Books: The Comic Toolbox

The Comic Toolbox
My Verdict: Skim It

The Comic Toolbox: How To Be Funny Even If You're Not by John Vorhaus, tries to cover a very complex topic in layman's terms.

Consider this a workbook instead of just a writing theory book. In the first five chapters, exercises exist in lists of ten. After that it is mostly paragraph exercises. They are not just at the end of chapters, rather sprinkled throughout to help emphasize his theories. 

The exercises force you to lock up your internal editor by demanding ten examples each time (under the rule of thumb that nine will suck). It was a little agonizing to come up with so many ideas, but interesting to review them later with a friend - their favorite was often not the one I picked (which leads credence to "always have objective critique partners").

Brevity is the soul of wit he quotes from Shakespeare - it is also the soul of plotting exercises. Over and over he states "if you can't define a character in one sentence, I don't think you can define him at all" (P60).

Chapter 6 defines Types of Comedy in much the same way Save the Cat (STC) defined types of movies. In these definitions you will find lots of similarities to STC, but the main difference is that you can combine as many of these definitions together in order to make a more defined comedic world.

The exercises in this book were hard for me, because I tend to enjoy situational comedy. Therefore random word connotations that sound funny together, don't usually make me laugh. The tools here are necessary to build all types of comedic worlds, which makes sense once you see how they can be broken down and put together.

Whether you want to add a little bit of humor to your novel, or set out to write the next best comedic novel, this book is a good way to get your creative juices flowing and worth an invested skim.

Your Homework: Decide your baseline for humor and make sure you play to your strengths in your work.


Rating Scale: Keep On Desk, Own it, Read it, Skim it, Don't Bother