Veteran TV writer, Gene Perret, shows you how to "think funny" -- and put it on paper. These 87 super workouts guide you through the mechanics of writing jokes, monologues, sketches, and complete scripts.

In “Comedy Writing Self-Taught,” Perret (a legendary comedy writing teacher as well as a famous TV comedy writer and producer) teaches aspiring comedy writers how they can teach themselves the essential principles of comedy writing through comedy analysis and writing exercises. Covering the essential principles of writing stand-up comedy, sketch comedy, and TV situation comedy, “Comedy Writing Self-Taught” is professional level training from a master who has spent decades at the very top of the entertainment industry. Expressly designed for home self-study, “Comedy Writing Self-Taught” teaches that the most effective way to learn is to create comedy yourself. Perret teaches how to analyze the work of professional comedians to learn the principles of comedy and presents a full set of writing exercises to hone one’s skills. A companion workbook provides even more comedy writing exercises, giving readers the equivalent of a master class in comedy.

Three-time Emmy Award-winner Gene Perret's ""Comedy Writing Step by Step"" has been the manual for humor writers for 25 years. In this new book, his first update, Perret offers readers a treasure trove of guidelines and suggestions covering a broad range of comedy writing situations, along with many all-important insights into the selling of one's work. Perret covers all aspects of comedy writing in his uniquely knowledgeable and anecdotal fashion.

"Can you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall?" "Practice, practice, practice." That's more than a joke; it's solid advice. Consider world-class performers in any field -- golf, figure skating, music, whatever. One thing you can safely say about each is that they achieved their level of skill through practice. To excel in any endeavor, you must work on and perfect your technique. Comedy writing is no exception. In this book, Emmy-winning TV writer and producer Gene Perret and professional writer Linda Perret have compiled a collection of over 100 comedy writing workouts that will challenge your joke writing skills and develop your sketch and sitcom writing abilities. This book suggests that talent is earned through observation, study, analysis, and repetition. The authors also encourage you to analyze your writing, discover where improvement is required, and create your own skill-creating exercises. The work can be demanding, but that's what it takes to become a success in any field, including comedy writing. If you study "Comedy Writing Self-Taught Workbook" -- with or without the companion volume, "Comedy Writing Self-Taught" -- when your break comes, you'll be ready.

No one is born a comedy writer. No matter how much innate talent you have, you need to learn, develop, and hone comedy writing techniques to make it as a professional comedy writer. Fortunately, the best teachers are as close as your TV set. By studying the great comedians of the past and present, in current shows, reruns, and DVD collections, you can give yourself a Ph.D. training in comedy writing. In Comedy Writing Self-Taught, Gene Perret, a three-time Emmy Award winner and former head writer for Bob Hope and Phyllis Diller, teaches you how to teach yourself the essential principles of writing stand-up comedy, sketch comedy, and sitcom scripts-all by observing, analyzing, and recreating the work of master comedians and comedy writers. Entirely designed for self-study at home, Comedy Writing Self-Taught shows you how to select the right "comedy mentor" for your personal style of comedy, how to analyze your mentor's techniques, and how to use your mentor's principles in your own original comedy writing. Numerous drills and exercises help you develop your comedy writing creativity, and there are even more exercises and writing workouts in the companion volume Comedy Writing Self-Taught Workbook. You'll do the work-and it will require work-but in return you'll get a master class in professional comedy writing, and you'll have fun doing it. Book jacket.

A comprehensive guide to writing, selling and performing all types of comedy. Includes comments, advice, gags and routines from top comics.

Learn how to write comedy that makes people laugh. Masterclass: Writing Comedy will reveal to both beginners and experienced writers the distinctive features that mark out comedy from other forms of creative writing. Having identified these, it will help you then to unlock your inner anarchist, and explore the different elements of comedy, using a combination of practical exercises, insight and creative inspiration. Whatever your preferred comic genre, you will find guidance on everything from wordplay and visual humour to plots, comedy characters and different styles. A section on performance will help you to hone stand-up skills, while chapters on stage and screen will give techniques and tips on how to craft a sitcom or create a sketch show. Finally, there is a uniquely frank but useful section on the realities of the markets, and the actualities of going it alone with self-publishing and self-promotion - or the tools you need to successfully pitch an idea or comic manuscript. ABOUT THE SERIES The Teach Yourself Creative Writing series helps aspiring authors tell their stories. Covering a range of genres from science fiction and romantic novels to illustrated children's books and comedy, this series is packed with advice, exercises, and tips for unlocking creativity and improving your writing. And because we know how daunting the blank page can be, we set up the Just Write online community, at tyjustwrite.com, for budding authors and successful writers to connect and share.

Just as a distinctive literary voice or style is marked by the ease with which it can be parodied, so too can specific aspects of humor be unique. Playwrights, television writers, novelists, cartoonists, and film scriptwriters use many special technical devices to create humor. Just as dramatic writers and novelists use specific devices to craft their work, creators of humorous materials—from the ancient Greeks to today’s stand-up comics—have continued to use certain techniques in order to generate humor. In The Art of Comedy Writing, Arthur Asa Berger argues that there are a relatively limited number of techniques—forty-five in all—that humorists employ. Elaborating upon his prior, in-depth study of humor, An Anatomy of Humor, in which Berger provides a content analysis of humor in all forms—joke books, plays, comic books, novels, short stories, comic verse, and essays—The Art of Comedy Writing goes further. Berger groups each technique into four basic categories: humor involving identity such as burlesque, caricature, mimicry, and stereotype; humor involving logic such as analogy, comparison, and reversal; humor involving language such as puns, wordplay, sarcasm, and satire; and finally, chase, slapstick, and speed, or humor involving action. Berger claims that if you want to know how writers or comedians create humor study and analysis of their humorous works can be immensely insightful. This book is a unique analytical offering for those interested in humor. It provides writers and critics with a sizable repertoire of techniques for use in their own future comic creations. As such, this book will be of interest to people inspired by humor and the creative process—professionals in the comedy field and students of creative writing, comedy, literary humor, communications, broadcast/media, and the humanities.

Gene Perret left a successful career as an electrical engineer to pursue his dream of being a comedy writer. He left Philadelphia, PA for Hollywood and since then has worked for many legendary comedians including Bob Hope and Phyllis Diller, won three Emmy Awards for his work on "The Carol Burnett Show," and has authored over 50 books. The secret of switching from what you're doing to what you want to do is a steady, persistent, "doing" . . . but doing what? This book will answer that question for the readers. It offers practical, doable, step-by-step suggestions. The author recognizes the value of self-improvement books and recommends several of them early in this volume. But the inspiration of those books, sooner or later, requires action. Someone has to take the steps that produce achievement. That someone, the author explains, is you. This book presents sixteen specific steps that will guide the reader in a career change. These steps take time and effort. They require patience, persistence, perseverance, along with a hard-nosed acceptance of reality. But they will enable you TO DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO IF WHAT YOU'RE DOING AIN'T WHAT YOUU WANT TO DO.

A discussion of the basics and genres of the comic point of view includes essays and interviews with such authors as Dave Barry, Sherman Alexie, and Melissa Bank.