for the best. And as I dive back into another season of TV after a year between jobs, I am finding myself remembering something: I hate revising my jokes.
Hate probably isn’t the right word. But it’s the word I’m going with for now.
What I mean is that I have been told more than once that I should spend more time developing jokes.1 What I also mean is that, because I have a decent enough hit rate on my first draft jokes, my base tendency is to go “great, I’m getting a laugh, good enough for me!” then rest on my comedy laurels.
Resistance is the better word, actually. It’s the one Steven Pressfield uses in The War of Art, another book that I chalk right up next to Bird by Bird as among the most important books I’ve ever read on writing and the creative process.
“Like a magnetized needle floating on a surface of oil, Resistance will unfailingly point to true North—meaning that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing.
We can use this. We can use it as a compass. We can navigate by Resistance, letting it guide us to that calling or action that we must follow before all others.
Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.”
- Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
I feel resistance towards revising my jokes because I care about them so damn much. With the TV work, it’s much easier to throw a bunch of shit at the wall and see what sticks, because I can approach that writing with necessary detachment.
And now, after two weeks in Toronto, a new scene full of comics I am instant fans of, where I have been fortunate to find some small semblance of welcome and community, I want to show up as the best version of myself. And every time I have prepared for a set up here, I find myself steering towards doing jokes I love, knowing in the back of my mind that there are jokes I like that still need work. And so, in the process of accepting that my schedule doesn’t allow for me to be out doing the amount of spots I would normally try to do week-to-week, I must also accept that the kindest thing I can do for my little creative comic brain is to revise.
Every time I sit down to work, I remember how much I love to tell the best version of a joke, or to watch the best version of what I wrote come out of the mouth of someone else on TV. But the surest path to that feeling is through revision. The first draft is the most work, but it’s also not the end of the work.
Just because standup is a solo endeavor doesn’t mean that I’m still not trying to do the exact same thing I do at the office, to make the best possible thing. Just because I don’t have an array of people looking over my shoulder providing notes on my act the same way I do a script doesn’t mean they both don’t require the same process.
My first day on set, our Canadian director says something in the control room that sticks with me: “we must have precision of language.” Out of the many guiding principles I have learned he abides by in his work, this one comes up all the time. A lack of precision or specificity can lead to chaos and confusion. And if there’s one thing I am grateful for today, it is the constant reminder of the importance of precision.
When I am reminded to be precise, I find myself more easily able to think about the funniest word, the most elegant word, the most descriptive word, the simplest word, the correct word. Revision creates precision. And precision is a beautiful thing.
There’s this moment I think about a lot from one of my first classes at the Elon University School of Communications.2 Our professor, a handsome former PR guy who looked like Xerxes from 300 in a suit and tie, was talking to us about the importance of language. And right in the middle of the lesson, he slipped in this piece of wordplay: “Never use a short word when a diminutive one will do.”
And this sly motherfucker paused, and grinned, and knew that not everyone was going to get it, but that enough of us would see and appreciate his subtlety. You could barely call it a joke, but in the context of academia it was a laugh riot. That’s the power of precision, baby!
WHAT ELSE?
I’m in Toronto! I’ve got shows coming up pretty much every weekend, so check out my full show calendar here if you’re looking to see me do some spots.
Otherwise, you can find me:
chipping away at the backlog of old WRONG! episodes – I’ve got a few 2026 dates up on the show calendar now for Boise, Seattle, and San Diego, and am working on a Toronto show in March. Watch this space for more!
Not caught up on the latest from WRONG! yet? Watch our newest episode here:
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Until next time, thanks for reading, I’m glad you’re here!
Weirdly, I have been told this by the last three women I have dated, all of them either standups or comedy writers, so they must have been on to something, otherwise I wouldn’t have married one of them.
By the way, has anyone told Elon Musk that there’s a school in North Carolina bearing his name that he could probably buy if he wanted to go full “Bari Weiss University Of Austin” mode? No? Let’s keep it that way!
Great read. A timely reminder that we need to, to borrow a phrase, publish or perish. Cheers!