Writing Stand up Comedy

When you’ve decided you’re going to try your hand at writing stand-up, remember there are no hard and fast rules about what your material should contain.  Remember to capture any ideas from your day to day experiences on a notepad/phone.  You can use these ideas later to expand into stories and jokes for your routine.

Think about your style and personality.  What do you find funny and what would you want to see if you were watching.  It’s hard to second guess audiences, particularly whilst you are starting out, so take risks, if you find it hilarious, you’ll soon find whether audiences do too! 

The key is to write as much and as often as you can.  There are books/material available to teach the art of writing good jokes and funny stories, though of course the actual idea or inspiration has to come from the writer.  When you get started, steal your best conversations, research for ideas and play writing games.  It’s common for stand ups to also get ideas when they are on stage, so make sure you are able to note these down quickly.

More lately, some would argue that a stand up is more defined by their persona than be writing style.  That said, most jokes still follow the standard structure of setup followed by punchline.  The set up provides the background and information, with the punchline delivering the humour of the piece.  As a novice, don’t fall into the trap of taking too long with your setup.  Needless to say, the punchline is key and has to be funny.  Again, it can be easy to setup a funny situation but then fail to deliver in the humour of the punchline. 

A way of building a joke to its fullest extent is to use ‘tags’.  These are generally supplements to the initial punchline.   Can you add another punchline or may add a self-deprecating remark or comment on the original joke?  Let’s face it, two or three laughs is better than one!  As you develop as a writer and get more experience on stage, tags may become easier to write and you some stand ups grow their existing material with the use of tags.