Writing Comedy
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- US$30.99
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- US$30.99
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Comedy has always been one of the most high-profile, glamorous and potentially lucrative markets for scriptwriters, but it is also perceived as one of the hardest. In the fourth edition of this highly regarded handbook, John Byrne breaks down the basics of writing comedy into simple steps and shows you how to make the most of your own comedy writing talent and - just as importantly - your ability to market that talent.
Here is a wealth of practical advice both on how to get your career off the ground and how to keep developing it. Whether you are writing comedy routines, sketches or sitcoms, and aiming your work at the page, the stage or the ever-expanding world of broadcasting, you will find something in this book to encourage, inform and inspire you.
As with any art form, the basics of good comedy never go out of fashion. While the easy steps in this book are illustrated with examples of work by classic comedians old and new, you will also find useful advice on developing and adapting your work for the twenty-first century market, whether your aim is to promote your work online or simply to keep your gags fresh and topical in a world where the news changes by the minute and gets flashed around the world in seconds.
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Nadler begins his first novel, a sweeping epic of race and family in America, with an extraordinary account of lawyer Arthur Wise's meteoric ascent in the post-WWII era through the eyes of his son, Hilly. Once an ambulance chaser, Arthur becomes one of the country's richest and most famous lawyers thanks to a class action suit against the airline industry. In 1952, when Hilly is 17, Arthur buys a Cape Cod beach house tended to by an African-American caretaker, Lem Dawson, whose beautiful niece, Savannah, lives in a squalid shack nearby. As Arthur and Lem clash, Hilly falls for Savannah, complicating the situation. The first third of the novel forms a stunning portrait of a family struggling to learn the unstated rules of possessing wealth and power. But the subsequent sections, which find Hilly and Savannah reuniting in middle-age, and then again in the present day, take the drama in overly ambitious directions. The frantically plotted middle glosses over Hilly's rationale for key decisions, and the final section builds to a twist that raises as many questions as it answers. Even at its most outlandishly plotted, however, the novel is held together by the profound connection Hilly and Savannah form without spending more than a few hours together in their lives. Nadler's portrait of doomed romance, along with dissections of wealth and success worthy of John Cheever, make this a very exciting debut.
