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Public speaking can be terrifying. For David Nihill, the idea of standing in front of an audience was scarier than cliff jumping into a thorny pit of spiders and mothers-in-law. Without a parachute or advanced weaponry. Something had to change. In what doesn’t sound like the best plan ever, David decided to overcome his fears by pretending to be an accomplished comedian called "Irish Dave" for one full year, crashing as many comedy clubs, festivals, and shows as possible. One part of the plan was at least logical: he was already Irish and already called Dave. In one year, David went from being deathly afraid of public speaking to hosting a business conference, regularly performing stand-up comedy and winning storytelling competitions in front of packed houses. And he did it by learning from some of the best public speakers in the world: stand-up comedians. Do You Talk Funny?: 7 Comedy Habits to Become a Better (and Funnier) Public Speaker shows how the key principles of stand-up comedy can be applied to your speaking engagements and presentations to make you funnier, more interesting, and better looking. (Or at least two of the three.) Whether you are preparing for a business presentation, giving a wedding toast, defending your thesis, raising money from investors, or simply want to take on something you're afraid of, this book will take you from sweaty to stage-ready. You’ll learn how to:- Craft a story and content that your audience will want to listen to- Find the funniest parts of your material and how to get to them faster- Deal with stage fright- Master the two most important parts of your performance: timing and delivery Ten percent of the author's proceeds from this book will go to Arash Bayatmakou via Help Hope Live until he is fully back on his feet and thereafter to one of the many facing the same challenges after suffering a severe spinal cord injury.

All the world loves a clown and whether you want to clown around at parties or make a living as a standup comic, comedian Judy Carter can show you how to "do" comedy.

Learn How to Write a Funny StoryCan you learn how to write comedy? Absolutely—anyone can.Scott Dikkers will tell you how. He’s co-founder and longest-serving editor-in-chief of The Onion, the world’s most popular humor publication, and founder of The Onion Training Center at the Second City in Chicago. He’s also a #1 best-selling humor author and winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor.In How to Write Funnier, he tells you everything you need to know to start writing funny stories, how to write funny scenes, and how to write funny sketches.But that’s just the beginning. How do you get a job in comedy? How do you write for The Onion? How do you write for the New Yorker? How do you get published in McSweeney’s? How do you write for money? How do you become a career comedy writer?It's all in How to Write Funnier, the followup to How to Write FunnyWriters Scott has mentored, trained, or hired for their very first comedy-writing job have gone on to win several Emmy Awards, written movies nominated for an Academy Award, and become best-selling authors themselves.One student said this about How to Write Funny (Book 1)“This book is one of my very favorite books on comedy. It's helped me get published on satire sites like Reductress.com and helped me get admitted to comedy festivals. The fact that all comedy writers don't know about this book is (1) unfortunate but also (2) fantastic, because it will give the people who do read it a big advantage.”How to Write Funnier gives you the step-by-step writing process professinoals use for creating hilarious comedy articles, prose pieces, and stories that will jump off the page, grab readers by the sphincter and make them LOL, spit-take, make other passengers on the bus look at them like they’re crazy because they’re laughing so hard reading your story.The first book in this series, How To Write Funny, showed you how to write a joke. How to Write Funnier (Book 2) shows you how to stack up those jokes the right way to make funny articles, stories, listicles or prose pieces that will make people remember you.Inside:• The 13 Most Common Mistakes in Humor Writing• The 11 Different Ways to Structure a humor piece• How to get ideas for writing a great story• 8 steps for how to get feedback on your writing that will truly make it funnierTap the “Pre-order with 1-click” button to get it now!

While other books give you tips on how to “write funny,” this book offers a paradigm shift in understanding the mechanics and art of comedy, and the proven, practical tools that help writers translate that understanding into successful, commercial scripts. The Hidden Tools of Comedy unlocks the unique secrets and techniques of writing comedy. Kaplan deconstructs sequences in popular films and TV that work and don’t work, and explains what tools were used (or should have been used).

The Definitive Joke Writing HandbookLearn comedy writing and how to write a joke with a simple comedy-writing and joke-writing formula you can use right now to write your own jokes. See why Amazon reviewers call How to Write Funny "one of the best books on humor writing."Author Scott Dikkers will show you how to write jokes. He's a master joke writer, founder of the world's most popular humor site TheOnion.com, #1 New York Times and #1 Amazon best-selling humor author, and successful cartoonist. Scott created and leads the "Writing with The Onion" training center at the famed Second City in Chicago. His students have been hired for the top comedy writing jobs in TV and won dozens of Emmy Awards. He's consulted for top entertainment companies like NBC, Comedy Central, and Pixar.This easy-to-follow guide lays out a clear system and simple formula for how to write a joke that will get big, milk-coming-out-of-your-nose laughs, reliably and repeatably. You'll learn...* The 3 sure-fire ways to generate material* The 11 different kinds of jokes and how to tell them* The secret to overcoming writer's block--permanently* And many more tips, tricks, and techniquesTable of Contents1 IntroductionUse the techniques in this book to reliably create top-notch humor writing (page 11)2 Your Brain's Comedy EngineAccess both hemispheres of your brain to eliminate writer's block and tap an endless reserve of comedy ideas (page 21)3 The Humor Writer's Biggest ProblemOvercome this one devastating obstacle to reach the widest possible audience (page 29)4 How To Get LaughsUnderstand the different kinds of laughs, and how to generate the best one (page 43)5 The Secret IngredientInfuse your humor with this vital component to create writing that makes people laugh (page 57)
6 The 11 Funny FiltersCreate any joke using the 11 fundamental building blocks of humor (page 67)Funny Filter 1: Irony (page 68)Funny Filter 2: Character (page 70)Funny Filter 3: Shock (page 76)Funny Filter 4: Hyperbole (page 80)Funny Filter 5: Wordplay (page 83)Funny Filter 6: Reference (page 88)Funny Filter 7: Madcap (page 92)Funny Filter 8: Parody (page 90)Funny Filter 9: Analogy (page 100)Funny Filter 10: Misplaced Focus (page 104)Funny Filter 11: Metahumor (page 106)7 Using The Funny FiltersLayer the building blocks to create increasingly hilarious jokes (page 113)8 Process OverviewMaster this simple system to become a prolific humor writer (page 137)If you've wondered how you can start writing jokes, how to tell jokes to your friends, how to add humor to your writing, how to add jokes in a speech, or how to add humor to your presentation, this book spells out the simple joke writing formula professionals use.How to Write Funny is for you whether you want to find a comedy writing job or just want to learn how to tell a joke.Click "Look Inside" to see more!