There were all types at this workshop: a high-school drama teacher and one of his star pupils, writing and editing professionals, young actors, dramatists and aspiring writers of stand-up comedy.

And I was there, too—a freelance business writer who dabbles in fiction and desperately wishes she could inject some humour into what she writes.

Only three hours long, the workshop with its writing exercises and brief discussions could easily have been stretched to a full-day session. Pearlstein talked very fast and hopped from subject to subject, using language that degraded quickly as he gauged the comfort level of the room.

Here are just a few of his tips for better comedy writing, in any of its forms:

1. Understand comedy as cliché. Cliché is not normally thought of in writing as a good thing, but Pearlstein spoke of it in terms of characters being consistent in personality: the politician does what politicians do, the teacher does what teachers do. It’s the situation in which you place that character that adds the potential for humour. Characters need to do everything we expect them to do—to be predictable. The caveat is that you can’t draw attention to something unless you’re going to carry the idea to completion:  i.e. Giving a character socks and sandals…this tells something about the character, but it’s not necessarily funny. Don’t bring it up unless it’s going to pay off, Pearlstein warns. “Otherwise, it’s cliché, and not in a good way.”

2. Chase the melon.  Carry one idea through your whole story, “because you can’t guarantee laughs if you hit it and quit,” Pearlstein says. “If you make a situation and the emotions it elicits clear, then you can build on it to make it worse.”

That’s why the writers of Seinfeld were so brilliant, he adds. “The reason why the sitcom is still popular 21 years after the first episode aired is that the writers were willing to go further with a gag and not give up on it too fast.”  For example, three whole script pages were devoted to Kramer trying (unsuccessfully) to get his friends to sample some of the fantastic melon he was eating.

When more and more incidents are built on the same idea, it heightens the emotion. “This can be risky,” he says, “but the payoffs can be great.”

3. The same, just different. Make your characters similar in age, but give them distinctly different personality traits. The more specific you can be, Pearlstein noted, the better.

“You’re fired,” says employer.

“You can’t fire me, I have a family…” (Not specific enough.)

“You can’t fire me…I have a ferret.” (A little better.)

“You can’t fire me…I have a ferret in a wheelchair. Do you know how much physiotherapy for paraplegic ferrets cost?”

If you can be specific, he adds, nobody’s going to doubt your work is comedic. Whether they like it or not is another matter.

4. Round out your characters. To fully realize your characters, answer the following questions for each one.  a) What does the character fight about? b) How does he handle adversity? and c) What is his style of humour? And aim for drama: if it doesn’t turn out to be funny, at least you’ll be taken seriously.

5. Be over the top. Most writers try to make their dialogue sound like real life, but Pearlstein says that’s not the goal. “Successful writers pack punches after punches. Drama is often considered two conscious wills in opposition. We’re conscious and aware of how we feel and what we’re doing.”

6. Does it hurt or doesn’t it? In comedy, pain doesn’t really hurt the character. In tragedy, it does. Personality flaws get in the character’s way. Another example:  Drunk boy acts foolishly and vomits on his mother’s shoes. Mom rolls her eyes and says, “I wish you’d never been born.”

“That’s comedy,” Pearlstein explains. “But a sober boy whose mother stares him straight in the eyes and says, ‘I wish you’d never been born,’ –that’s tragedy.” The difference is the clarity of two people at odds.

7. A hero needs a handicap. The antagonist should always be stronger than the hero. The hero creates a problem and now he needs to fix it, despite his encumbrances. Who’s got all the power and who’s got none?

8. Communicate without words. This is one of the hardest things to do, but actions speak louder. (Think of the first five minutes of the Pixar movie “Up,” which beautifully communicates the entire history of the main character and sets up the premise of the next hour and a half with no dialogue at all.)

And the most important thing Pearlstein said?

9. Don’t take criticism personally.  The aim is to make people care about your characters. “Don’t think it’s about you,” Pearlstein says, “it’s about this page in front of you. If the page doesn’t work, throw it away and start again. It’s never personal.”

Case in point: A few years ago, when my oldest child was 10, she presented me with one of her school essays. I dried my hands, wet from washing dishes, and grabbed a red pen, thinking she wanted me to correct her mistakes. So I scanned the page from top to bottom, marking as I went. Then I handed it back to her, with barely a word. When her face fell, I realized I’d blown it.

As a mom, I had broken the golden rule of parenthood. My daughter didn’t want me to correct her grammar—she just wanted me to say it was good, to validate her ideas. I did say I was sorry, but the damage was done. She never showed me another essay.

Recently, it was my turn to present some of my own childhood work to strangers, but thankfully, they didn’t get out their red pens.

The Professional Writers Association of Canada (PWAC Moncton Chapter) participated in the Frye festival on April 21 by hosting an open mic event called “Reveille!” at the Moncton Press Club.

This free event encouraged the public to present their angst-ridden childhood poetry and prose to an audience ready for some light-hearted giggles. Invited guest authors Beth Powning, Jacob Berkowitz, Christiane Duchesne, and folklorist Kay Stone showed up to prime the crowd with their youthful pieces.

I managed to read a short excerpt from a tragic spy novel I left unfinished at age 14. It was an embarrassing ride down memory lane, but I survived. As the evening wore on, however, I noticed a few common threads weaving their way through people’s journal entries, poetry and schoolwork, threads worth considering. I thought I’d share them with you.

Children are melodramatic. No matter what they’re writing, whether it’s an off-beat Cinderella getting to the ball in her halter and mini-skirt, or a mistreated girl who’s “beaten times and starved,”  or a boy writing lyrics about spending the night with a girl in an oak chest (?!) the situation is always grim, grave, passionate, and/or permanent. Thankfully, miracles often intervene, with life-changing results.

Children live in the present. They’re trying to figure out the world: what they’re feeling, thinking, saying, wanting and wondering right now. Loss, friendship, intolerance and strife, (poetry about life in Northern Ireland during “the troubles,” for example,) the nature of separation and death, personal responsibility, (say, poetry about staring at an empty fish bowl after the author failed to feed the goldfish!) and what it means to be accepted.

Children dream big. Kids write about being the smartest, running the fastest, jumping the highest, rescuing the damsel in distress, marrying the handsome prince. Adults focus on the details and the impossibilities, but kids see the big picture.

Children love adverbs. Adverbs are children’s first foray into deep emotion. If they can’t find them in the dictionary, they make’em up: Despairingly, dismissively, expectantly, simultaneously, patronizingly, sardonically, sarcastically, triumphantly…you get the idea. And with dialogue, their characters stated, snapped, grated, enquired, commented or breathed, instead of plain old “said.”

Children take themselves seriously. Their words and ideas, however silly they sound to adult ears, are logical and reasonable to a child. They expect adults to take them seriously, too.

Perhaps this is why I cringed at the idea of sharing my own adolescent work. To my adult ears, these 28-year-old words sound ridiculous, but I poured nearly a year’s worth of spare time into them. At 14, I thought my book would be a best seller. I remember how crushed I was when it wasn’t accepted by a publisher, and how I gave up on writing for many years as a result.

So, Reveille was an opportunity for me to leave some insecurity behind and enjoy a few laughs, but it was also an opportunity to embrace the optimism and clarity of childhood. It’s a two-hour life lesson I highly recommend. Next year, be there or be square!