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Gene Perret’s other book – The New Comedy Writing Step By Step – is a thorough introduction to gag writing. It covers all of the basics, and includes many exercises on which neophyte comedy writers can try out what they have learned. Whilst some of the material may have dated, and it’s focused very much on gag writing rather than performance or sitcom writing, it’s one of the standard texts for people looking to learn how to write jokes, and deservedly so.
The new one – The Ten Commandments Of Comedy – is… different.
A slim volume, The Ten Commandments gives 10 principles for the writing of jokes, and show’s how you can punch a joke up by seeing which of them it violates. All of the rules are good, make sense, and are things every comic should know.
And that – I think – is where the problem is. Any working comic or comedy writer will know these rules, even if they have never thought of them explicitly. They will know from experience the value of being concise, of being understood, of giving the audience definite beats on which to laugh.
Let’s be clear – all of these points are valuable, well worth knowing, and important to bear in mind when writing comedy. However, they aren’t examined in any depth. There’s a little more context than the original Ten Commandments had, but not by much.
The chapters are short, so it’s an easy read, but it also makes it a not-exceedingly-useful one.
it’s difficult to know who would benefit from the information in this book, although all of it is worth having. In terms of what it’s saying and who needs to hear it, beginners would probably benefit most from it, but the absence of exercises or context mean that it’s not particularly helpful as a book to kickstart your comedy writing.
Anyone for whom such a brief book might be useful will probably already know everything that’s in it.
There are 64 pages, each has helpful, well-argued information on. If I’m going to have to imagine who would benefit from this book, I would think that public speakers looking to inject humour into their speeches would do best.
For business people. after-dinner speakers, lecturers, and anyone who has to speak in public but doesn’t want to have to do a whole comedy course to find out the secrets, The Ten Commandments Of Comedy is a helpful primer, with real insight into what makes people laugh. In a few brief chapters you can be apprised of all of the fundamental principles of jokes, and reminded of what you really shold know when you write and tell them.
For comedy writers, however, I can’t imagine a stage in your career when this book wouldn’t either be redundant or too sparse to be helpful.
The Ten Commandment Of Comedy, then, will be most useful for those who don’t do comedy. For the rest of us, start with his other book.
[FULL DISCLOSURE: This review was based on a review copy sent to me by the publisher.]
This is an occasional series, the Comedy Book Reviews, in which I’ll look at various books and tell you how useful I think they are to the budding comedy writer, or writer-performer.
Full Disclosure: A review copy of this book was sent to me by the publisher. I didn’t spend my own money on it. I’ll leave you to decide how corrupted I may have been by that.
Secrets to Writing Great Comedy (Teach Yourself)
I’m a big fan of the Teach Yourself series. Almost a decade ago it was Ray Frensham’s Teach Yourself Screenwriting that helped me put together my first scripts, and started me on the path to my current – for want of a better word – career. I also learned to ask for beer in Danish from one of them, something that proved almost invaluable on one long weekend in Copenhagen in 2003. I’ve even got an unbroached copy of Teach Yourself Pitman Shorthand somewhere, in readiness for the day when I am reduced to offering outdated skills to faceless corporations for a living.
Just to be clear right from the off: this book will not give you the secrets of writing great comedy. In fact, I doubt anyone knows the secret of great comedy. Those people who have managed to write great comedy have only done it for short periods of time. I don’t think that those great comedians who have produced less than great work simply forgot the lessons of this book; but that great comedy is a mercurial, ephemeral thing that sometimes eludes even the most talented comedy writers. After all, even Richard Curtis wrote Blackadder: Back and Forth.
However, what this book will give you is a good grounding in many different comic modes and styles. It covers all of the basics, and, if you are new to comedy writing, it should help you in all sorts of ways. It’s not an innovative work, but it is packed with good, solid advice.
In many ways, it’s a good British answer to Gene Perret’s The New Comedy Writing Step By Step
All of the writing advice is sound, and useful, but the book is a little broad. Someone who wants to write great standup does not need the same skills as someone who wants to write a great sitcom, or a great sketch. As a short, helpful introduction to all of these disciplines, packed with facts and exercises, this book is hugely successful. Unfortunately, there are books which deal with each of these things in greater detail.
I would advise any new comedy writer to have a look at this book. There’s a lot of writing wisdom, a lot of helpful information, and a good introduction to many forms of comedy writing in there.
It doesn’t deal with anything in much depth, however. If you’re looking for how to string A and B plots, and act beats through a sitcom script, this isn’t the book you’ll need. If you want information about writing sketches for the web (probably the fastest growing area in comedy), this isn’t the book you’ll need. If you’re looking for information about where you can put your standup or character piece on, this isn’t the book you’ll need. This is the book you’ll need when you’re surveying the comedy world, wanting to write something, anything, but aren’t sure where to start.
It’s a good book, great value for the amount of information it packs in. It might not give you the secrets of great comedy, but it could do something more important. It could give you the skills to get your first comedy, possibly terrible comedy, up on stages in front of people. The Secrets To Writing Terrible Comedy. Because that’s what you’ve got to do. And that, of course, is the first step towards writing great comedy…
Nathaniel Tapley 