Oh gosh, no, of course I would never discourage a child or propose that people who have no talent should not even try their hand at it. Artistic expression is one of the most precious things a person can experience, and they should be allowed to do so. However, there's another level to the assessment of people's abilities, which is purely pragmatic. You used to see it in the arts all the time, brutal honesty. I don't advocate it, but I believe that at some point, everyone should have the opportunity to have their abilities realistically assessed, by pros or by an audience. It's the difference between Lisa Simpson getting a standing ovation in school when she sings or plays sax, versus Ralph, who gets booted off stage. The audience is unforgiving and it speaks the truth. They want to be entertained and if you fail to entertain them, they'll make sure you know it. I suppose I come from a childhood of performing so I faced very early on, the meaning of working within my limits. I was dying to be a soprano. But I sing in Alto1/mezzo. And it was painful to me, and I was trying, and it was the hardest thing to face, the fact that I can't sing in every key and that I don't have 8 octave vocal range, when me singing "Il Dolce Suono" sounds so awesome in my head. Or when I was told by a film director that I should stick with singing. It's devastating but it's life. When we discuss whether "comedy can be learned" we aren't discussing "whether children should be told to not even try their hand in comedy". We are discussing pragmatically and without emotional attachment, whether any person can learn to be funny enough to perform or write comedy successfully. The answer is no, because people with a funny bone are funny from the youngest age and usually they are aware of it. I don't know whether the OP is funny or not, but I'll hazard a guess - if he was funny, he'd perhaps be giving us an example of his jokes and asking if we thought it was funny, he wouldn't be asking us to help him learn how to be funny in the first place. Just my opinion
[MENTION=23298]Mckk[/MENTION] [MENTION=35110]jazzabel[/MENTION] You're both wondering if the OP has a funny bone, here is his script so you can decide for yourself and offer advice https://www.writingforums.org/showthread.php?t=62059
Thanks for the link erebh, yeah, I concur with the rest of the reviews there. Although, it's a tiny snippet, so I can't really say whether he can be funnier than that. I certainly hope so
