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Humor Writing: How to Think, Write, Speak, and Be Funnier!
Rating: 4.2 out of 5(1,010 ratings)
8,052 students
Created byDave Fox
Last updated 5/2021
English

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 subtle tweaks of 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.

Course content

6 sections • 50 lectures • 2h 17m total length

  • Welcome! (Don't Panic! This is Going to Be Fun!)3:39

    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!)3:29

    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)3:25

    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 Brilliance2:17

    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 Funny5:01

    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 It3:11

    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.1:00

    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 Section23:00

    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)1:14:00

    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!

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!)

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