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Self-Taught Is the Best Taught

If you’re honest about recalling your school days, you will admit that you said something like this:

I hate mathematics.

Why am I learning Latin? It’s been dead for thousands of years.

Tell me, when in my life am I ever going to use trigonometry?

You may have made statements like that about different subjects, but there was always some class that you hated. Somehow it took you longer to get around to doing the homework that was assigned for that subject. Whenever a test in that subject was scheduled, you faced it with dread. You knew you weren’t going to score well, at least not as well as you could have. If your parents asked why your grades were lower in that class, you probably blamed it on the teacher. “He’s a jerk.” And he was a jerk—for trying to teach you something that you didn’t want to learn.

That’s one big advantage of self-teaching—you come to it self-motivated. You want to learn. You’re reading a book called Comedy Writing Self-Taught. You wouldn’t be doing that if you didn’t want to learn how to write comedy. Certainly in school, you didn’t browse the bookstores looking for a volume called Trigonometry Self-Taught. You didn’t care about trigonometry; you do care . . . deeply . . . about writing comedy.

Charles Schwab, who had a remarkably successful career as the leader of Bethlehem Steel, said, “A man can succeed at anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, a renowned essayist and poet, echoed that idea: “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” Tennessee Williams, who was a pretty good writer, said it quite bluntly: “Enthusiasm is the most important thing in life.”

The desire to teach yourself anything, including comedy writing, proves that you bring enthusiasm to your project. And as the above quotes show, enthusiasm is essential for the learning process.

As part of a team that produced several television shows, my partner and I hired writers to work on our staffs. Certainly we looked for writing ability by reading material the people had written, we interviewed them, and we sought references from other shows they had worked on. However, we found that in contributing to the show, the overriding quality we sought was enthusiasm.

Somehow being excited about working on a particular show produced results that exceeded the writers’ natural talents. They worked harder, they worked longer, and they worked with more creativity. They sincerely wanted to write well and they usually did.

Being willing to teach yourself how to write comedy—and, of course, at the same time being willing to learn how to write comedy—will produce results that exceed even your expectations. As some businessman once said, “A salesman minus enthusiasm is just a clerk.”

Another benefit of teaching yourself comedy is that you create your own curriculum. Wouldn’t it have been great during your school days if you had that luxury? You hate trigonometry, you say? It’s gone. Delete it from your schedule. Latin is a drag, you say? Forget about it. Your Latin class is no more; it’s been eliminated. Organic chemistry gets you down, you say? Blow up the lab. No more chemistry studies. Wouldn’t that have been wonderful?

Of course, the school board may have known what it was doing and some of those “despicable” courses were probably necessary. But they’re in the past; you’ve survived them.

We’re talking about the present now. You have a better idea of what you want to learn. There’s no need to burden your mind or your time with unnecessary studies. If you want to learn to write jokes, teach yourself to write jokes. Make that the central theme of your curriculum. You don’t have to study character development, using the correct point of view, and tricks of denouement to write “Take my wife—please.” But if you want to learn those concepts, add them to your curriculum.

You’re the teacher and the student. You don’t have to teach or study anything that’s not furthering your ambitions. In a self-taught curriculum, you can spend all of your time and energy acquiring those skills you’ll need for the profession you’ve chosen.

Working only on applicable subjects will also shorten the time it takes you to learn.

However—and it is a big “however”—this book on self-teaching, although it does grant you the luxury of designing your own class schedule, will also recommend studying some areas that may seem irrelevant. The idea is not to clutter your studies with useless information but to help you to expand your talents. Give certain subjects at least a try. You could find that you enjoy them or that you are talented in those areas. There’s a good chance that studying some tangential subjects will make you a better writer.

Time is another important factor in learning, and, again, with self-teaching you’re in total control of that element. Time is a serious consideration for two reasons. The first reason is that you have only so many hours to devote to your studies. All of us have family obligations, a day job, relaxation, and who knows what all demanding our attention. We can’t study twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. With a self-taught program, you determine how many hours you can devote to learning comedy writing.

I once heard somebody on a talk show comment that only two things were determined strictly by time—prison and school. Self-teaching reduces that to only prison sentences. With self-education you can take as long or as short a time as you want to learn your lessons. You can set aside two hours a week or two hours a day. The determination is yours.

The second reason why time is a serious consideration is that certain things take longer to learn than others. As an example, I’m teaching myself to play the piano as I write this book. Some of the pieces in the music book I’m using are relatively simple. I can play them haltingly and slowly for a while, but they’re easy enough for me to “master” them with an hour’s practice. (My wife, I must admit, is getting a bit sick of hearing “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” but since I play it well, I play it often.) Some other pieces are more difficult, more complicated, more challenging for my limited ability. Those I may have to practice for a week or two weeks. It doesn’t seem logical that I should allot one-hour practice for all pieces regardless of their complexity.

The standard curriculum doesn’t consider this, though. Schools teach subjects for one semester. Either you get it in that time or you don’t. With self-teaching you can allow as much time as it takes for you to master each particular skill.

With self-teaching you also control the homework you hand out. That’s right, you will have homework to complete. You can’t learn anything without some effort. However, since you are the teacher, you determine what assignments will be required. Since you’re also the student, you have veto power over those homework requirements. You can’t eliminate them, but you can manipulate them so that even though they are challenging, they’re also fun and beneficial.

Some exercises are suggested in this text for you to apply and practice. The companion volume to this book, Comedy Writing Self-Taught Workbook, has plenty of practice drills to work on to help you learn different skills associated with comedy writing. Not all of them will apply to the type of writing you’re interested in, but you’re free to pick and choose which ones you’ll work on.

It’s commendable if you take some of these exercises and alter them slightly to create drills of your own. That’s really teaching yourself to write comedy.

And with any of these practice assignments you’re not limited to a due date. Take as much or as little time to complete them as you wish. There’s no penalty for being late. That’s just another perk of self-teaching.

I’ve enjoyed teaching various forms of writing for several years now. I enjoy it. It’s exciting to see other people get enthused about the craft. It’s gratifying to have students get published or land jobs in television or writing for comics. And strangely enough, it’s educational, too. I used to run a yearly seminar for comedy writers. A colleague of mine, a television writer, would return year after year as part of our faculty. It was quite generous of him because we were not that generous to him. He worked each year without pay. One time I asked him, “Why do you return year after year to teach here?” He said, “Because I learn so damn much.”

But there are times when teaching can be troublesome, too. Many times in a room full of people, one or two can be annoying. Some students ask questions so that they can answer them themselves. They want to show you and the other students that they know more than you do about this particular topic. A few students will try to dominate the class dialogue. Occasionally, a student will challenge the information you offer. Some students demand full attention while they give a presentation but talk constantly while others are presenting. A few students try to dominate all discussions and turn every lesson taught in the direction of their particular project.

It’s usually my responsibility as the teacher to control these disturbances. Sometimes I succeed; sometimes I just get frustrated. In any case, I can usually see the annoyance in the other students. They’ve paid money and sacrificed their time to attend class, yet one or two people disrupt the class and interfere with the learning process.

The beauty of self-teaching is that you’re the professor and, more important, you’re the only student in the class. You’re free from these distractions and annoyances. Isn’t it wonderful to be in such a small, dedicated class?

One final benefit of self-teaching is that it’s readily available. All that’s required is you and your desire to learn to write. For many, self-teaching may be the only option. Comedy writing classes, unless you live in show business cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, or Las Vegas, are not readily available.

Of course, there are classes offered through the Internet, but the costs may be prohibitive. One thing you can be sure of—if you’re teaching yourself, you can’t beat the tuition.

Although this book is dedicated to teaching yourself to write comedy, that’s not to condemn any formal education, classes, workshops, clubs, or seminars. If you’re interested in writing comedy, get as much information as you can from wherever you can. At the same time, though, continue to teach yourself. Keep observing, analyzing, studying, and practicing. The secret to success in any endeavor is to become good at what you do and then to keep getting better . . . and better . . . and better.

And, of course, to have fun while doing it.