David Sedaris MasterClass Review
I work as a professional content developer and enjoy blogging whenever I have some free time in hand! So, basically, I like and enjoy writing. Though most of my writing work has always revolved around writing company literature, articles for my blog and other people´s websites, I never really got the time and motivation to write something for myself.
Probably writing some funny stories which sound pretty interesting to work on. But I didn't have the skills to do it the right way. But that changed a few weeks back after I took this David Sedaris' Masterclass!
David Sedaris is a renowned author and humorist, known for his comic works and essays throughout the 90s. A publicly recognized figure in the field of humor writing for more than two decades has now joined forces with masterclass.com to show you and all of his admirers how they can master the art of storytelling, that too in many different forms! Yes, you can get to learn it from the guru himself! David will be your guide through an informative course where he teaches skills that are applicable for everyone particularly writers or stand-up comics.
David Sedaris MasterClass Review 2020 | (Should You Go For It)
David Sedaris MasterClass Review
David Raymond Sedaris, or simply David Sedaris is an American comedian, humorist, radio contributor, and author. He gained his first public recognition when National Public Radio in 1992, broadcast his essay "Santaland Diaries". This was followed by his first publication in 1994, called "Barrel Fever", which was a collection of essays and short stories. Actor Amy Sedaris is his brother with whom he also works as a writing collaborator.
A majority of Sedaris's humor is quite evidently self-deprecating, and autobiographical which concerns his family life quite often, and displaying shades of his upbringing in the middle-class suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina and also his Greek heritage. His works have also touched upon areas like jobs, education, homosexuality, drug use, and obsessive behaviors. He has also talked about his life while living in various places like the English South Downs, France, and London.
David began his professional writing career with his sister Amy by co-publishing 9 books, and over the years has expanded his work having written for most mediums. He later also found considerable success writing short stories and radio shows for the BBC. Furthermore, he also wrote essays for The New Yorker.
David was awarded the prestigious Terry Southern Prize for Humor and also American Academy of Arts and Letters' Medal for Spoken Language. The least critics have described him as is a "Consummate storyteller" for the amazing level of work David does. A man with such experience and accolades has to be an excellent teacher, and that's exactly wah we will find out as we go through David´s informative storytelling masterclass!
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The David Sedaris MasterClass!
David Sedaris, from here on is your storytelling masterclass teacher! He is a very simple and down to earth guy, with a simple approach that he does not have anything very special to say. He also acknowledges that fact that there are much better-educated and funnier writers than him out there, but that doesn't mean he thinks something less of himself. He knows what he does and loves what he is doing. This positive attitude has never anything stop him!
Throughout this masterclass, David will make you understand that different readers like to read different things. There's a genre for everyone, which allows every different kind of writer to have their own audience. You just need to practice your craft and keep writing stuff, and your work will eventually find its audience over time.
David gives a suitable example of author Terry Pratchett, who had published his first full-length book in 1971. He did find some early success, but the popularity of his books started to soar after another 14 years. That was when he found his audience, and then nothing could stop the growth of his career!
Tips to become a good humor writer!
Writing is an art that is not so easy to master. Furthermore, it becomes even tougher if you mainly want to write humor or comedy. David has a very naïve and simple approach to this. His idea is to watch and imitate funny people! Plus, you have to practice this daily to eventually find your way. Watching and imitating funny people requires you to be more observant so that you are able to see the potential for humor in everyday life.
David Sedaris also explains that an exaggeration is an important tool when writing humor! He teaches you some tricks on how you can put in some exaggeration to make people laugh by telling an interesting story. He also teaches you the tricks on how to keep it in control because, exaggeration can offend people at times, with several great examples. You need to hold yourself from taking it too far and losing your audience.
Finding the "Writer's Voice"!
You don't always need to hold on to perfection to write something nice. Just let it go and write! If you free yourself at the start from the idea of perfection, allows your ideas to flow in more freely and in all forms. Your writing process becomes easier! The more you continue writing this way, the better. This also significantly speeds up your writing speed helping you to learn faster!
David continues to share several interesting writing exercises with his viewers. He urges his viewers to keep a diary and write whenever and wherever you feel like. He will teach you tricks on making the most of this. His tricks are such that they can be easily made to fit into your everyday life. That's what makes this section even more enjoyable!
One of his first suggestions in this lesson is that you write something about a stranger while observing them. You don't need to be very elaborate, only a few lines are enough. This exercise works on your observational skills as well as writing skills.
Becoming a better writer: Tools to help you!
This section was short and crisp, but very well executed. You will particularly like how David Sedaris shares some of his own tools with his students. Here he also talks about using the FocusWriter app that will help you focus on the important and relevant tasks in hand. He also teaches you how to benefit from setting word count and time goals while writing things.
Finding inspiration!
No writer and life to write without inspiration! You just need to find the right one, because it is all around you. David will show you some really interesting less than obvious ways to help you know exactly where to find your inspiration!
David's Sedaris learning mentality is like a sponge! He actively seeks to work on totally new experiences. Doing so can help you stimulate your mind and think in new and fresh ways. To top it all, David also proceeds to share some nice inspirational tips from other noted writers as well! Furthermore, he emphasizes on how you need to be always connected and engaged with the world. It's a very productive thing to stay alert and collect ideas for inspiration, that may take the shape of something professional later.
Carving a story out of the inspiration!
Now that you know how to find your inspiration, it's time to start converting it into a story! To begin with this, David Sedaris advises everyone to begin by writing short stories or essays. This is an important way to practice how to turn your ideas and inspirations into a story that captures people's imaginations. Writing an essay, to begin with, is always a good approach even if you are planning to pen down a longer story. This way you are able to explore different directions that you can direct your stories in.
David shares some of his short essays and stories which he drafted while searching for inspirations and it is interesting to note that most of them are comedy sketches. However, he does also share some of his observational essays with us.
Writing about real people: Avoiding pitfalls!
Since you are observing real-life people and taking most of your inspiration from them means that there may be many instances that your characters might be recognizable a lot of time. This is quite natural and therefore, you will have to be very sensitive and handle things sensibly. To tackle this problem, David has some very clever strategies to get that much-needed balance. The best way he suggested was to celebrate the people and write good things about them so that you are able to write about them without causing any kind of offense to them.
Bringing your characters to life!
Your stories will always need to have characters that are believable so that people can connect with them. Bringing characters to life makes your story more engaging and interesting for the readers. If your audience fails to relate to your characters in any way, then they will struggle to connect with them. This is why David emphasized earlier on the importance of observation!
David explains his writing process!
This section is perhaps the most anticipated of them all because here is where David Sedaris holds nothing back and goes all out on sharing his writing process with the viewers. He tactfully walks you through each step, so yes, this section is pretty elaborate and detailed. If you are passionate about learning to write like him, then this will be the most helpful part of the course!
You need to hold on to your patience and observer carefully because, since this David is a professional storyteller, a considerable part of this course involves him reading through his work, which for some people, might be a tad bit annoying! But I still recommend you to stay with it, because you will realize that he's doing all this with a purpose. If you are a person who loves learning from examples, then this will work on you.
Coming up with a strong ending!
This is something you will find every writer, author, and storyteller on masterclass emphasize on. A good story always needs to have a strong ending! It is also actually the most difficult part to execute. Adding a great ending to your story will make it memorable and people will keep coming back to it. So, finishing strong is important! David proceeds in this section to share some examples of strong endings. You will find how his overall observant mindset and the ability to weave a strong plot around the characters allow him to finish his stories in a way that it becomes so memorable for the reader.
The need to rewrite!
Rewriting is extremely important if you want to get the pace and pattern of the story right. David Sedaris revealed that even experts and professional authors often rewrite their stories multiple times before finalizing it. David himself rewrites things several times, sometimes even up to 60 times. He made everyone carefully understand that it is important to be prepared to rewrite something so many times.
David's special tips
As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, David knows what he is doing and loves his work. He works at creating magic every day and has developed some valuable habits over the years that have enabled him to have a closet full of rich and amazing ideas. He conducts this session to share many of these tips and principles with his students. Some of them include:
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- Inspiring yourself by keeping a daily diary
- Capturing ideas before they are gone
- Using the world around you for finding inspiration
Masterclass All-access Pass
The masterclass is an amazing platform to learn from the best people from in the world across different genres and industries. If you are passionate to learn more about writing and improve your skills, then there are several masterclasses from renowned people like David Sedaris, Margaret Atwood, Dan Brown, James Patterson, and more. If you want to learn from all such greats, then I suggest you buy the Masterclass all-access pass to get access to all of the writing masterclasses. Check our MasterClass All Access Pass here:
Buying the all-access pass gives you the advantage of taking all 12 courses for just $180. The same price you would have paid for taking just two courses. Furthermore, you will get unlimited access to over 70 masterclasses using the all-access pass!
David Sedaris MasterClass Reviews & Student Rating
CONCLUSION: David Sedaris MasterClass Review 2020
I have taken numerous writing masterclass lessons previously as well and was pleased with the quality of content Masterclass offers to learners, that's why I didn't hesitate in taking David's Sedaris masterclass. Humor and comedy have always been my favorite genre of reading, and I always wondered if I can write something like this someday.
Honestly, after going through this masterclass, I can confidently say that I can begin writing some good comedy content because I got to learn some really interesting and important tips and insights from David, which really made it easier for me to have a go at writing comedy!
Altogether, David is a tour-de-force and his masterclass can be a bible for those who are willing to become great storytellers and good writers, particularly in the genre of humor and comedy! I suggest you get your Masterclass All-access to pass so that you can get access to not only David's but masterclasses from many more writers and presenters from different fields at an all-included price of $180. Yes, with no additional costs to be paid!
Quick Links:We hope our David Sedaris MasterClass review suits your purpose well and helped you get better insights into his MasterClass.
