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Great for Writing & Public Speaking: Learn the Techniques Professional Humorists Use to Create Consistently Funny Comedy

Last updated 2022-01-10 | 4.1

- Master the techniques professional humorists and comedy writers use to create consistently hilarious material
- Learn how to find humor in nearly any situation
- Discover how to take something that is funny
- and stretch it to make it a lot funnier.

What you'll learn

Master the techniques professional humorists and comedy writers use to create consistently hilarious material
Learn how to find humor in nearly any situation
Discover how to take something that is funny
and stretch it to make it a lot funnier.
Understand how when you write or present humorous material
subtle things like word choice
word order
and pacing can make a profound difference in whether or not something is funny.
Learn how to observe comedic masters and learn from what they do.
Learn how humor can be used in nearly any form of writing or presentation to make it more captivating.

* Requirements

* You must be extremely intelligent
* or kind of dumb
* or somewhere in between.
* You must know how to play nicely in the online classrooms.
* And if you're feeling a little nervous about signing up for a humor writing course
* that is a good thing. It means you are curious enough to test your abilities and learn something new. Don't panic! Everything is going to be okay!
* Finally
* if you are signing up at a reduced price during the beta-testing phase
* please understand that some of the videos are still works in progress and will be improved dramatically within the next month or two. In the meantime
* thanks for your patience! The audio portions of the videos are still packed with information!

Description

Contrary to popular belief, a “sense of humor" is not a magical “gift" a few special people are born with. Humor and writing are skills anyone can develop.

In this online workshop, award-winning humorist and bestselling author Dave Fox teaches you how! 

Discover the techniques professional comedy writers use to write consistently funny material. You'll learn how to think, write, speak, and be funnier. 

Each lesson includes specific writing techniques and exercises to  incite maximum laughs. We'll focus on writing humor columns, personal essays, and creative non-fiction, but the skills you learn can be applied to writing genres of all sorts -- fiction and non-fiction -- as well as stand-up and  sketch comedy, cartooning, movie scripts, and more. 

Full-blown comedy might or might not be your goal. Perhaps you want to take more serious forms of writing — fiction, feature articles, blog posts, travel writing, children's stories, personal memoirs … even office memos, cover letters, or devilishly sexy personal ads — and sprinkle in some giggles. Whatever genres you write in, this class will help you infuse more laughter into your work. 

This course is also wildly useful for people who do any kind of public speaking, who want to keep their audiences awake and riveted to what they are saying.  

So come join us in this fun and inspiring (and occasionally weird) workshop, and stretch your comedic potential to cackle-inducing new levels! 

Some of the topics we'll cover include:  

  • The universal element present in all humor

  • Proven tricks to create or strengthen your comedy

  • Giving your jokes maximum impact with the right words and timing

  • Stretching your punch lines to make them punchier

  • Streamlining your phrasing so your punch lines don't get swallowed up in flabby verbiage. (Mastering this skill will make a vast improvement in all of your writing.)

  • Learning from your favorite professional humorists

  • When and why to throw away your best joke

  • Publishing your humor

  • How to not be that annoying guy at the party with the lampshade on his head

What's Included:

  • Lots of fun and super-informative video lessons.

  • Links to lots more videos on YouTube that illustrate specific concepts you've learned. (That's right! You can watch "Saturday Night Live" sketches and a clip from the iconic "Soup Nazi" episode of "Seinfeld" ... and call it studying!

  • A free e-book of humor essays referenced in the videos

  • A teacher who's a best-selling author, an award-winning humorist, and a professional writing and life coach who loves helping people become hilarious.

I am utterly positive you will not find a humor writing course of this quality anywhere for such a low price! (And if you disagree after checking it out, Udemy offers a 30-day, no-hassle, money-back guarantee.)

So hey! What are you waiting for? Dive in today and start making people laugh so hard, milk will come out of their noses ... even when they're not drinking milk.


"[Dave Fox is] the best writing teacher I have ever had. Talented, funny, approachable, and structured."

– Leslie in Surrey, England


"Dave Fox is an amazing teacher who will give you online feedback as if you were sitting right next to him."

– Joan in Bakersfield, California


Also check out my other courses on Udemy:

  • Globejotting: How to Write Extraordinary Travel Journals (and still have time to enjoy your trip!)

  • Travel Writing: Explore the World and Publish Your Stories

  • Deep Travel: Have Adventures No Guidebook Can Tell You About

  • The Writing Mind 1: Defeat Writer's Block & Write Confidently

  • The Writing Mind 2: Overcome Distractions & Get More Written



Who this course is for:

  • Writers in all genres -- with the possible exception of obituaries.
  • Public speakers, presenters, and anyone who talks to audiences.
  • Aspiring stand-up comedians.
  • Extremely intelligent llamas
  • People who want to be funnier
  • (And if you're single, did you know that a sense of humor is one of the things people say they find most attractive? Take this course and you'll be able to write killer online personal ads -- you sexy thing, you!)

Course content

6 sections • 50 lectures

How to Write, Think, and Be Funnier 9 lectures

Welcome! (Don't Panic! This is Going to Be Fun!) Preview 03:39

Welcome to "Professional Humor Tricks for Writers, Speakers, and Other Misfits!" This course is designed for a wide range of writers and speakers. You'll discover that, contrary to popular belief, a "sense of humor" is not a magical gift that only special people have. It's a skill anyone can learn.

Let's Tackle the World's Big Myth About Humor (Yes you CAN learn to be funnier!) Preview 03:29

Can you really learn how to be a funnier person? Yes! In this lesson, we'll talk about why and how it's possible.

How to Study Humor (Without Slipping Into a Stupor of Drooly Boredom) Preview 03:25

Some people wonder if studying humor, and learning comedy techniques, takes away the creativity. But no! Just like studying music theory will make you a better musician and composer, studying "comedic theory" will make you a stronger and more consistent humorist. The techniques you learn become your tools, your bag of tricks to draw from. You use those tools to ratchet up your creativity in the joke-writing and storytelling process, so that being funny becomes a lot easier.

Slither Into the Brains of Your Favorite Humorists and Harness Their Brilliance Preview 02:17

Who is your favorite humor writer or comedian? Do you have a favorite movie, a TV show that consistently cracks you up? You can choose anybody you want to be your virtual mentor. Here's how to do that ... and how to thwart the dreaded Cubic Zirconium Conundrum.

The Universal Rule for Absolutely Everything That's Funny Preview 05:01

Whether it's a published story, a scripted event, something you randomly blurt out, or an unexpected moment in your day, if something is funny, there's a single root cause.

Finding Funny: Humor is Everywhere. You Need This Important Tool to Capture It Preview 03:11

More funny ideas flit through your brain on a daily basis than you realize, yet most of them vanish quickly. Here's how to fix that.

Section One "Cheat Sheet" Summary: A one-page review of what we've learned. Preview 1 page

At the end of each section, you'll find a single-page "cheat sheet" summary to help you review and retain what you've learned so far.

Free Workbook: Exercises to Accompany Each Section Preview 23 pages

To help you build your comedic muscles, I’ve created a PDF workbook with a series of exercises which correspond to each of the six sections in the course.

After you’ve watched the video lessons in a particular section, you can do the these exercises to practice what you’ve learned. This workbook also includes a detailed self-critique questionnaire to help you edit and improve your stories after you write them.

You can repeat each exercise as many times as you like. The more you practice, the better you’ll become.

Free E-Book: "Read at Your Own Risk" (Humor columns referenced in this course) Preview 74 pages

Throughout this course, I include short excerpts from my own humor columns as examples of various techniques. This free, downloadable e-book includes all of those columns in their entirety.

As you work through the lessons, you can refer back to this e-book and read the stories pertaining to each individual lesson. Enjoy the stories -- and also watch for the techniques I use as you read them!

Set-Ups and Punch Lines 8 lectures

The One-Two Punch: The Two Key Components to Being Hilarious Preview 05:00

You can't have a punch line without a set-up -- and different kinds of comedy call for different kinds of set-ups.

The One-Two Punch in Action: "Almost Live" and "Saturday Night Live" clips Preview 01:18

Punching at the Right Moment: Why Good Jokes Flop -- And How to Fix That Preview 02:59

A lot of potentially hilarious jokes fizzle -- not because they aren't funny, but because they're not structured in a funny way. In this lesson, we explore a simple way to solve that problem.

Your Hero Up a Tree: Professional Humorists Use This Formula to Craft Wild Tales Preview 07:11

Now that we've learned the basic structure of individual jokes, we learn now to weave those jokes together into longer humor tales, essays, and presentations -- with an easy-to-master formula that's used by professional storytellers, sketch comedy and improv artists, TV sitcom and movie writers, and more.

The "Hero Up a Tree" Technique in Action: SNL's "Luvahs in the Hot Tub" sketch Preview 01:42

Tweaking Your Words: How Specific Details Can Take You from Bland to Hilarious Preview 01:52

The "Things Go Wrong" idea is the basic concept to humor, but describing how they go wrong can make the difference between whether or not you spark laughs.

Comedy Lab: Rough It! Preview 00:31

Exercises to accompany each section have been moved. You will now find them in the free PDF workbook, which you can view and download from Section 1, Lecture 8.

Section Two "Cheat Sheet" Summary: A one-page review of what we've learned. Preview 1 page

Beginnings, Silly Putty, and Endings 5 lectures

Blast Off! - How to Reel In Your Readers Immediately Preview 05:35

Learn how to hook your readers from the very beginning ... before they wander elsewhere.

Dive In! Preview 02:31

Why you shouldn't always begin at the beginning -- and where to start instead.

Shaping Your Hot, Hot Body ... with Silly Putty! Preview 05:58

How to stretch your humor and make it funnier.

The End: Spiders Down the Drain & How to Take Advantage of Short Attention Spans Preview 07:00

Wrapping up your story is often the hardest part.

Section Three "Cheat Sheet" Summary: A one-page review of what we've learned. Preview 1 page

Twelve Techniques for Making Things Funny (And Funnier) 15 lectures

The Twelve Techniques: Your Bag of Tricks to Draw From When Writing Punch Lines Preview 03:30

Parallels: The Fine Art of Incongruity Preview 02:35

Binky the Rat Preview 00:08

Parallels in Action: Eddy Izzard's Death Star Canteen (The Lego Edition) Preview 00:44

Takes-of-Three and U-Turns: How to Yank Your Audience Where They Least Expect It Preview 02:10

Bad Math: Why Some Numbers are Funnier than Others Preview 03:51

The Fine Art of Telling Lies (Dave Barry's Not Making This Up?) Preview 02:22

Twisted Interpretations: How to Get Your Readers Naked Preview 02:52

Uh-Oh! (How to Build Comedic Tension) Preview 01:43

For Better or Worse: Superiority, Inferiority and False Bravado Preview 04:29

Superiority in Action: Glove and Boot's "Vertical Video Syndrome" Preview 00:24

False Bravado in Action: Stephen Colbert vs. Google Preview 00:25

Repetition and Callbacks: Lessons From the Soup Nazi Preview 04:22

Repetition in Action: Seinfeld's "Soup Nazi" episode. Preview 00:14

Section Four "Cheat Sheet" Summary: A one-page review of what we've learned. Preview 1 page

Tightening and Pacing 7 lectures

Don't Drown Your Jokes! - Why Fewer Words Mean More Laughs Preview 05:12

Prune Your Words and Tighten Your Tales for Maximum Impact Preview 05:42

Why You Should Always be Willing to Throw Away Your Best Joke Preview 01:42

Timing is Everything: How to Use Comedic Pauses in Both Spoken and Written Humor Preview 06:36

How to Scream: Crank Up the Volume in Your Punch Lines! Preview 02:49

Survival Tips for Public Speakers: What to Do if Your Audience Doesn't Laugh Preview 01:37

Section Five "Cheat Sheet" Summary: A one-page review of what we've learned. Preview 1 page

Expose Yourself! 6 lectures

Where, Why, and How to Publish Your Humor Preview 08:05

Dot-Comedy: Launching Your Humor Writing Career on the Internet Preview 02:50

Publishing Your Humor in Newspapers and Magazines Preview 03:39

How to Play the Odds and Get Published Preview 01:49

Go Be Funny! This is Your Final Lesson but the Party is Just Getting Started! Preview 04:45

Section Six "Cheat Sheet" Summary: A one-page review of what we've learned. Preview 1 page