Inside Jokes

A step-by-step practical guide to all types of comedy writing, filled with invaluable advice, exercises, interviews, tools, and jokes that will turn anyone into a funnier writer and person, from authors/editors/teachers/perfect 10s Elissa Bassist and Caitlin Kunkel. Comedy writing is hard. Or is it? Not with INSIDE JOKES. INSIDE JOKES is a masterclass in a book that teaches you how to write anything funnier, from short humor to essays to psychiatric in-take forms. Each chapter has technical and practical advice to turn comedy outsiders into insiders, comedy readers into writers, and nonfunny nonwriters into funny writers. Included at no extra cost: interviews with professional comedy writers, brainstorming and writing exercises, prompts, and assignments that will take your writing from nonexistent to shitty first draft to award-deserving.        INSIDE JOKES is a blend of writing guide, creativity bible, and therapy session with secrets that most writers learn through trial and error and professional humiliation. It’s the The Artist's Way for the funny soul.  Elissa Bassist and Caitlin Kunkel have taught thousands of classes to thousands of students at thousands of institutions, including people who are now writers for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Onion, Reductress, The New Yorker, film, TV, their own books, and more, a lot more. They’ve taught nationally and internationally at universities, improv centers, writing conferences, and popular online schools. INSIDE JOKES collects their experience, lectures, step-by-step replicable processes, and no-fail techniques to make comedy writing accessible to anyone with something to say.