Overcoming the Pitfalls of Conventional Stand-Up Comedy Writing

Breaking Free from Conventional Joke Writing

Probably one of the most unfortunate conditions that a comic can experience is getting hopelessly stuck in what I can only describe as “conventional” stand-up comedy “joke writing” mode.

When I refer to “conventional” joke writing, I am talking about the process of trying to fabricate funny jokes from a blank piece of paper out of thin air using a literary writing skill set that is designed for consumption by an individual reader.

If you have read my article about using your natural comedy talent as a comedian, then you know that trying to “write” stand-up comedy material working only with words and sentences alone to get the audience laughter a comedian needs to succeed is problematic on a number of levels.

It’s kind of like trying to eat a bowl of rice using only one chopstick.

If you sit through ANY stand-up comedy open mic night from beginning to end, you will see for yourself why I say that “conventional” stand-up comedy joke writing methods not only do not work well for most people but can also put naturally funny people on a path that can severely obstruct their progress on stage as a comedian.

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Why Do Most People Go for the “Standard” Joke Writing Approach?

It’s fairly easy to understand when you consider that from an early age, we are formally taught how to write in a standardized way for individual readers to consume.

So, given the prospect of needing to “write” stand-up comedy material for a comedy routine, people turn to the “writing” skill set they know well and have been trained to do, focusing only on words and sentences alone in order to get the audience laughter results that they crave.

Unfortunately, this literary writing approach (joke writing) by its very nature effectively excludes all of the other important individual attributes, qualities, and characteristics that give a person the ability to cause laughter to happen when they interact with others in person.

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Talking is Not Writing

If you want to be ahead of the pack as a comedian, know this:

Talking is not writing. Talking, speaking, or communicating verbally involves the natural integration of a number of vital aspects that give a person their ability to generate laughs, whether they are on or off the stand-up comedy stage.

Talking also allows a person to use an economy of words, which is critical to the punchline frequency needed every performing minute to make headway as a comedian.

“Writing,” on the other hand, only involves words and sentences that are specifically designed to be read, unlike the spoken word which is experienced by an observer and involves much more than just words alone.

The literal words and sentences a person uses when they talk are actually a very small part of what a person uses to generate laughter from others, whether they are talking with friends and family or they are standing before a live audience as a comedian.

Unfortunately, in the world of stand-up comedy, the “literary” approach to writing stand-up comedy is not only prevalent but also proliferated by so-called stand-up comedy experts without regard to the other critical attributes that actually give a comedian the vast majority of their laughter generation power.

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Breaking the Cycle

I can’t think of a single person who would even begin to try to put together a jigsaw puzzle if they knew that most of the pieces were missing.

But this happens every day in stand-up comedy.

Virtually everyone already knows what “writing” is from years of instruction in school from the elementary level and beyond.

Once a person makes the connection between what they know “writing” to be as they have been taught, they simply get stuck in what I have referred to in the beginning as “joke writing mode”.

You might be asking yourself this question:

“Is he saying my stand-up comedy material shouldn’t be written down?”

The answer is NO, that’s not what I am saying at all.

Since it is impossible to see the spoken word, the only way to edit, adjust, structure, hone, or even delete stand-up comedy material is to have it written down.

But if you don’t know what you are doing in that regard, you end up effectively trying to “write” your way to being funny on stage in the hardest way possible.

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The Secret to Effective Stand-Up Comedy Writing

Trying to “write” anything in the literary context (the context that most people approach developing stand-up comedy material) makes it very difficult to produce 4-6+ punchlines per minute, much less the set-up lines to support that punchline frequency.

But writing stand-up comedy material in the context that incorporates all aspects of verbal communication is relatively EASY if you truly know what you are doing.

But don’t take my word for it. Not at all.

Go talk to ANY established headliner comedian and ask them how long it took to be able to deliver 30 minutes of headliner level material.

Go to any stand-up comedy open mic and find out how long any of the comedians there have been sucking on stage. Ask them how they learned to develop their comedy material (that is not getting laughs).

Then go check out what these Killer Stand-up comedians were able to do and the time they were able to do it in.

After that, if you want to follow the “herd”, just keep writing those one-dimensional, paper-contrived “jokes” every single day. See if you can get an audience to howl with laughter from your efforts in less than a year.

Just know that if you have read this article and you do actually have natural comedy talent…

Using “traditional” stand-up joke writing techniques doesn’t mean you have to be “trapped” writing one joke at a time. If you have the guts to go against the grain, you have a workable option.

Bloodletting as an accepted medical treatment lasted for over 2000 years. Can you even imagine how many people croaked from that misinformation?

Hopefully, stand-up comedy joke writing as it is generally accepted and taught today won’t last that long. 🙂