David Sedaris MasterClass Review 2024: Is It Worth Your Money?
Last Updated on: January 18, 2024 by Aishwar Babber | Fact Checked
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OVERALL VERDICT
In the David Sedaris MasterClass, you learn how to tell stories with humor. It's fun and easy to understand, with practical tips to make your writing better. You get to hear personal stories, try out different writing styles, and always have access to the lessons. It's a great way for writers to get inspired and improve their skills.
Discovering the magic of storytelling can be an eye-opening adventure. Having dived into the world of writing and humor, I couldn’t resist checking out the David Sedaris MasterClass.
In this review, I’ll share my personal experience and insights into this interesting course by the well-known American humorist, comedian, author, and radio contributor David Sedaris.
Come along as we uncover the details of his teachings, find the valuable nuggets of wisdom, and navigate the fun-filled journey of creativity that this MasterClass offers.
Whether you’re an aspiring writer, a fan of humor, or someone simply looking for a dose of inspiration, this review is here to give you a peek into the enriching experience that awaits in the David Sedaris MasterClass.
Bottom Line Upfront:
The David Sedaris MasterClass is definitely worth checking out. In my experience with this course, I discovered a fantastic journey into the world of storytelling and humor.
David Sedaris shares valuable insights for anyone looking to improve their writing skills or ignite their creative side.
From the basics of crafting a compelling narrative to injecting humor into your work, this MasterClass is a practical and enjoyable resource.
If you’re looking for an engaging and accessible way to enhance your writing skills, the David Sedaris MasterClass is a solid choice. I Highly Recommended It.
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 displays 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, he 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 the American Academy of Arts and Letters Medal for Spoken Language.
The least critics have described him as 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 what we will find out as we go through David´s informative storytelling masterclass!
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 the 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 stopped 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!
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 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 tricks on how to keep it in control because exaggeration can offend people at times, with several great examples. You need to keep 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 from the idea of perfection at the start, it allows your ideas to flow 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 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 they 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, which will help you focus on the important and relevant tasks at 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 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 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 in which you can direct your stories.
David shares some of his short essays and stories, which he drafted while searching for inspiration, 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, there may be many instances where 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 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 in 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 observe carefully because, since 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 for you.
Coming up with a strong ending!
This is something you will find every writer, author, and storyteller in the masterclass emphasizes.
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 to share some examples of strong endings in this section.
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 becomes 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 them.
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 at 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:
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 in the world across different genres and industries.
Suppose you are passionate about learning more about writing and improving your skills. In that case, 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. Grab the pass with Masterclass Promo Code now.
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!
Anyone interested in gaining insights about how to harness real-life experiences and transform them into amusing stories should consider taking this class.
This workshop is designed for anyone who is at the beginning of their writing journey or who is searching for guidance on how to write their own novel.
David also provides a lot of examples from his own personal experiences, so if you are interested in how David got started or what inspires his writings, this class is an excellent opportunity to get an inside look at his process.
David also provides a lot of examples from his own personal experiences.
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 the 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.
💁What is MasterClass?
MasterClass is the streaming platform that makes it possible for anyone to watch or listen to hundreds of video lessons taught by 100+ of the world’s best.
🤑What is the pricing of masterclass ?
Masterclass All-Access Pass is billed at $180 and comes with a 30-day moneyback guarantee.
📺 Where can I watch?
With MasterClass, you can learn and be inspired anytime, anywhere, including your smartphone, personal computer, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Roku streaming media players. You can even download your favorite lessons and watch on the plane or listen during your commute in audio-only mode
Conclusion | David Sedaris MasterClass Review 2024
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 genres of reading, and I always wondered if I could 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!
I hope my David Sedaris MasterClass review suits your purpose well and helps you get better insights into his MasterClass.
Aishwar Babber is a passionate blogger and a digital marketer. He loves to talk and blog about the latest tech and gadgets, which motivates him to run GizmoBase. He is currently practicing his digital marketing, SEO, and SMO expertise as a full-time marketer on various projects. He is an active investor in AffiliateBay. You can find him on Twitter, Instagram & Facebook.
