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Secrets to Writing Great Comedy

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ISBN-10: 0071775218

ISBN-13: 9780071775212

Edition: 2012

Authors: Lesley Bown

List price: $15.00
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Book details

List price: $15.00
Copyright year: 2012
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies, The
Publication date: 10/27/2011
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 192
Size: 5.25" wide x 8.00" long x 0.75" tall
Weight: 0.440
Language: English

Lesley Bown is an accomplished writer who has published in almost every format - from books to articles, screenplays, scripts, television shows, sitcom pilots and sketches. She is also a journalist, and she wrote a popular comedy blog from the perspective of Bridget Jones' mother - Pamela Jones' Diary - http://pamelajonesdiary.blogspot.com/

Meet the author
In one minute
Introduction
Writing
Comedy basics
Creating laughs
Visual, verbal and physical
Comedy writing mindset
The audience
The medium
The material
Comedy mindset dos and don'ts
Getting started
Anarchy
Discipline
Sources of comedy ideas
Language
A sense of rhythm
Word pictures
jokes
Writing jokes
Editing jokes
Longerjokes
Stand-up
The basics of routining
Traditional stand-up
Observational stand-up
Simple characters and situations
Creating comedy characters
Stock characters
Character types
Sources for original characters
Realism
Characteristics
Simple comedy situations
Sketches and quickies
Quickies
Writing quickies
Sketches
Writing sketches
Editing
Sketch options
More complex characters
Creating characters
Characters combined
More complex situations and plots
Conflict and claustrophobia
Creating a story
Other types of plot
Other aspects of plot construction
Case history: a plot analysed
Putting it all together
Editing
Sitcoms
Traditional sitcoms
Situation
Characters
Plots
Putting it all together
Character development and deeper plotting
Characters
Messages
Plotting
Imagery
Theme
Message
Theme plus message equals emotional impact
Editing, polishing and unblocking
Stages of editing
How easy was that then?
Information
Comedy formats
Short formats
Shaggy dog stories
Other formats
Figures of speech
Comedy styles and genres
Types of comedy
Genres
Writing for different media
Example
Writing for performance
Recorded performance
Live performance
Print
Internet
Other types of comedy writing
Practicalities of placing your work
Working for free
Submissions - common ground
Submissions specifics
Other factors
Doing it yourself
DIY - common ground
DIY - specifics
Edinburgh Fringe
Taking it further
full texts of examples
Index