Earlier this summer, while on a camping trip in Yellowstone National Park with his owners, a two-year-old Siamese cat named Rayne Beau ran off into the Wyoming woods and went missing. After several days of searching the area, the owners returned to their California home devastated only to receive a phone call two months later that the cat had been spotted wandering around three hours north of their home, traversing more than eight hundred miles. Write a short story that imagines the trials and tribulations that a pet might experience embarking on a long journey home. You might decide to use multiple perspectives throughout the narrative, considering the people and terrain the animal encounters along the way.
In this PBS NewsHour video, Danzy Senna discusses her latest novel, Colored Television (Riverhead Books, 2024), and the ways in which she uses comedy and satire to shed light on the reality of race in America in a conversation with Jeffrey Brown.
I could recommend baking, because that’s something I do when I need to be active but mindless. I could recommend driving while listening to music, because that tends to free me from compulsive concerns about productivity. I could recommend hanging out with my kids, who are teenagers now, and having electric conversations with them about books, or stories and poems they’re writing, because that is invigorating. But the most sustaining practice for my writing over several decades has been being outside, walking. This activity calms me and dispels some of my brain’s natural agitation; it allows me to really slow down, see the world and its details, and think. I usually fit in several walks during the day, but since I’m also working and can’t be away long, I tend to travel the same rectangular pathway in my neighborhood over and over. This may sound repetitive or bleak, but I love looking carefully at each house, walking down each alley, studying people opening car doors, seeing the way a garage is leaning and decaying, or the way a clematis winds through a chain-link fence, or watching someone standing in yellow light on the other side of a window. It’s always reliably inspiring.
—Amy Stuber, author of Sad Grownups (Stillhouse Press, 2024)
In a recent piece published on Literary Hub highlighting responses from writers and editors on their appreciation for The Chicago Manual of Style, book editor Barbara Clark muses on the poetry found within the guidebook. “When I looked up something in the manual, I saw poems in their purest form. Open to a page at random, and find a poem there,” says Clark. “Fused participles! Who can imagine such a thing?” Taking inspiration from grammar-related terms and phrases, compose a poem that plays with an open interpretation of the words involved, bringing these concepts beyond language usage and into a more personal or philosophical context. Can you locate a sort of soul or lyrical beauty within organization and categorization?
“My writing is intimate and personal, but it’s also attempting to broaden the scope of what intimacy can be.” In this short video, Hanif Abdurraqib, a recipient of the 2024 Windham Campbell Prize in nonfiction, speaks about how writing about the things he loves has guided his work.
In the rolling hills of Somerset, England, an ancient evil ripens alongside the grapes of Standing Stone Cellars…
Rebecca never expected her architectural career to lead to the secluded rural village of Winbridge Hollow. But after a violent clash with eco-activists, she flees the chaos of London, desperate for a new start.
She seeks refuge at Standing Stone Cellars, a vineyard renowned for its award-winning wines and mysterious history, nestled in the shadow of ancient oaks and standing stones that have watched over the land for millennia.
But this vineyard is no sanctuary.
From the fires of Beltane to the shadows of Samhain, Rebecca finds herself ensnared in an ancient cycle of sacrifice and rebirth. The disappearance of her fellow workers amidst evidence of blood rites forces her to confront a horrifying truth: Standing Stone’s exceptional vintage is nourished by more than just sunlight and soil.
As the veil between worlds grows thin, Rebecca must make an impossible choice: embrace the dark legacy of the vineyard and secure her place among its guardians, or risk becoming the next offering to the Horned God that demands his due.
Blood Vintage is an atmospheric descent into folk horror, where the line between sacred and profane blurs with each sip of wine. Lose yourself in a world where pagan rituals and modern ambitions collide, and discover the terrible price of belonging in a place where the very earth demands blood.
In this Brooklyn Book Festival Bookend Event at Books Are Magic, the Institute of American Indian Arts presents readings by students, alumni, and faculty of the program, including program director Deborah Jackson Taffa, m.s. RedCherries, Lily Philpott, and Julianne Warren.
The Third Act begins with another life-changing plot point. More than any preceding it, this plot point sets the protagonist’s feet on the path toward the final conflict in the Climax. From here, your clattering dominoes form a straight line as your protagonist hurtles toward an inevitable confrontation with the antagonistic force. Because the entire Third Act is full of big and important scenes, this opening plot point, by comparison, can sometimes seem less defined than the First Plot Point and the Midpoint. However, its thrust must be just as adamant.
The Third Plot Point represents a Low Moment for your characters. The thing they want most in the world will be almost within grasp—only to be dashed away—causing them to question their investment in the conflict. The subsequent Climax will be the period in which the characters rise from the ashes, ready to do battle from a place of inner wholeness. The Third Plot Point is the place from which they must rise.
As the portal between the Second Act‘s end and the Third Act’s beginning, the Third Plot Point represents one of the story’s most significant shifts. Back at the 25% mark, the transition between the First and Second Acts signaled that the characters had left behind their Normal World and, with it, whoever they used to be. Now, this bookending transition into the Third Act signals they have entered the final proving ground. Everything they have learned, experienced, gained, and lost in the Second Act will be put to the final test.
Symbolically within the transformational arc of a story, the Third Plot Point represents death—with the possibility of rebirth, if the character manages to complete a Positive Change Arc. Often, this beat is referred to as the Dark Night of the Soul, indicating an intense period of internal suffering and questioning as the characters grapple with external losses while struggling to unify all the pieces of their newly evolved selves.
If they can successfully manage this, they will be able to embrace the story’s thematic Truth and rise into a new version of themselves, one with the capability to achieve moral and perhaps practical victory in the Climax. If they fail this intense test and cannot fully rebirth into a more coherent version of themselves, they will struggle to find a complete victory in the Climax. This weakness may cause them to lose the plot goal altogether. Even if they manage to seize the plot goal (perhaps through dubious means), they will experience a fatal moral failure that poisons their achievements.
The intensity of the character’s suffering at the Third Plot Point will depend on the nature of your story. Generally, whatever takes place here should be “the worst thing that has ever happened” within the scope of the story.
For Example:
In Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, the vigilante Ra’s Al Ghul announces his intentions to destroy Gotham, then burns Bruce Wayne’s mansion and leaves him for dead.
In Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Jane discovers, on her wedding day, that Mr. Rochester is already married to a madwoman. This prompts her to flee her life at Thornfield, ending her relationship with the man she loves.
In Charles Portis’s True Grit, young Mattie finds her father’s murderer and is captured by a gang of outlaws who threaten her life.
True Grit (2010), Paramount Pictures.
The symbolism of death is important and can be used literally. The characters may lose a loved one or perhaps even suffer significant injuries themselves. The death may also be metaphoric: perhaps they experience the death of a career or a relationship. This symbolism can emerge subtly through cues in the exterior setting that reflect the character’s inner questioning (e.g., perhaps they pass a funeral or observe a crushed flower on the sidewalk).
It is important that the characters face the “death” of the person they used to be. The challenge here is whether or not they will embrace this death and claim the subsequent rebirth.
The False Victory and the Low Moment
The Third Plot Point is made up of two important beats. The thematically crucial Low Moment is preceded by the equally important False Victory. One of the most significant features of this pairing is that it creates a natural arc to the beat. It begins in a seemingly positive state before plunging the characters into darkness. (I talk about this in more detail in my book Next Level Plot Structure.)
Even more significant is that this pairing creates the bridge between the “action phase” of the Second Act into the full-on transformation of the Third Act. Throughout the Second Act, particularly after the Midpoint, the characters have been rapidly progressing in their ability to understand the nature of both the internal and external conflict. Thanks to the Moment of Truth at the Midpoint, they recognized the potency of the story’s central Truth and began integrating it into both their internal landscape and their tactics in the external plot.
But there’s a catch.
Even though the characters claimed the Truth at the Midpoint, they have not yet fully rejected the Lie. Throughout the Second Half of the Second Act, they continued to cling to certain of their old limited perspectives from the First Act. More than that, as they became more and more proactive toward the end of the Second Half, they failed to see their blind spots. This leads them directly to the False Victory at the beginning of the Third Plot Point.
Whatever happens here is the result of a tactic the characters deliberately employed to reach their goal. They may have believed this gambit was the one that would finally lead them to success. Even if they were back on their heels and making a desperate choice, they acted according to everything they learned up to this point—but without realizing they have yet to fully face their blind spots.
This leads them to the Low Moment. In some stories, the False Victory will be only a short moment of hope before everything falls apart. Even in stories in which the False Victory is truly victorious in some way, the characters will suffer collateral damage. Sacrifices will be made, sometimes willingly, but usually because the characters’ choices create dire consequences. This will lead them to their soul-searching and, if they successfully transform, the complete death of their old Lie and complete rebirth into the New Truth.
For Example:
In What About Bob?, the protagonist Bob shows clear signs of improving his neuroses, but this leads directly to the mental breakdown of his psychiatrist Leo, which prompts Leo’s family to ask their friend Bob to leave.
In Toy Story, Woody is on the brink of escaping from Sid’s room back to Andy’s house, only to have his plans thwarted when the rest of Andy’s toys see Buzz’s dismembered arm and believe Woody has hurt him once again.
In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge joins the third and final spirit, having been much changed by his previous visitations, only to be shown a doomed future that includes his own death and that of Tiny Tim.
Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983), Walt Disney Pictures.
Where Does the Third Point Belong?
The Third Plot Point takes place at the 75% mark. Like the First Plot Point’s threshold between the First and Second Acts, the Third Plot Point creates a threshold between the Second and Third Acts. It is not properly a part of either act but provides the portal between them.
Timing becomes trickier the closer you get to the end. In longer works, such as novels, it can be easy to get carried away in the Second Act, but this can sometimes cramp the Third Plot Point. Alternately, in shorter works such as films, we often see an overemphasis on the Climax that ends up short-changing either the Third Plot Point’s Low Moment or trying to get it over with as early as the Second Pinch Point at the 62% mark. Although timing and pacing are never hard and fast propositions, it is important to evaluate the big picture of your story’s structural timing. Assess whether any structural sections are getting short-changed. Particularly when it comes to the transformational beats—the First Plot Point, the Midpoint, and the Third Plot Point—ensure they receive the spotlight they deserve.
The events of the Third Plot Point may create a lengthy sequence comprising the first half of the Third Act, leading right up to the Climax. There is much for the characters to experience and react to in this beat, all of which will lay the groundwork for their ability to take definitive conflict-ending action in the Climax. In action stories, most character arc adjustments should be completed before the Climax begins. In more relational stories, the Climactic Moment may be the character’s final decision about how to act upon the story’s Truth. Regardless, the Third Plot Point and subsequent scenes must be fully developed to provide a sound foundation for the story’s ending.
Examples of the Third Plot Point From Film and Literature
Pride and Prejudice: Just as Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy begin to grow closer while spending time at his Pemberley estate, word comes that Elizabeth’s youngest sister Lydia has run away with the scoundrel Mr. Wickham. Elizabeth must return home, not only fearing the worst for her sister and her family, but also believing Lydia’s scandalous actions have caused Mr. Darcy to revile her family forever.
Pride & Prejudice (1995), BBC1.
It’s a Wonderful Life:After looking everywhere for the money Uncle Billy lost, George is forced to his lowest point when he approaches his nemesis Mr. Potter for a loan. When he offers his life insurance policy as collateral, Potter scoffs, “Why, you’re worth more dead than alive!” George sinks into soul-wrenching desperation as he drives to the river and contemplates killing himself so the policy can be cashed to repay the money.
It’s a Wonderful Life (1947), Liberty Films.
Ender’s Game: Ender is forced into a fatal confrontation with the bully Bonzo. In a display of the ruthlessness that has made him so successful at Battle School, he kills Bonzo. He is devastated by his actions and nearly gives up on Battle School, fleeing to his family on Earth to contemplate who he is becoming.
Ender’s Game (2013), Lionsgate.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World: This film provides an example of a Low Moment timed to take place at the Second Pinch Point, as Captain Jack Aubrey’s best friend Dr. Stephen Maturin is accidentally shot aboard ship. For the first time, Jack abandons his obsessive pursuit of the French privateer and takes his friend to the Galapagos Islands so he can be safely operated upon. The later turning point into the Third Act occurs when the Acheron is sighted nearby, setting up the final confrontation. This is not a Low Moment for Jack, but still sketches the beat’s emotions by being told through Stephen’s perspective and showing his disappointment that he will now have to abandon his long-awaited expedition to the Galapagos.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), Miramax Films.
Top Things to Remember About the Third Plot Point
The Third Plot Point occurs at the 75% mark, providing a bridge between the Second and Third Acts.
The Third Plot Point may be an utter upheaval of the gains the characters thought they made in the Second Half of the Second Act (as in Pride and Prejudice), an unexpected event (as in It’s a Wonderful Life), a personal decision (as in Ender’s Game), or a meeting between protagonist and antagonist (as in Master and Commander).
The Third Plot Point begins with a False Victory, in which the characters use what they learned in the Second Act to try to gain the plot goal. They may experience a win or just the expectation of one.
The Low Moment follows on the heels of the False Victory and prompts the characters into deep soul-searching as they contemplate their choices and actions.
If the characters can successfully see through their blind spots to reach the story’s central thematic Truth, they can rise back up to definitively approach the plot goal in the Climax.
The Third Plot Point proves how far your characters have come on their personal journeys and whether they can integrate everything they’ve learned. The Climax is coming up next, and they will need to consolidate all their growth to reach their plot goal.
Stay tuned: Next week, we will talk about the Climax.
Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! What happens in your story’s Third Plot Point? Tell me in the comments!
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How can you bring laughter into your books regardless of genre? What are the challenges of writing a novel after an award-winning career as a comedy writer for TV and radio? Dave Cohen shares his lessons learned in this interview.
This episode is sponsored by Publisher Rocket, which will help you get your book in front of more Amazon readers so you can spend less time marketing and more time writing. I use Publisher Rocket for researching book titles, categories, and keywords — for new books and for updating my backlist. Check it out at www.PublisherRocket.com
Dave Cohen is a multi-award-winning BBC comedy writer who has worked on shows like Horrible Histories, as well as a comedy novelist, podcaster, and author of nonfiction. His latest book is Funny Up Your Fiction: How to Add Light, Shade, and Laughs to Your Novel.
You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.
Show Notes
The shift from writing for TV to self-publishing novels
Why comedy is important for writers
Writing for individual sense of humour vs. broader appeal
Constructing characters that readers will find funny
Avoiding cliches in comedy
Creating covers for comic novels based on genre crossovers
Cancel culture and its affect on writing humour
Tips for keeping a positive mindset and creating opportunities
Joanna: Dave Cohen is a multi-award-winning BBC comedy writer who has worked on shows like Horrible Histories, as well as a comedy novelist, podcaster, and author of nonfiction. His latest book is How to Write a Funny Novel. So welcome to the show, Dave.
Dave: Hi. Thanks very much for having me. Pleasure to be here.
Joanna: I’m excited to talk to you today. First up—
Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into books and self-publishing after focusing more on writing for screen and performance in previous decades.
Dave: Well, I’d always wanted to be a novelist, really since I was a teenager, but I got a little bit distracted on the way. I happened to spend 10 years as a stand-up comedian, and that was followed by about 20 years of writing for comedy for TV and radio.
It was never quite the right time to start that novel writing career. Then I got to my 59th birthday, this was in 2017, and I finally thought, well, this is the time that I decide I have to write the novel now. I have to do it now and be damned.
So I did, and I wrote my first novel. I was very pleased, and I got it all ready to send off to agents. I finished it and it was ready March 2020, at which point COVID happened.
Every one of my comedy friends and colleagues, stand-up comedians, writers, all of the people who are far more successful than me, were suddenly out of work. So they had to think, “What am I going to do next? I’ll write a book.”
So I suddenly thought, ah, right, my book isn’t going to get anywhere with an agent, I might as well self-publish. That’s the next part of the journey, and that’s how I’ve ended up here now.
Joanna: Just go into that bit more then because obviously working a couple of decades with the BBC—which if people don’t know, as there’s a lot of people in America, it’s probably the most traditional of traditional media you could possibly imagine.
How did you break out of the opinion of the traditional media around self-publishing?
I mean, things have obviously changed since I self-published back in 2007, but how did you get around that?
Dave: Well, I mean, first of all, I would say people think of the BBC as this sort of very respectable giant monolith, but actually it’s loads and loads of different quirky little places.
So it sounds great to say writing for the BBC, but a lot of that was writing for BBC Radio, which was about five people in a broom cupboard. Also children’s TV, which is only three people in a smaller cupboard.
So the kind of pioneering way of the BBC is it’s able to make things despite this sort of reputation as this very fusty corporation, rather than because of it. I think that’s very much the kind of spirit that I found fairly straightforwardly, actually.
That’s one of the things that was fairly easy to come to from being in the world of TV writing, was moving away from the BBC that’s just full of people who just do it and do it for love. So from that point of view, it was a fairly straightforward move.
I think that the harder move was coming from being somebody who was a professional writer and was used to a process, that often ended up in rejection, but it was still a process anyway. So moving from that to a situation, the jungle, I suppose, of self-publishing, where it’s free for all.
Joanna: Yes, and there are obviously pros and cons in that. I mean, you mentioned your previous writing, and one of the things you say in the book is that much of it was quite short, lyrics and shorter things.
What were the challenges in the craft of writing a full novel after very different creativity in the past?
Dave: Well, this probably sounds quite stupid, but it’s actually true. The number of words, indeed, is quite a challenge because a single joke can be four words long.
There’s a great comedian, Tim Vine, a British comedian, and he had a joke which went, “Velcro, what a rip off.” That’s a joke he did that’s four words long. So the idea is, oh, what do I do? Do I have to write 20,000 four-word jokes?
Obviously, the numbers thing is part of the issue. Like a half-hour sitcom is about 4000 words long. To develop a new idea for a sitcom and to write a pilot script for one, it’s quite a lot of work.
It’s almost not quite as much work as developing a novel, a whole novel, but it’s months of playing with stuff and thinking of things. So the words was the first thing, but then the next problem was going to the other extreme.
It was like, aha! I can write as much as I want now. So you’d end up overwriting. The sky wasn’t just blue, it was a pastel blue with the clouds breezing along. You go, oh, I can just do this. Whereas when you’re writing a script, you just have to get straight to the point. “Character knocks on door, other character answers, straight into conversation.”
So, yes, one of the main things was overcompensating. That did lead me to another true fact, I think of whatever you’re writing, in whatever form you’re writing in, whether it’s screenplays, novels, books, jokes, whatever, you have to keep cutting all the time. Cut, cut, cut.
You can always overwrite, and you always need to get to the point. I think just one other thing, the main other thing that I learned was you don’t actually have to be funny all the time when you’re writing a novel. I think that would just be too much. It’d be like banging the reader over the head with a plastic mallet.
Joanna: Yes, exactly. Oh, well, that’s interesting. Well, let’s come back to the comedy then. Why is comedy so important for writers, anyway? I mean, I write darker books, and some people tell me that they laugh in my books, and I certainly didn’t intend it. Or specifically funny books, more like yours.
Why is laughter so important?
Dave: I mean, because the Bible tells us it is. You know the phrase, “laughter is the best medicine,” do you know where that’s from?
Joanna: It’s got to be from Proverbs or something.
Dave: That’s correct. Yes, yes. With your background in theology, I thought you might get that. Yes, it’s from Proverbs. Laughter is the best medicine, and people love laughter.
I grew up always loving comedy, listening to comedy on the radio. Also just the great thing was the whole family, we would all sit around the TV, and there were some great TV shows in Britain in the 1970s. We’d all sit around and watch Dad’s Army and Reggie Perrin and Morecambe and Wise.
Comedy, it’s just lovely. It brings people together, really.
Joanna: It’s difficult though, isn’t it? I mean, you talk there about sitting around together. I think maybe it’s partly my family, but my brother is very funny and laughs a lot, and I laugh with him, but when we were kids, I would just be like, I don’t even know why he’s finding this funny, this is ridiculous.
People have different views of what is funny.
So how do we write a novel where you don’t really have the delivery timing that you would in stand up. In stand up, you’re reacting to the crowd, and you can do all that. Or like when I’m speaking professionally, I can see how things are landing.
With a novel, or with a short story or whatever, you can’t see the audience’s reaction. So how are you dealing with this individual sense of humour and broader appeal when you’re writing a novel?
Dave: Well, the first thing, just before I answer that specific question, I would like to say this book that I’ve written now, How to Write a Funny Novel, is as much for me to learn by writing that down.
The first thing that became very clear to me was I needed to distinguish between what we might call a funny novel. Like, say, Bridget Jones books or PG Wodehouse, those are just funny novels that you sit and you laugh and you read them in a half a day or whatever.
Then there are also books that are written in genre, and you add humor to them. So you might think of something like, say, the Richard Osman Murder Mystery books. These are great books, but they’re funny as well. Sophie Kinsella writes romance, but those books are very funny.
So there are two types of comedy in that sense. There is writing as a style, say, and writing as a genre. I think for you, as a writer, to find your funny.
Going for another old proverb. Sorry to go even further back, but we’re with Socrates now. Socrates said, “Know thyself.” That’s one of the key elements, I think.
When you come across a funny character, one of the key elements is they lack self-awareness.
If you want to write a funny character, you’re going to need awareness of your own weaknesses and foibles.
I know in drama, and in fact, I know you’ve written a book about this, about discovering yourself and finding your dark side. In comedy, you don’t quite need to go that far, but you need to find what I call “cringe corner”. You need to find those elements about yourself.
Like, how do you react to certain people? What irritates you? Why when you’re standing in the queue in the post office and the woman in front of you is taking 20 minutes to buy a stamp, why are you getting so angry? What’s the flaw in your character that’s making you do this?
I’ve got an example in How to Write a Funny Novel of a story, a thing that happened to me in 1982. So this is going back to my early 20s.
I was involved in setting up a music festival, and I was handing out checks to people, not knowing that these checks were going to bounce the next day. I was potentially going to get into big trouble for this and go to jail, possibly.
Luckily, a couple of rock stars paid off the money, and the losses that the festival made were paid. After that time, I got very angry with the people who put me in that position, and I held this grudge.
I realized in 2022, 40 years later, I was still holding a grudge against these people from 1982. I think about it, and what was the point of that? What good was that doing anybody? I mean, it was certainly not me. I was arguing with this guy in my head, and he wasn’t there to answer. He was just in my head.
I realized that this is just the most ridiculous thing that I’m holding onto this grudge. It actually became a very useful thing for me, not that particular story, but it became a useful thing for the second novel in my series, Barry Goldman, which is very loosely autobiographical.
I was able to bring all of the anger, 40 years of realization, where I was able to kind of put that into the book. It helped the character, I think.
Joanna: It’s interesting, that kind of situational thing. You mentioned Richard Osman. I eventually picked up The Thursday Murder Club. I was like, oh, it’s so popular because he’s famous. In the UK he’s a famous guy, and so it can’t be good.
Then I just chortled my way through the whole thing. I’ve read all of them, pre-ordered them. I love that series.
You’re right about the sort of ridiculousness. His main narrator, you know that they’re in a retirement home, and his main narrator is just so funny. She’s talking about what’s going on, and gossiping, and it’s all funny, even though she’s not trying to be.
You just think, oh, that’s just getting into that character. I mean, you mentioned there your Barry Goldman book.
How do we construct a character that readers will find funny, even though that character is not standing around telling jokes?
Dave: I think writing comedy, adding funny to a novel or writing a funny novel, is not a very different process from writing any other type of novel.
If you think about what you need when you’re starting to come up with an idea for a novel, it’s the same as what you need for anything, a drama, a movie or whatever. You’ve got these four principal elements that everybody has.
You have a character, or two characters, possibly. The character has a goal, and that’s the second thing. Then there are obstacles in the way of that goal. Then the fourth thing is the world that these people inhabit. That’s every single story ever written, 99.99% of stories, they are that.
A character goes on a journey. They’ve got a goal. Then they meet these obstacles, they fight them, they slay the dragon, whatever. So you start at that very general place, and there’s just two crucial differences with a comedy character in that situation.
They still go on the same journey, and they’ve got the goals, and they’ve got the obstacles. The two differences are that when you get to the end of a drama, your character has been through hell, they’ve slain the dragon, whatever, they’ve saved the world, but they’ve also learnt something along the way.
They’ve had, a lovely Greek word, catharsis. They’re a different person at the end compared to the beginning. In comedy, that doesn’t happen. I mean, especially in sitcom, a character just comes back week in, week out to make the same mistakes because —
Comedy characters never learn.
It’s true in novels as well. Even when they get to the end and they’ve solved the problem, they’ve got the girl or whatever, they still haven’t quite changed. So that’s number one.
The second thing, which is really the most crucial difference between characters in drama and comedy, is that in drama, we often talk about the protagonist is the main character and the antagonist is the enemy character.
More often than not, most times in comedy, the antagonist is the same person. So the obstacles are your obstacles. The flaws in your character have come due to this lack of self-awareness. So the biggest enemy to a comedy character is staring back at them in the mirror.
Joanna: That’s so interesting that you say comedy characters never learn. They just keep coming back and making the same mistakes. My husband recently really got into the show Silicon Valley. Have you seen that?
Dave: I haven’t, no, but I’ve heard lots of good things about that.
Joanna: You would understand it completely because I got annoyed. I mean, it’s got like six seasons or something. I was like, “Look, I know exactly how these characters are going to react every time.” He’s laughing away, and I laughed away a little bit, but then I was like, it’s just the same every single episode.
Is it that the success of these types of shows, is it that people really want—They crave that same experience which means that the character can never learn?
Dave: Yes, I think there’s a few things there. There’s a sort of but for the grace of God go I that he’s going to do that again.
If you think about the Charlie Brown, the Peanuts cartoon, there’s this running gag that just never gets old. “Honestly, Charlie, I’m not going to take the ball away this time. I’m going to leave it there. You can kick the ball.” Of course, Lucy takes it away at the last moment. It’s every time.
It’s like yes, you can look at that from a logical point of view and say, well, he should just not try kicking the ball again, but that’s the sort of thing that’s part of the lack of self-awareness.
I can show that as a sort of optimism of a person. They just can’t believe that anyone would be so mean that. They have such faith in humanity that they’re going to keep trying to do this.
Every time, as a comedy writer, you have to find a new way of putting that character in a difficult situation.
There’s a great British TV comedy writer, Dennis Norden. He described every joke as a momentary removal of a sympathy.
So when you see that person walk into a lamp post, or fall flat on their backside, or do the thing that they keep doing, you sort of laugh at them, but it’s momentary because you kind of feel like, yeah, I know what that’s like.
Joanna: I was thinking as you were talking, about Dilbert, the cartoon, and also The Office, the show that we had here in the UK and also in the US. Again, it’s very normal situations, and we recognize the working culture.
It’s funny because we recognize those characters. Those characters, you know, the bad manager, it’s kind of a cliche, isn’t it?
How do we avoid cliches in comedy?
Dave: Yes, that’s a very good question. Nine times out of ten, or a lot of times, we don’t. Again, it’s the same as avoiding cliches in any form, really. Coming back to what I’ve already spoken about, in a sense you’re bringing your self-awareness to some things.
So I cliches are actually very good at the starting point when you’re creating a comedy show. Again, it also works with drama. What is this show about? It’s about a fish out of water.
So, yes, I suppose the answer is that you put your cliches into the theme of what something’s about. Cliches are cliches because they are shortcuts to truth. So everybody gets that straight away.
Someone like Arthur Dent in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, he’s a fish out of water. He’s out of his depth. So you’ve got a story that’s as original and startling as the Hitchhiker’s Guide, but you’ve still got these kind of comedy characters. So it’s the places that you put your characters in.
Yes, they’re doing the same things over and over, but you avoid cliche because you keep coming back to the character, as I keep doing talking to you now.
Joanna: Yes, it’s very interesting. So your Barry Goldman books, you mentioned they’re loosely autobiographical and that they are about a stand-up comedian and how his life developed. So was that what came to you when you wanted to write the novel?
I mean, that’s obviously a very different approach to the Richard Osman Thursday Murder Club, a load of retirees in a retirement home.
Did you feel like there was just too much comedy in your own life not to put that on the page?
Dave: Well, yes, and I partly put that down to my lack of experience. Again, this is quite a common thing that I find with people when they’re starting out. The first thing that people often want to write in comedy is their story.
The reason for this is quite valid because the two pieces of advice you hear over and over again for writers are, number one is write what you know. Number two is write in your own voice.
These are phrases that are banded about, but they need some careful examination, because just because this thing happened to you, doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to be the best person to write about it.
I think writing what you don’t know is as important, that you’re finding out stuff. When you find out new stuff, you don’t know a huge amount, but you know just enough more than the person who’s going to read your book to be like one step ahead of them.
So the next point is about writing in your voice. Well, this is my story, so it’s going to be my voice. Again, I don’t think that’s really what one’s voice is. I think you find your voice just by writing and trying new things all the time.
It’s also the sum of everything that you’ve ever done up to the point that you start writing. So I think —
It’s more important to give yourself permission to lie.
I think now, I’m just writing book three, the last in the Barry Goldman trilogy, and compared to the first one, it’s just there’s nothing in book three that’s really autobiographical. Little episodes here or there, but the first book was much more about me.
I think that was just me writing, getting that first novel out of the way so that I could become a novelist. I think a piece of advice I give to people is, if you’re thinking, “I’m going to write my story, that’s my first novel,” maybe just park that for a moment and maybe just try and come up with a different thing.
You won’t be so emotionally attached to it, and you might be able to look at the bigger picture, rather than be kind of stuck inside it.
Joanna: It’ll be interesting to see where you go. I was thinking then of David Baddiel, who was originally very much a comedy writer. Then over the years—I mean, obviously he still does some comedy—but over the years, his books have become very serious and tackling some really big topics.
He’s really changed as a writer over the decades that I’ve certainly been reading him. I think that’s important too, isn’t it? It’s not like you’re necessarily only ever going to write comedy books.
I think your covers, for example, the cover branding makes it very clear what kind of book people can expect.
Dave: Yes, I think that’s true. I mean, I’ve been writing for 40 odd years now. David’s been writing for almost as long, probably 30 years.
In fact, it’s a sort of parallel almost, in that I was doing stand-up before him, and I was the Jewish comedy stand up at that time. Then as I stopped, he took over, and that became his role. Then he went on, and he did a lot of this stuff about football and things. Each new project brings new things, and we get old, and we have different experiences.
So I think there is a bit of a problem with writing comedy, writing a comic novel. I do listen to a lot of podcasts about self-publishing, and people do attach a lot of importance to the cover.
It’s fine if you’re writing, like Richard Osman, you’re writing a murder mystery. You look at the cover of Richard Osman’s book, and it looks like all the other covers of all the murder mysteries. It just happens to be funny as well.
Likewise, you look at Emily Henry, an American romance novelist, you look at her covers, and they’re very similar to the sorts of covers of romance novels, but hers happened to be funny as well.
A comic novel, I mean, I can’t make a cover that’s like Bridget Jones because it’s not a romance. Or I can’t do a cover like Hitchhiker’s Guide, it’s not science fiction.
So yes, I did try with the novels to get something that conveys humor without having the luxury of being able to say, “Oh, and you’ll find it in this shelf in the library or at the bookshop.”
Joanna: No, it is difficult. As you say, it’s more of a crossover in terms of where it fits. I understand the difficulty in marketing that.
I did also just want to touch on something that a lot of people are very scared about in this culture, this sort of cancel culture outrage. There are certainly some comics on Netflix, and right now as we’re recording, the Edinburgh Festival.
People get offended, and they can put bad reviews, or they can tear people down on social media. I was thinking even how publishers have rewritten Roald Dahl, which was my childhood comedy, and how dated things are.
I was thinking about Benny Hill. I mean, you could not have a Benny Hill film on TV anymore. I mean, it’s just really offensive.
How do we tackle fear of cancel culture with humor?
Because it often does skirt the line of what’s accessible.
Dave: I will answer that with regard to the specifics of the moment, and cancel culture and all these handy words of the moment. But I would like to go to a more important point which I think obscures this, which I think a lot of people fear writing comedy.
Interestingly, I find when people come to me as writers wanting to do stuff, it’s almost invariably women, because men just think, “Oh, I’m going to write comedy,” and that’s how it is. Women will write to me and say, “I want to write comedy, but I’m not sure that I’m funny enough.”
Actually, there is this sort of problem that people are worried that, like you say, you’ll get a bad review or whatever, and that does happen. Also, it is true that comedy, unlike drama, it’s like you were saying with your husband, he’s laughing there, and you’re getting annoyed.
If you watch a drama and you don’t like it, you just go, “Oh, I didn’t like that.” You watch a comedy show and you don’t like it, you get really angry. “How could they think that’s funny?” Like you were saying earlier, “I don’t find that funny. How can anyone else find it funny?”
So you will get that, I’m afraid, but actually, people need to overcome that fear. The worst thing with comedy, and I certainly found this with my first novel, is indifference, much more than hostility people.
You might think, “Oh, I’m a bit worried someone might take offense at this.” Well, just be grateful that someone’s even actually got around to reading it. So that’s the first thing I would say about that.
So yes, you do have to have a little bit of a thick skin, I think, to be able to do comedy. If you think you’re funny, just try it and send it out to people and see what people say.
Someone will find it funny, not everyone. So the people who don’t find it funny say, “Oh, I didn’t find that funny,” but some people will. So that’s something that I really would encourage people because it is definitely something that does frustrate me sometimes.
I’ll see very good, very funny writers who are held back by that thing of, well, some people won’t find it funny, and I’m a bit nervous about putting it out there. Well, that’s fine. That’s part of being a writer is being nervous about what you put out there. I think that is just much more important.
I think it’s quite hard to get canceled nowadays. I wouldn’t worry about that. Certainly, Roald Dahl and Benny Hill, they’re not around to worry about it anymore. That’s somebody else’s problem, not your problem.
Just write what you can and write what you want to. Write because you love writing and you want to be a better writer.
That always, for me, is the number one key thing.
Joanna: It’s interesting thinking about dated language. It doesn’t relate to getting canceled, but when I rewrote my first novel, Stone of Fire, after more than a decade, I found conversation in there that I just would not write any more. There were terms that have really dated in terms of just technology and stuff.
I rewrote those and was very happy that as a self-published author, you can just rewrite and upload new files. That is a possibility.
Dave: Yes, it’s interesting because that’s been something that I’ve had to revisit. The first song that I wrote for Horrible Histories was a song about the four King Georges, Georges I, II, III, and IV.
It’s still a very popular song, and people go to that song, but there are lines in that song that there’s no way that I would write lines like that now. That was only 2008, so it’s not like it was eons away.
I think there have definitely been very big changes in language, and I think if you are able to go back—and this is one of the great things, as you say, about self-publishing.
In fact, there were a couple of things in the first Barry book that after I published it the first time, somebody read a couple of things and said, oh, that’s a bit dodgy. Even though it was from a sympathetic point of view, it still potentially came across as something that people might be upset by.
So I was able to, like you say, just go into the document, change it, and put it back again in 72 hours, rather than eight months or whatever.
Joanna: I was just thinking there, I think Dickens republished one of his stories after some feedback for something that was taken as much more offensive. So I think this is not a new thing, people changing what they’ve written. I hope what you’ve said helps people just put stuff out there.
I like that you mentioned obscurity because this is so true. When we see comics canceled or people taken down on social media, they are often very famous. The reality is—
Most of us put our books out and nobody even notices.
Dave: I mean, an interesting one is, I mean, there’s a couple of comedians, notably Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle, who their job, they think, is to offend. They do that job really well.
People get offended, and they say, “Look at what Ricky Gervais has just done.” The algorithm, which doesn’t understand divisiveness or woke cancer culture, says, “Oh, twice as many people are telling me to show this Ricky Gervais thing. This must be really popular.”
So for people like Ricky Gervais and other people, it actually helps them because the algorithm doesn’t do that politics. It’s just the algorithm.
Joanna: It is interesting. I mean, there’ll be people who have different attitudes listening, and I think that’s where I was coming from in terms of the question around comedy, because obviously Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle are really extreme on some of these things.
I’ve got to admit, like on the Netflix specials for both of them, I did go and have a look because they got so much flack. I was like, how? Then, of course, some of it really is offensive, but much of it was very, very funny.
I think that’s the other thing, isn’t it? It’s almost like, can we laugh at some things and not others? That’s partly what humor is.
There is such a fine line between funny and offensive.
Dave: To come back to your Dickens example. The example I know, which might be the one you’re thinking of, is certainly when Oliver Twist came out. A lot of people complained about Fagin being an antisemitic character.
Dickens’ response in the next book, I think it’s Our Mutual Friend, he has this character called Mr. Riah, who’s this nice, lovely Jewish man. It’s almost like, I wish you just apologized for Fagan and moved on.
This character was almost like an over compensation. “Mr. Riah is a lovely man. He has kindly eyes. He’s a generous money lender. He’s wonderful person.” You just think, ah, come on, Dickens. This isn’t a Dickensian character.
Joanna: Oh, being a writer has always been a struggle, for sure.
Now, we’re almost out of time, but I wanted to come to one of your other short books called Ready Steady, Joke!: Why Hard Times are the Best Times to Build Your Writing Career?
I love that attitude. So obviously you mentioned COVID before, which was very tough for live performances, but there are always challenges and always difficulties.
What are some of your tips for finding opportunities and keeping a positive mindset?
Dave: Well, I mean, the first thing that I would say in terms of keeping a positive mindset is this thing of doing it because you want to do it, because you want to become a better writer.
Try not to think that I am going to write the great comic novel of the 21st century, whatever. Just think, I want to get better. I love writing. I love comedy. I want to get better for the sake of it.
To get in TV and radio, and it’s got harder over the years, just as it’s got harder in every section of TV and movies and whatever. It’s just harder and harder to sell stuff nowadays.
There are actual ways into British and American TV. If you can write jokes, and some people can do it instinctively, but you can learn how to write jokes. You can learn how to write topical jokes. You’ve got these shows on US TV, daily shows, and then you’ve got topical shows on the BBC in Britain as well.
These shows just eat up loads and loads and loads of material. They’re always looking for new writers. If you can get a credit on a show like that, and you start to get to know TV producers and people.
I think just networking is a good thing to do because you find out what else is going on in the world of TV and radio. You might meet another producer who likes your sense of humor. Again, coming back to how humor is subjective.
You know, you meet a producer who’s on your humor wavelength, and they’ll try and get your projects made. So that’s getting to know people within that industry.
It’s harder in books because the publishing world is more of a closed shop, but within self-publishing, there’s a great community. Getting to know other people in the community is an important thing.
The other thing I’d say is people often say, if you want to know how to write a novel, you should learn to write short stories. It is good advice, I think, but if you want to write comedy, it’s worth trying to learn how to write comedy sketches.
Like sort of two or three minute self-contained sketches like they have on Saturday Night Live, like Key & Peele. In Britain, shows like Little Britain. Big Train was a great show. Sketches are great because—
Sketches are to sitcom, what the short story is to the novel.
It’s like a single chapter that’s a self-contained story, and it uses all the elements that you will use in your writing your novel.
It uses character, world, goal, objects, dialogue, twists and punch line, whatever the punch line might be. So that’s a really good thing to do. Don’t just think, oh, I’m going to do this now. Just plan long term, think about the future. Above all, try to become a better writer.
Joanna: I was thinking then of the comedic aspects within self-publishing as well. Just trying to keep a positive mindset around some of the challenges we have. Not just the writing side, obviously the publishing, and the marketing, and the changes going on. I mean, it’s a sitcom all of its own, isn’t it?
Dave: Yes. I mean, without the laughs, I’ve been finding.
Joanna: Oh, I don’t know. In terms of cliches, I know you were at London Book Fair this year, and I’ve been going to London Book Fair for a decade. Obviously missed the COVID years when it wasn’t on, but I go to London Book Fair, and I can just see the cliches coming.
I think having a positive attitude wherever you are in your writing journey can be super helpful.
Laughing with other author friends is often the antidote, perhaps.
Dave: Yes, and I just want to say before we go, the difference between being in the world of like constant rejection of writing for TV and stuff, and then the world where anybody can do anything of self-publishing, yes, it’s a bit scary.
But from a positive point of view, I do think that self-publishing—and I’m not just saying this, Jo—but I think your podcast, in particular, is just a fantastic resource. There’s just so much. I think I’ve learned more from listening to your show about how to really be a novelist.
It doesn’t end once you type “the end.” That’s just the beginning, really. You need to be out there and to be marketing. You don’t have all the sort of machine of the industry behind you, but you have control over your own work. That’s just a really energizing thing, I find.
Joanna: Fantastic.
Where can people find you, and your books, and everything you do online?
Dave: Well, I’ve just started a new podcast. I used to do a podcast called Sitcom Geeks, and so the clue was in the title. We did about 200 episodes, but we stopped because nobody was making sitcoms anymore, and also we were doing other things.
I’ve now got a more general podcast called A Write Funny Podcast, as in W-R-I-T-E. Then the book How to Write a Funny Novel will be out end of September. You can find out all about these things at my website, which is DaveCohen.org.uk.
Joanna: Well, thanks so much for your time, Dave. That was great.
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