Comedy Writing Self-Taught
WORKBOOK
More than 100 practical writing exercises to develop your comedy writing skills
Gene Perret and Linda Perret
Fresno, California
Comedy Writing Self-Taught Workbook
Copyright © 2014 by Gene Perret and Linda Perret. All rights reserved.
Published by Quill Driver Books
An imprint of Linden Publishing
2006 South Mary Street, Fresno, California 93721
(559) 233-6633 / (800) 345-4447
Quill Driver Books and Colophon are trademarks of
Linden Publishing, Inc.
ISBN 978-1-61035-240-6
eISBN 978-1-61035-261-1
135798642
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file.
To the many great humorists of tomorrow—you know who you are.
—Gene
To all my Round Table Friends—a great group of writers and performers.
—Linda
Contents
Foreword
Introduction
How to Use This Book
Part One: General Joke Writing
Exercise 1: Collect Fifty Great One-Liners
Exercise 3: A Little Tougher Captioning
Exercise 5: Gathering References
Exercise 7: Turn Ideas into Jokes
Exercise 8: The Almost Right Word
Exercise 9: It’s All Around Us
Exercise 10: Inspired by Legends
Exercise 11: That Makes Perfect Nonsense
Exercise 12: Tag That Line
Exercise 13: Say It by Not Saying It
Exercise 14: Outside the Box
Exercise 15: Same Word, Different Meaning
Exercise 16: It Means What You Mean It to Mean
Exercise 17: Same Old Words, Brand-New Meaning
Exercise 18: Don’t Quit Too Soon
Exercise 19: Merely Fill in the Blanks
Exercise 20: On the Shoulders of Giants
Exercise 21: Relationships That Aren’t Really Related
Exercise 22: One Joke Begets Many
Exercise 23: Ready, Set, Write
Exercise 24: Assignment Unknown
Part Two: General Stand-Up Writing
Exercise 25: Take Good Notes
Exercise 26: Compact the Act
Exercise 27: What Are They Talking About?
Exercise 28: Writing a Chunk
Exercise 29: Writing for a Specific Person
Exercise 30: Writing in Bite-Size Chunks—Part A
Exercise 31: Writing in Bite-Size Chunks—Part B
Exercise 32: Writing in Bite-Size Chunks—Part C
Exercise 33: Now Cut Your Precious Jokes
Exercise 34: Smooth Transitions
Exercise 35: Baking a Monologue
Exercise 36: Working toward the Finish Line
Exercise 37: Now Write
Exercise 38: Roast a Friend
Exercise 39: Write Whatever So-and-So Wants
Exercise 40: That’s Handy
Exercise 41: There Are Two Sides to Every Topic
Exercise 42: Late-Night TV
Exercise 43: Be Prepared
Exercise 44: Learn to Overwrite
Exercise 45: Pick Your Best
