The Publishing Performance Show

Dave Cohen - The Art of Injecting Humor into Any Fiction Genre

• Teddy Smith • Episode 9

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Dave Cohen, a writer, comedian, and Edinburgh Festival Perrier Award nominee, has been a constant presence on the British comedy scene for over 35 years. As a founder member of the Comedy Store Players and writer for successful TV shows like Have I Got News For You, Spitting Image, and BBC sitcoms Not Going Out and My Family, Dave has also written nearly 100 songs for the multi-BAFTA winning BBC hit Horrible Histories. With experience in stand-up comedy, radio shows, and as the lead singer of the world's first Jewish heavy metal band Guns'n'Moses, Dave has now turned his attention to novel writing and teaching comedy writing. In this episode, he discusses his career and approach to adding humor to fiction.

In this episode:

  • Dave's journey from stand-up comedy to writing for TV and radio
  • The process of transitioning from writing scripts to novels
  • Techniques for adding humor to different fiction genres
  • Tips for aspiring comedy writers
  • Insights from Dave's new book "Funny Up Your Fiction"
  • Marketing strategies for self-published authors


Resources mentioned:


Book recommendation:


Connect with Dave Cohen:


Connect with Teddy Smith:


Join our Facebook Community - https://www.facebook.com/groups/publishingperformance/



[00:00:00] Teddy: Hello everyone and welcome to the Publishing Informant Show. Today I'm really looking forward to chatting to Dave Cohen. Now he's someone I've been following around for a while now. I've always had this dream of writing a sitcom and He is a coach about teaching people how to write sitcoms. And he's also got a podcast all called sitcom geeks, which I've been listening to for a few years.

[00:00:23] Teddy: So I was really happy to talk to him today. But today, what we were talking about is how to add funny elements to your [00:00:30] books. Now, Dave's just got a new book all about writing funny elements into your book and how you can bring comedic characters, comedic plot lines and all those sorts of things to your books.

[00:00:40] Teddy: So it's quite a funny episode. And it was great to chat to Dave all about Bring your funny elements to your book and I think you're going to really enjoy it and get a bit of a laugh out of it as well.

[00:00:52] Teddy: Hi everyone and welcome to the Publishing Performance Show. I'm really happy to be here with Dave Cohen, who's actually one of my favorite podcasters. And so it's [00:01:00] really great to have a chance to speak to him. He's a writer and a comedian. He's had sitcoms on the BBC and he's a writer of a number of books all about being funny and writing.

[00:01:09] Teddy: So Dave, thanks for joining us. 

[00:01:11] Dave: Thank you for having me. 

[00:01:13] Teddy: Yeah, no, no problem. I'm absolutely honored to have you on the show. Your podcast has been one of my favorite things I've listened to about writing a script. And one day I'll get there. I think. 

[00:01:22] Dave: Okay. Oh, good. Yeah. Well, it's yes, it's very niche. It's about writing, writing sitcom scripts or it was, but we, yeah.[00:01:30] 

[00:01:30] Dave: Well, unfortunately, we had to stop doing it really because the show was called sitcom geeks and neither of us were getting any sitcoms on TV. And we thought, Hmm, this is, uh, are we the right people to be doing this now? So, but yeah, yeah, it's, uh, there's still lots of people want to write sitcom and, you know, good luck with it.

[00:01:51] Teddy: Yeah, great. I mean, you've had a quite a big, a long career in comedy writing. So what was it that drew you to comedy in the first place? And how did you get started as a [00:02:00] writer? 

[00:02:00] Dave: Well, I kind of knew I always wanted to do writing in some sort of way. And then I just I suppose, you know, growing up in in the sixties there was just so much comedy and so much music.

[00:02:14] Dave: So I wanted to be a rock star, of course, as everybody does. And then I I, Watched Steptoe and some when I was about six or seven years old and just found that very hilarious. And then just watched loads and loads of comedy and then found [00:02:30] a particular type of comedy that answered all my questions really was a band called the Bonzo Dog Band.

[00:02:39] Dave: And, uh, in particular writer Neil Innes who wrote for a kids TV show called Do Not Adjust Your Set. And that was, uh, so that, that was the pre Monty Python show for Michael Palin and Terry Jones and a few others, but Neil Innes did the comedy songs on it. And so, I guess that was [00:03:00] probably, and that's been kind of the thing that I've most known for really is the comedy songs.

[00:03:06] Dave: But then very much, pretty much really it was I got into radio and then The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy really was which was a radio show before it was a novel. And that I think probably if I'd known it as a novel first, maybe I would have wanted to be a novelist more. When I was 18, but instead that show just made me think I want to write radio comedy So yeah, [00:03:30] that was kind of how I found my way into that world Really of writing for comedy for radio and TV and what so what some of the shows that you've worked on Well, I did I was I was a stand up comedian for about 10 years, but in the process of while I was there, I was, I started on a show called Weekending, which was a weekly topical show.

[00:03:52] Dave: And it's where all the sort of top comedy writers for now, they all started there. And then I wrote for all sorts of things on the [00:04:00] radio shows called the News Quiz and the Sunday Format and Dead Ringers and for TV I wrote for shows like sort of Spitting Image and Have I Got News For You? And then later I was working on more kind of sitcoms, BBC sitcoms like My Family and Not Going Out.

[00:04:16] Dave: Um, but mostly as well, I guess I'll say I'm known for is the songs that I wrote for a kids TV show called Horrible Histories. Uh, and I wrote nearly a hundred songs for that. 

[00:04:29] Teddy: Amazing. Yeah, [00:04:30] that's, that's one of my other favorite podcasts. The, um, the You're Dead to Me. That's a really funny. 

[00:04:35] Dave: Yeah. I, Greg is just an amazing guy, really.

[00:04:38] Dave: In fact, he features in this book, uh, that I'm, that I'm doing. Bringing out now, but he who started out as a researcher on horrible histories and it kind of I sort of owe it to him. I think in many ways of that my, my kind of find finding my absolute perfect niche, which is comedy songs about history, [00:05:00] and I was sort of, I'd been vaguely interested in history and I'd done it at school a fair way, but Greg kind of reignited my, uh, interest in it.

[00:05:10] Dave: I mean, he started with the Terry Deering horrible Histories, books. Yeah. As his research, but then it just became just, I thought, I was so fascinated by the way he wrote about history, which was so different from how I'd grown up learning it, which was all, you know, like a kind of giant catalogue of numbers and dates and kings [00:05:30] and queens, which, you know, Of course, was very important back in the days when kings and queens were also basically in charge of the country.

[00:05:38] Dave: But he also just brought the eras to life really and that was that, that's been a really great thing for me in, you know, in the sort of later years of my writing. 

[00:05:50] Teddy: Yeah, amazing. I mean, your first book or what? I'm not sure. Not sure his first book. Sorry, but the book that I read first of yours was the complete comedy writer.

[00:05:57] Teddy: I really, really enjoyed that book. And [00:06:00] so what, what gave you the idea to write that book? First 

[00:06:02] Dave: With all the nonfiction books that I write, they're basically That they are the books where I need to find answers and I I can't find answers anywhere else and so That book was basically me working out.

[00:06:18] Dave: i've been a pretty successful writer for on topical comedy and and I wanted to do more sitcom and I was Just getting a bit of success as a [00:06:30] sitcom writer sort of a bit later in my career, but I still, I felt everything that I knew was from watching shows, but I also felt there's something clearer here.

[00:06:42] Dave: There's must be method here. It's not just my instinct and so I wanted to learn how to write sitcom and once I, once I Decided that that meant I'm I needed to learn about story and character, which is what every everything [00:07:00] is about really 

[00:07:01] And 

[00:07:02] Dave: so that took me to so that took me to aristotle Defining stories and you know, I read a very short book called the poetics by aristotle and You kind of That, that, that tells you almost everything you need to know.

[00:07:18] Dave: So basically I'm just building on a book that was written 2, 500 years ago. Are 

[00:07:24] Teddy: inside that book, you talk about a lot of like different techniques you can use in storytelling. what are the main ones you think that people [00:07:30] should be thinking about when they're writing?

[00:07:31] Teddy: Is there any like particular places where they should be starting? 

[00:07:35] Dave: Yeah, I think you start with the basics, which is that, well, first of all, you have an idea. Um, yeah, and that, that in itself is a, you know, there's kind of more to that than, than people often realize because everybody has ideas and lots of people have lots of great ideas.

[00:07:54] Dave: But you then you've kind of, even before you write anything at all, you want to kind of test [00:08:00] it and you want to sort of run with it. You need to let go of it if it's not quite there yet and not, not throw it away because you might end up using it. You might find the answer to the question that you couldn't find five years earlier.

[00:08:15] Dave: You go, ah, yes, that's what it was. But if you can't, if you're forcing it at this early stage, then that's going to, that's a bit of a kind of red flag really, I would say. But then once you really feel, Oh yeah, this is a [00:08:30] good idea. But there are four basics and they're just very straightforwardly.

[00:08:36] Dave: It's like, it's a, it's a character and this goes back to Aristotle. You've got a main character or, Possibly in comedy, you've got two characters, you know, like a mismatched couple, like a picture and say so you've got the character and then they've got something that they want a goal, a very specific thing.

[00:08:54] Dave: And then there are obstacles in the way. And then, then you want to know what the [00:09:00] world is. So those are the kind of four basics. And you just need to kind of think. Again, you're still not writing anything at all, but that's, that's where you sort of start to think about it. And, and the, the world bit tells you how this is going to make it different from everything else that's been before.

[00:09:20] Dave: Cause every, everything has a character going on a journey and they have goals and there are obstacles along the way. You know, that's just every single story ever, but you know, [00:09:30] 

[00:09:31] Teddy: Do those those concepts you're talking about, they're in sitcoms, obviously, as you mentioned, Peep Show and Faulty Towers, they have those mismatched characters in the world and the obstacles in the way.

[00:09:41] Teddy: Is it exactly the same thing in when you come to writing your funny novels as well? 

[00:09:46] Dave: Yes, I'd say it is really. I think it's the same, you know, it's the same in almost all narratives. I mean, there are big differences writing novels. compared to say writing a sitcom [00:10:00] script, but there are also a lot of similarities.

[00:10:03] Dave: But I mean principally it's the same concept. I think the difference which as a regular listener, listener to sitcom geeks, you will have heard me and James say many times is that, you know, sitcom differs from everything else in that the characters, They may go on a journey, but they don't they don't come through the journey with with any knowledge or self awareness They are still the same character [00:10:30] And you know, they've learned nothing or or they've learned something at the end of the episode But by the about or they've learned something during the episode, but by the end of the episode they've learned Forgotten it which again is like a bit like real life, isn't it?

[00:10:44] Dave: Really? You know, yeah, I'm not gonna do that thing again I promise Teddy Okay, five minute cut to five minutes later. Oh, I just did that thing again. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, 

[00:10:56] Teddy: I'm gonna die Next thing, you know, you're eating biscuits. Yes again[00:11:00] 

[00:11:02] Teddy: So you I your news book which We'll talk about a sec is about being funny in novels, but before that you've actually wrote some comedy novels, the Barry Goldman series. So what was the inspiration behind writing those books? 

[00:11:14] I guess part of it was When when Rick Mayall died and I'd known Rick as a when we were students and we met at the Edinburgh Fringe and it was a, it was a kind of really important moment in my life seeing the show [00:11:30] that he did with Ade Edmondson in 1979 which was called Death on the Toilet, which, which was a reference to like a couple of years earlier.

[00:11:40] Dave: Elvis Presley had died in that situation. So it already, it was already kind of, you know, for 1979, that was already quite a kind of shocking title, really. And I got to know Rick through mutual friends who were doing, studying drama with him and Ade in Manchester. [00:12:00] And I went to see this show, and it just was not like anything that I'd ever seen before, really.

[00:12:06] Dave: And it was you know, it was, it was, it was, And it was funny, but it was funny in a way that I totally recognized from my own, the stuff I watched and growing up, it was sort of like step toe sitcom funny, uh, and, but it was also, you know, so it was live and they were in the room and they were just [00:12:30] extraordinary performers.

[00:12:31] Dave: And it, it, I, I realized sort of decades later that it, that it was actually the, the, the template for bottom, um, you know, that was kind of what it was, but in 1979, it's just the most astonishing thing. And I spent, I'll say, I spent 10 years as a stand up comedian and I, and I always, Felt the story of the beginnings of alternative comedy haven't really been told In a very you know, but we've been told [00:13:00] well yet this and I thought this character barry goldman is basically me.

[00:13:05] Dave: Was uh should should be the one to tell it. So the first book is set in the 70s for the first time I went to Edinburgh, and then the second book is when I started out as a professional comedian. And I'm just writing the third one now, which is the final one. Um, that will take us to about 1987, and I will say nothing more.

[00:13:26] Teddy: But in the, so when you were writing those novels, is that the first time you'd written a novel? [00:13:30] 

[00:13:30] Dave: Yes, I was like everyone else I'm sure who listens to your podcast. I'd had many, many, many chapter ones. Uh, I had years and years of wanting to be a novelist. And. I just, I think partly because I was writing TV and radio comedy or jokes, stand up jokes and like, you know, a joke is, I don't know, 10 words, 15 words [00:14:00] lasts a few seconds and you know, I can get my head around that and then.

[00:14:05] Dave: I taught myself to write sitcom scripts. Sitcom scripts, there are what, about four or five thousand words. And again, it's a step up from just a gag and it's about character and story as well. But, but then the next step from there, from writing five thousand word sitcom to like an eighty thousand word novel, it was just, I just didn't have the time.

[00:14:29] Dave: [00:14:30] And in a sense, that's kind of when I started to write the Barry Goldman books, I thought, well, this is just familiar material for me. So I can use it. And again, a lot of writers, I'm sure a lot of people listening to this will have done the same thing. They'll have said, this is what happened in my life.

[00:14:49] Dave: I'm going to turn it into a story. And I think I'd always tried that before, but I think the, the, the big, the big difference came when I gave myself permission to [00:15:00] lie. 

[00:15:01] Right. 

[00:15:01] Dave: And that was with, with, with Barry, there's a lot of autobiographical stuff in there. And the more drafts I went through, the more I said, actually, Maybe I'll take that bit out because although it happened, it doesn't, it's not really adding anything to a story.

[00:15:17] Dave: I'll, I'll just make up something here. And by the time I got to the second book, it was much more a kind of like a sort of impressionist painting. Whereas say the first draft of the [00:15:30] first Barry Goldman was, was a photograph, a clear photograph of me. And then, you know, so I'm moving, I'm just moving into fiction.

[00:15:38] Dave: That's the key word really, isn't it? Fiction. 

[00:15:40] Teddy: Yeah, exactly. And, but when you're writing out the story, did you, what was your technique for like plotting it out because obviously you needed to weave humor into it. And that was the whole point of the book really was to get funny parts into it. But as you mentioned with a book, you've got to get that narrative and the story.

[00:15:54] Teddy: Right. So did you plot that out first or, and then with the funny bits after it's all. 

[00:15:59] Dave: Yeah, I mean, [00:16:00] it's, I'd never heard when I was all the time that I was working as a writer for TV and radio The you you know, you were kind of planning things you because you know, you a sitcom is whatever 24 minutes long Things have to happen at exact points.

[00:16:18] Dave: So you you were always you're always Doing structure. Um, and then I heard this thing when I was in the world of self publishing, I came across this thing. Are you a plotter or a [00:16:30] pantser? People 

[00:16:31] Teddy: talk about it all the time on this podcast. 

[00:16:33] Dave: And it's like, Oh yeah, pants. Oh, you just sit there with a blank sheet of paper, chapter one.

[00:16:38] Dave: This is going to happen. All right. And I couldn't it's, it's not that I'm, you know, my, for me, structure is. So liberating, you know, because you have, you only have three minutes in your first, the opening of your sitcom to, to, to get to the first point [00:17:00] of, ah, this is with Squeak's story. So you've got, you've got to get there in a very short space of time.

[00:17:06] Dave: So you have to really kind of plan it, but even, but. But you know, if the opening three minutes of an episode of say Brooklyn nine, nine, compare it to the opening three minutes of an episode of Moran, you know, they're just, they're just completely different, but three minutes in bang thing happens, you know, this is setting off the story.[00:17:30] 

[00:17:30] Dave: So structure, rather than being a straight jacket, I look at structure as a liberation. Having said that come to understand now, well, I've, When I first, when I did the first novel and, you know, people say you should never publish your first novel and they're right. Because it's, because you, you learn how to write a novel when you write your first novel.

[00:17:53] Dave: And then the second one is like, Oh, right. Yeah, this is it. And so you find. I was able to be much [00:18:00] more kind of free form, I felt with the second book, even though I still had a very, I had a pretty solid structure, I knew kind of where things were happening mostly. But then I did actually. There was a little bit more of the, the pants.

[00:18:17] Dave: So I've got this new thing as well, which has, I think there's also, you, you should have somebody who I call the passenger. Uh, so the plotter is, you know, working hard that the structure and, you know, these are 

[00:18:29] Teddy: [00:18:30] characters in the book. You mean, sorry. Yeah. Uh, in, well, 

[00:18:32] Dave: when you're, when you're writing, yeah.

[00:18:34] Dave: Yeah. Do do structure, you know, do at least have an idea of where big things are going to happen that keep your, your reader interested. Right. Panzer is, you know, within that you can, you know, muck around a bit, but then I've got the passenger who just if when you're struggling a bit with where, where is it going and what's happening with the character is you just kind of sit back and watch the character and you kind [00:19:00] of put that character in situations that aren't necessarily going to be in the book, but they're going to make that character do things and.

[00:19:09] Dave: Take, take it to places that you hadn't thought of before because you just too much focused on your, your story and your structure, um, or just free writing, but actually nailing that character, but just sort of sitting back and seeing them mess up this being comedy. Um, [00:19:30] you know, it gives you, it gives you an extra layer, I think, over and above just saying, oh, I'm making it all up on the fly or no, I'm intricately thinking.

[00:19:39] Dave: Building these foundations here. 

[00:19:42] Teddy: Right, so do you have an example when you've used that idea of the passenger? Like, what sort of scenarios have you used to have that passenger in? 

[00:19:51] Dave: I think I used it, I used it with Barry Goldman and with the, uh, the second Barry [00:20:00] Goldman book And again, this was me having to kind of break away from, from Dave.

[00:20:05] Dave: It's not about you. It's about this fictional character. And so, and I had him doing what I was doing a lot of over the years, which was, you know, getting in, getting in cars with other comedians and driving up to Manchester or Liverpool or whatever doing gigs. But then I, I, I had him kind of. Being different to me.

[00:20:28] Dave: I took I said, okay, [00:20:30] so, okay. You've just done this gig and um You've, you've you've got a girlfriend at home and, you know, there's somebody hitting on you here. What are you going to do, Barry? You know, rather than knowing what Dave would do in that situation. I thought, well, here are a number of possibilities of what Barry can do.

[00:20:50] Dave: And it gave me just a nice, I just, mostly it was all freeform and it didn't really, nothing came of it. But there was just one little nice moment [00:21:00] that where. he had the point where he could admit and nothing did happen but he he could have told his girlfriend about what happened but he chose he chose not to and it's sort of Felt to me like it was a really useful turning point right at the end of the book 

[00:21:20] Teddy: brilliant when with your Writing style.

[00:21:24] Teddy: I know you're talking about just now with the sitcoms. You've got particular beats You need to hit or there's like structure. Did you have [00:21:30] any like stylistic beats? You wanted to hit with your like with your novel writing. Yeah, that points in the story. I know there's a book called save the cats, which is about like novel writing And a lot of people it would it was that was that sort of the structure you kind of followed it 

[00:21:44] Dave: Well, I was just going to mention Save the Cat, because Okay, sorry.

[00:21:47] Dave: Yeah, just to be pertinent to the question. And yeah, I mean, the initial, the original Save the Cat is a screenwriter, is a movie book. And then it was hugely successful. So [00:22:00] he, he sort of sold off the franchise. So there's Save the Cat does, Novels save the cat does sitcom or whatever and and and this is the the proof of you know How everything does go back to to aristotle is that pretty much the 15?

[00:22:17] Dave: beats of save the cat Follow are are You know, similar to you know, it, it just depends on the, the, the, the size of the thing. But yeah, the save the cat is a [00:22:30] pretty good starting point I would say for, uh, whether it's screenplay, sitcom or novel. 

[00:22:37] Teddy: And in your book your most recent book you've just written, which is coming out soon, which is funny up your fiction, add lights and shade and last year novel.

[00:22:44] Teddy: So this book is all about basically making your novels funny. And one of your quotes, which I really liked was there's no fiction genre that can be helped that can't be helped. Sorry, by adding a touch of comedy. Like what do you mean by that? 

[00:22:58] Dave: Well again this [00:23:00] comes back to the Why why did I write this book?

[00:23:04] Dave: Well, because there isn't anything out there about how to add funny stuff to your novel And I needed to find out having written and I started to think about this book Before I wrote the second Barry book, so they kind of, each of those sort of helped me really and, and, and helped me to look for the answers.

[00:23:25] Dave: And what, one of the huge mistakes one makes when writing [00:23:30] comedy, unfortunately, and I've made it is You think I want to write I, I, I just want to write a funny book and which is how I felt about it and I ignored all the advice of, well, if you're self publishing you need to be in a genre. I just thought, no, it's a funny book and people know me from horrible histories and you know, blah, blah, blah.

[00:23:52] Dave: Cut to, as with everybody after their first novel, you know, the tumbleweeds and daily [00:24:00] checking of the Amazon, uh, Marketing figures turns into weekly checking of the Amazon marketing. Oh, oh, I sold a book last month Yeah, Oh novelists thing So the the mistake and once I finished the Barry trilogy The next book I write I'm fairly sure will be in a genre So sorry, that was a bit of a preamble to to answer the question, but it comes back to Coming back to those [00:24:30] four things that I mentioned right at the start They kind of correspond in some ways to some other kind of genre.

[00:24:35] Dave: So, you know, you've got a character goals obstacles and world yeah, let's let's take world for example, I mean the the science science fiction and fantasy are Very much, you know, the world is the most important thing in those things so I mean I I don't know enough about science fiction because uh, it's not a genre that I read a huge [00:25:00] amount of if I came up with an idea, a scientific, Oh, this is an interesting idea.

[00:25:05] Dave: Uh, you know, maybe it's the sort of 300 years in the future and, and we've all, you know, AI has taken over and our bodies are all AI, whatever. And, you know, there's probably a million people have had that idea, but the book's 

[00:25:20] Teddy: AI as well. Yeah. 

[00:25:22] Dave: But what's worked is this person who said, Oh, actually, you know, This is the world that i'm creating and then [00:25:30] you look at someone like you look at some terry pratchett's books.

[00:25:34] Dave: Yes, but it's disc world is a is a very very clear creation and Interestingly what terry pratchett always used to say? About when you're creating a world in science fiction. He said the first question you always ask is If i'm allowed to be used You Rude words on this. You can swear, you can curse as the Americans say.

[00:25:57] Dave: Okay, it's like, you know, how does, how, [00:26:00] how does the shit go in and how does it go out? he based Discworld pretty much on obviously not a giant turtle. On the back of four elephants or whatever it is. But the river that runs through it is based on the River Thames 19th century, which again, going back to thanks to Greg, I knew that if you lived in London in the mid 19th century, there was basically an open sewer running all the way through your city.

[00:26:27] Dave: And that sewer was the River Thames and it [00:26:30] was just absolutely disgusting and filthy and people died of. Cholera and all those things, diphtheria, whatever, so, so that's the kind of, and, and you can see how as more than just the kind of, oh, isn't that funny? It's on the back of four elephants, which is, you know, just his weirdness, but there's also, it's a funny idea of like, well, if you know that in this world that you're building that actually the sewage [00:27:00] system is just disgusting.

[00:27:02] Dave: That's gonna, that's gonna give you somewhere funny to go with it, you know, these, something like, say Crime, crime fiction, you know, and, and, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of funny murder mysteries. I mean, murders don't happen that often. And also when they do, they're never funny.

[00:27:28] Dave: And so you'll see in, say the books [00:27:30] of someone like you know, Richard Osman or who, who is, you know, the current master of the, of the form. You know, he, he will have, and, and lots of, you know, murder mistress things that they have a mismatched couple. So it'd be like a character, a character thing.

[00:27:44] Dave: And it's, you know, it's almost a sort of cliche of the American cop shows, you know, there's two characters who, well, this, this one plays by the rules and this one's a maverick, you know, and, you know, the, you can make that serious drama, but you can also have. Make [00:28:00] that extremely funny, you know, and I'm actually going all the way back to Holmes and Watson, you know, that, that.

[00:28:06] Dave: Um, even before Stephen Moffat, who's an excellent TV comedy writer, uh, I mean, TV writer or run who happens to be very good at comedy as well. But you know, he, he really played the, uh, 

[00:28:20] Cumberbatch 

[00:28:21] Dave: and Freeman Holmes and Watson just very much for lamps. But even the, the original Conan Doyle Holmes is just, you know, [00:28:30] he, he is extremely clever, but he's also very.

[00:28:32] Dave: Pompous and Watson is quite dull, but he is very good at sort of pricking homes is polyposity. So, so that's, that's how you kind of bring, you know, so that it just becomes more than this. Oh, the mystery of the pound of the Baskervilles. You know, what, what, what is a curious mystery? Well, it is curious mystery.

[00:28:52] Dave: But we, you know, it's not just a book that's read by people who like mysteries. It's read by people who like [00:29:00] general books in general, and they like to have a laugh as well when they're reading a book. 

[00:29:05] Teddy: That's a really good point, because obviously a lot of people I speak to, they're thinking about making a book funnier, but then they, one of the issues they come up with is they're not very good at writing jokes, but what you're saying is it's actually not necessarily like jokes you have to put in to make it funny, it's actually the characters and the way they interact with each other that will bring out the humor like in each other.

[00:29:25] Dave: Yeah, I think a lot of people are afraid of writing comedy because they think, [00:29:30] they'll say, I can't write jokes and I mean, yes, I, there is a very specific skill to being a gag writer and, you know, the difference between writing a 10 word gag, you know, I mean, if I was to Just write a book that's just gag, gag, gag.

[00:29:48] Dave: You know, by about page three, you would just go, okay, this is funny, but you know what's gonna happen now? Oh yeah, I've just gotta keep telling jokes, you know? And you know, basically you put that book down very quickly. [00:30:00] Um, yeah. But yeah, I, I think pe people have a fear of comedy and in some ways it's a, there, there is a.

[00:30:09] Dave: You know, if there's a reason for that, which is that, you know, what it's like when you say something that you think is funny and, you know, it's met by indifference or hostility, you know, you know, how horrible that feeling is. And, uh, and certainly also I do notice because I teach a lot of comedy writing and I get, you know, I get a lot of women [00:30:30] sending emails saying I'd like to write comedy, but I'm not sure if I'm funny or not.

[00:30:35] Dave: And that, whereas. blokes basically say I want to write comedy and it's going to be a comedy about this, this, this, and this, but I haven't really thought about, they have less shame, I think, or less. You know, actually that's not a bad thing to be. And I would say to women is just look, look at how men do [00:31:00] comedy and, you know, just, just dive in.

[00:31:02] Dave: And if it's still horrible and humiliating and terrible, then. You know dip out but actually when you're when you're writing a novel as as we've been talking about really everything everything is kind of Lots and lots of things are pretty much the same and where you're adding comedy, really, you're just kind of, I think the big, big thing to say is it's about a character's self awareness and it's [00:31:30] if your main character, whatever they're doing, whatever their journey is, they have a, They lack self awareness in a crucial area, and you can just exploit that, you know, however, however you want to do it, whether it's like, I mean, you know, just take your hero in the action adventure and or science fiction thing, and they're desperate to do something, and they have to get it done, and now, now put them on a phone to someone, thank you for calling, [00:32:00] and, you know, to to get through the, you know, Dungeons of fight the blah blah press three on your phone And you press three and it to get through the dungeon press three.

[00:32:09] Dave: I just bloody press three, you know So that that that's a kind of way and actually that's a kind of good way You know, I find when i'm I don't read a huge amount of thrillers. But again, you know, it's nice when There's a little break from the relentless pursuit of the bad guy [00:32:30] It's just it actually it helps for your hero or heroine to just show a little bit of humility and show a little bit of weakness because then We're rooting for them even more.

[00:32:44] Teddy: Yeah, so yeah, exactly It's all about make the building that sort of rich characters and those those Adding that human elements does like brings an arc of human size to them, I think with your, when you're with, when people who maybe they're not that funny themselves, but they're writing books, they [00:33:00] want to kind of add that element to it.

[00:33:02] Teddy: Have you got any tips for people who wants to try and be a bit more funny? 

[00:33:05] Dave: Yeah. Well, I think that thing about character is certainly that that is the, the, the number one issue that you, you want to be thinking about is to just give your character that sort of element of, of. Yeah. Lack of self awareness, um, other things are, you know, and again, this, this is all very old stuff.

[00:33:26] Dave: You know, if you look at a lot of all the old some of the, the, the [00:33:30] greatest comedy books, really, and actually you can, you can get a long way just reading Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, because Austen is just full of characters who are, who lack self awareness and, and Dickens is just full of great stories and funny things that happen along the way.

[00:33:50] Dave: Um, I mean, you know, there's, bring, bring in a character, uh, make, make a character. Pompous is, is a, is a good way of not [00:34:00] necessarily your main character. There's a thing that I mentioned in Complete Comedy Writer, which I think helps would help here as well, which is the is to use the, uh, thesaurus. So that you can, you can look at your main character, for instance, let's say that your main character thinks that they are very, very Very organized, you know, and so you look up you look up a word like organized in a very big thesaurus not just the online ones or something and you know, you'll see all [00:34:30] these words, you know organized thorough rigorous, you know, oh, that's good and then you come to go a little bit further down.

[00:34:35] Dave: It's a self controlling, you know, rigid, you know, and they're all and and so You can make how that that person doesn't see it They just think no I am i'm organized and if you don't do it my way Look, i've got this color coded thing here. You've got to do it my way or it's all gonna go terribly wrong.

[00:34:54] Dave: Um, So that's a kind of you know uh, I that that's the sort of [00:35:00] thing that I mean far be it from me to to give dan brown any Tips on writing, uh, you know, I mean credit to him those those people Da Vinci books or whatever they, you know, whatever you say about them, they, they, they rattle through a great pace and they, you know, they, they, they have, you just want to keep knowing all the time, what's going to happen, what's going to 

[00:35:21] happen, 

[00:35:22] Dave: but, but it would be nice maybe just occasionally to have a little moment where this guy, the Langdon or whatever, I can't remember who he, he, [00:35:30] he sort of shows a sort of moment of vulnerability or that he, he thinks he thinks he knows it all and then somebody else, some idiot comes along and says, no, no, no, it's this.

[00:35:39] Dave: Ah, yeah, you're right. You know, . Uh, just look at your main character and one of the things that I recommend in the book as well is to, is to, is to look at yourself. Um, yeah. And this isn't, I don't mean, you know, I know there's this idea we all have a sort of dark side and we all think evil thoughts and that sort of thing, but which, which is true.

[00:35:59] Dave: And if you [00:36:00] want to go that way, then sure. I think of it more as like the sort of a cringe things that make you cringe about what you did once. You know, did you really have that conversation with that woman you fancied and did you really say that thing? And oh God. And if you can remember that feeling that you had when you did that kind of wrong thing or whatever.

[00:36:22] Dave: I just. Give it to, give it to one of your characters and you know, that, that will really bring that [00:36:30] character to life and also make people laugh because they'll recognize it in themselves. 

[00:36:36] Teddy: Yes, yeah, that's, I really like those tips, like thinking about yourself, looking at the different characters to try and like bring that, that world to life.

[00:36:42] Teddy: I think that's really good advice. In your latest book, so what, what's the, we've, we've talked about some of those different parts about adding some about being funny, but what are the, what are the sort of, are there any other key takeaways that you think people should know before they, before they read it?

[00:36:58] Dave: Yeah, well, I think we've, [00:37:00] we've talked about most of the things, I mean, the first thing is that fear of funny, you kind of do need to overcome your fear. Don't, you know, the, the, the thing to worry about more, uh, as any. First novelist listening to this will tell you is uh dealing with the indifference.

[00:37:17] Dave: That's the that's the hard thing to deal with Don't worry that you're going to get cancelled because you probably won't I mean again This this is a very live thing. A lot of people say well, you know I don't want to offend people or I do want to [00:37:30] offend people and therefore i'm worried i'll get cancelled but you know even people who offend people And other people say we should cancel them.

[00:37:38] Dave: They've got their people who support them will make sure they're not cancelled. So, you know, that's not a big deal. The other thing that the other main thing, as I say, is to just be aware that so much of comedy, so much of writing is, is the same across comedy, drama and tragedy. And that's the main, the [00:38:00] main thing with comedy is to be, it's, you're not, you're not adding jokes, you know, you're not just saying, Oh, I need to put jokes. It needs to put jokes. You've got to get everything right. You've got to get the structure right first. I think one other thing that I would just say about character that I haven't mentioned yet is that, you know, no comedy character, comedy doesn't work.

[00:38:23] Dave: If a person is playing a character for the laps, they have to be absolutely serious about what [00:38:30] they do. What they want, who they think they are, what they want. And so you have this very kind of They're not just, I mean, yeah, they're slipping on a banana skin. Metaphorically, but, you know, you don't have to have them.

[00:38:47] Dave: Doing that, but you do that. They are, you know, that that is a classic example of, you know, when you're walking down the street. Oh, well, I've slipped and, you know, the first thing that you do is you try and save face. And so, [00:39:00] you know, you don't, you don't go, Oh, look at me. I've slipped. Cause but, and you wouldn't do that in your book either.

[00:39:06] Dave: You would just, so, so your, your, your character is deathly serious, you know, about what they want. You mentioned Basil Fawlty. I mean, Basil Fawlty is. Whatever else he is. He is convinced that he is God's gift to being a hotelier. 

[00:39:21] Teddy: Yep. Yeah, definitely So when's your when is your book coming out? 

[00:39:26] Dave: It should be out end of September.

[00:39:29] Teddy: [00:39:30] Yep 

[00:39:30] Dave: Books books ebooks and audio all being well Yeah. 

[00:39:36] Teddy: And have there been any particular marketing strategies that you've tried to use that have either not necessarily with this, but with your previous books as well, that that you're going to try and use again this time? 

[00:39:47] Dave: I have noticed it gets ever so slightly easier with each, with each book, but that's because I started from such a start from a, as a self from self publishing point of view, I started from a sort [00:40:00] of standing start.

[00:40:00] Dave: I knew nothing at all. Yeah. I know, I know enough now to know that actually I, the, the, the main, the main thing I'm doing is I'm, you know, I'm kind of speaking to more people on podcasts and doing more blogs and things, and I think that's, yeah. I, I think whoever you are, whatever, if, if you are you, you, you, you need to find your way of doing.

[00:40:23] Dave: And there's just a million possible ways that you can do things, and I've probably. Done about 40 or [00:40:30] 50 that have got me nowhere at all. So there's probably no point me mentioning but I mean I did do a book launch. I I Ended up setting up a book festival in my local area Last year, which was which went really well and that was that was just fun to do and that taught me a huge amount about about the publishing world and about my my life Minuscule place in it.

[00:40:56] Dave: Yeah, but it was just and it was just fun and it was a [00:41:00] great way to connect with people as well So I really yeah, definitely You know I think that was fun to do 

[00:41:08] Teddy: you've also I mean your newsletter is great That's how I because I read all your episodes. It's one of my favorite newsletters that comes out Um, you're my kind of fan teddy Tell you I talk about you too much.

[00:41:19] Teddy: Yeah, I will tell your friends Well, thanks so much. It's been really great listening to you. So, for people who want to get in touch with you, where's the best place to follow you get in touch? 

[00:41:29] Dave: [00:41:30] Yeah. So go to davecohen. org. uk, everything's there and you get that's where you sign up for the newsletter.

[00:41:37] Dave: And also I've got a new, basically, it's just a, a very, I'm putting up there a very general, very short, rough guide to, if you want to, you know, Become a comedy writer and that just all the different options that are available to you. 

[00:41:53] Teddy: Yeah, brilliant Thank you very much. And just the last question the last question Sorry, is there what's the book that you recommend?

[00:41:59] Teddy: Everyone [00:42:00] should be reading that maybe they're not reading at the moment 

[00:42:02] Dave: Well the the book I recommend really is it's well, it's a series I think it's four books now, but it's a writer called christopher chevlin who uh, you won't have heard of and Many people won't have heard of it. He's probably one of the best selling authors in Britain.

[00:42:17] Dave: He's written four very funny books, sort of vaguely detective novel y, but I don't think you would call them crime fiction, but The character is called Jonathan Fairfax [00:42:30] And it's jonathan with an a jonathan fairfax I can't remember all all the titles, but that there's there are four books in the series and this character is basically this sort of hopeless bloke With uh, no social skills and and you know, just no no ability to to kind of push himself forward So he's very he is very much a kind of character classic lovable loser in the sort of british You british comedy sense the word but [00:43:00] he sort of Ends up solving these mysteries and you know The books are really funny and they sell loads and Christopher's a very sweet.

[00:43:08] Dave: Lovely guy. I've met him a few times now and you know, he's he is a Great example in the self publishing world. Also, you know, he's not writing to genre He's just writing funny books. And I think he he was my inspiration really for thinking Oh, I can just write a novel and it's all fine. But you know, it's A little bit more than that.

[00:43:29] Dave: I [00:43:30] think 

[00:43:30] Teddy: Yeah. Oh, brilliant. That sounds, that sounds right up my street. So that's on my list next. Yeah. Thank you so much, Dave. I really appreciate you spending time to come and chat to us about your new book. I'm really looking forward to reading it when it comes out. 

[00:43:40] Dave: Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.