A Message From the Author

Starting from middle school, I won many humorous and dramatic acting competitions across the country and became nationally ranked as a top performer. In my twenties, I moved to Seattle to work for a large technology company but I didn’t want to give up my passion for performing on stage. I continued perfecting my craft by taking comedy courses, privately coaching a few students, and performing at local comedy clubs across town. Many times after shows, my audience would ask me for advice and tips! This inspired me to condense what I’ve discovered throughout my comedic experiences and share it with anyone who could benefit from more humor in their lives. I hope this book helps you become a funnier and better person!

“I’ve never gotten laid because of the way I look.

I’m the guy that women see and they go… “eh?”

And I’m like, I know, but let me just talk to you for a minute.”

- Louis CK, Comedian

What You Will Discover

Introduction

Can I Really Become A Stand-Up Comedian?

Day One: Learn the Ropes

Tell a story well, or don’t tell one at all

Be sincere, and you’ll be funny

The worse your life is, the more likeable you are

There’s nothing to be afraid of

Watch professional comedians

What kind of comedian are you?

Day Two: Develop Material

Brain dump

Sounding off

Revisit, pick, and choose

Getting dirty

Day Three: Make It Funny

Dry testing

Crafting comedy

Set order

Day Four: Practice, Practice, Practice

Memorization

Look for open mic and amateur comedy nights

Practice, practice, practice. Then practice some more.

Day Five: Stage Presence

Learn from the amateurs - Watch live comedy

Going on stage

Day Six: Refine, Practice, and Repeat

Cut or tweak jokes

Fillers

Audience participation

Identify callbacks

Try not to use notes

Day Seven: Showtime

Forget the hecklers, but don’t ignore them

Work the audience

Work with other comedians

Have fun out there!

The Afterglow: What’s Next?

Thank You.

Appendix

Introduction

Congratulations! You’ve decided to take the plunge and venture into the exciting world of stand-up comedy. You will soon join a long-standing history and tradition of people getting on stage to talk about their mundane lives and somehow attracting an audience to watch them do it.

Stand-up comedy is a unique form of comedic act in that a lot of the topics of discussion are everyday things that everyday folks can relate to. Gone are the old days of “street jokes” that feature a preacher, barber, and accountant walking into a bar. Instead, stand-up comedians jump on stage to vent about their sexual frustrations, family matters, and money woes. In a nutshell, stand-up comedians are just specialized introspective psychiatrists.

Behind the lights, laughter, and glamour, stand-up comedians are really pretty average people with an acute ability to analyze, dissect, and point out the eccentricities of the world. This book was written with the most average, run-of-the-mill person in mind, since we firmly believe that the road to stand-up comedic success can be taken by anyone.

Get ready to open up your mind and revisit the skeletons in your closet. Creating and learning stand-up comedy is a rigorous exercise of self-exploration. With this book, we hope to awaken the comedy beast that lurks within you, and let you start seeing the world in a whole new light.

Can I Really Become A Stand-Up Comedian?

Yes, you can!

The funny thing about stand-up comedy is that it’s easier than it appears. Anyone that watches, enjoys, or appreciates any form of comedy - be it stand-up, improv, theater, movies, or literature - has the most important ingredient to becoming a stand-up comedian: a sense of humor. Really, if you’ve ever told a joke or just laughed at one, you can do it.

You don’t need to be the funny guy or gal that’s always cracking jokes amongst friends or co-workers. You just need to be able to appreciate good humor, and to understand how to embrace and enjoy laughter. Doesn’t sound too hard, does it? It sure isn’t.

As a matter of fact, the graduates of this crash course to becoming a stand-up comedian have come from all walks of life. They include:

High school students

Real-estate agents

Computer programmers

Teachers

Aerospace engineers

Bank tellers

Stay at home parents

Unemployed folks

Managers

Nerds

Jocks

Pirates

We’ve seen many graduates of the program undergo some amazing transformations. It doesn’t matter if you’re scared of public speaking, have a monotone voice, or talk with an accent. In fact, the more defining characteristics you have, the greater your comedic potential.

Like any skill you develop, there is a framework for comedy. Once you understand the fundamentals, you'll be able to turn everyday coffee conversations into entertaining humorur stories. For example, the Laugh Curve illustrates the amount of laugher you'll get as you tell the different phases of the joke.

If you want to be funny, understand the frameworks of how and why comedy works.

Comedy is all about being a unique person, and stand-up comedy is all about taking your personal nuances, flaws, fears, hopes, dreams, aspirations, annoyances, pet-peeves, and sharing it with the audience. Once you’ve made it through this program and have your first performance under your belt, you may find the whole experience to be somewhat of an emotional catharsis. We’re pretty sure you’ll have fun doing it as well.

Day One: Learn the Ropes

To most people, stand-up comedy is a mysterious art form. For many comedians, it takes years to hone and perfect stand-up material. However, the fundamentals of stand-up comedy are just as accessible to you as they are to the professionals. At its core, stand-up is all about you, the comedian, and no one knows you better than yourself!

To begin, let’s discuss some of the most common mistakes people make when trying to perform stand-up comedy (or even just trying to be funny), and some of the secrets to success.

Tell a story well, or don’t tell one at all

Humans love telling stories. The earliest forms of history and knowledge were passed down through the generations by the means of stories. Tribes and villages gathered around by campfires as the wise elders told and retold the ancient stories. To this day, people still love telling stories, especially about themselves. Funny anecdotes are a staple of social gatherings, where everyone tries to one-up each other with stories of adventure, gusto, grandeur, and humor.

Within the context of comedy, however, simple stories don’t quite cut it. More often than not, the storytellers tell the story the way it happened. There’s no structure or context added to the story to give it a humorous spin, or an unexpected twist. Thus, stories often fall flat when told in front of an audience and end in an anti-climatic fashion. “I guess you had to be there” just doesn’t cut it.

However, stories can be molded and massaged into comedic form. For example, an amusing story such as

“I once got really drunk at a bar and got kicked out by the bouncer. I stumbled to my car and ended up sleeping in it, then I woke up and found out that I got a parking ticket!”

can actually be made much funnier. Instead of treating it as a narrative, bring the story alive by telling it in the present tense.

“I hate getting really drunk at bars. You always end up getting unexpected expenses. Like waking up in your car and finding a parking ticket on the windshield.”

As you can see, a story can be effective when told in a form more conducive to laughter - with an element of surprise. Since stand-up comedy is all about being personal, you’re sure to think of stories of your past that are chock-full of stand-up potential as you brainstorm for joke material. How you retell the story, however, will dictate whether or not it flies or flops on stage.

Be sincere, and you’ll be funny

You don’t need to be a genius with words or well-versed in knock-knock jokes in order to be funny. Modern stand-up comedy is all about being personable. You want to exude a quality that lets your audience relate to you, and the best way to do that is to be human. The more flaws you have, the greater your comedic potential. You just have to be willing to share your flaws.

Next time you’re in a social circle, try it for yourself. Look up some bar jokes about nuns in an airplane or the difference between a lawyer and a tomato, and try telling them to your friends or co-workers. You’ll probably get a couple chuckles and snickers, but not much more. That’s because the old style of jokes is too rigid and explicit. That is, your audience knows exactly what’s coming, and they expect it - and that actually decreases the humor in the joke.

Instead, think of something you’ve recently become passionate about. It could be something you really love, vehemently hate, or somewhere in between. Any person, place, or thing that you can attach an emotion to will work. Talk vividly and rant or rave about the subject, but throw in some unexpected emotions. By attaching an unexpected emotion to the topic, you can actually create a much more effective level of humor:

“I enjoy explosive diarrhea. I think it’s kind of fun. I like to hold it and wait until the very last second possible. It’s like playing a game of chicken against myself.”

Don’t worry, we’ll spend much more time figuring out just how to turn your everyday musings or mundane interests into funny jokes. The important thing to keep in mind is that you don’t need to think of crazy off the wall ideas to generate joke material. Just stick with what you know best - yourself.

The worse your life is, the more likeable you are

One of the interesting dynamics of stand-up comedy is how the audience perceives the performer, and how that translates to the performer’s likability. When it comes to stand-up comedy, audiences tend to like comedians that exhibit and talk about their personal flaws. For example, an audience will tend to like a comedian that talks about how bad he is with women much more than a comedian that talks about how many times he got laid last week.

By exhibiting flaws, the comedian lets the audience establish a sense of superiority, and thus, empathy. The more you talk about how your life sucks, the more likable you become. This is why it’s important to be sincere. Don’t be afraid to talk personal flaws and the mistakes you’ve made. Nobody is perfect. The fact that you’re courageous enough to go on stage and admit to these flaws - all the while poking fun at them - will help you garner the love and attention of the audience and have them rolling in laughter.

There’s nothing to be afraid of

There’s really nothing to be scared about when it comes to stand-up comedy. Most of the things you talk about will be about you, and as long as you’re sincere and candid, it’ll be hard not to be funny. To a certain degree, everyone has a fear of public speaking. No one is immune to worrying about the scrutiny of the audience. However, stand-up comedy is a different beast in that no matter what, it’ll always be about what you want to say.

The key to dealing with the fear is to silent your inner critic, and not worry about what others think. Ultimately, you’re doing the audience a favor by sharing your deepest secrets, fears, hopes, and dreams on stage; and they’re the ones paying to have you talk about yourself. Just think of it as way to make money while talking to your shrink.

Watch professional comedians

There are three main ways to learn stand-up comedy:

Watch, listen to and observe other stand-up comedians

Reading books and taking classes/workshops

Doing it

We believe that doing all three will help provide the foundation you need in order to actually start performing stand-up comedy effectively yourself.

The fact that you’re actually going through this crash course in stand-up comedy means that you must have had some initial interest in comedy. Think about the stand-up comedians that you’ve watched and enjoyed in the past. Go to your local video store, sign up for Netflix, or go on YouTube and look up their performances. Watch the videos intently and observe the ways your favorite comedians perform. In particular, look for:

The emotions they show and talk about in their jokes:

Joy

Trust

Fear

Surprise

Sadness

Disgust

Anger

Anticipation

Their comedic style

Observational - musings about everyday things

Topical - current events

Gimmick - a certain shtick

Impressionists - emulating the familiar

Improv - (seemingly) off the top of their heads

Their delivery and stage presence

Physicality, movement, pacing, handling of the microphone

Voice, delivery, audience interaction

Facial expressions, eye-contact

The idea is to get a feel for stand-up comedy, and what works for the professional comics. Be familiar with what’s effective and what’s not, and notice the way the audience responds to the things the comedians do and the way they respond to the audience.

Be careful not to emulate your favorite comedian, however. Re-using other comedians’ jokes is a big no-no in the business. Instead, be inspired by your favorite comedian, and think about how you can incorporate his or her delivery or comedic style into your own unique act.

What kind of comedian are you?

Once you’ve watched the pros go at it, think about the type of comedian you want to be. The easiest way is to associate with an emotion you exhibit most frequently. Are you a happy-go-lucky person that loves life and thinks everyday is a gift? Are you an angry, cynical person that hates the world and thinks everyone is out to get you? Are you a boring, lifeless soul that toils through life, merely doing the motions just to get by?

You can take the attitude you most closely associate with and use it as the foundation to build an overall theme for your stand-up comedy act or style. However, just because you are an angry or happy person doesn’t mean you have to necessarily portray that on stage. It’s just the easiest way to be sincere, and to generate comedic material that fits you. Simply keep it as a thought in the back of your mind.

Whenever you feel like the jokes you’re developing or performing are all over the place, try to relate it to the emotion or attitude you most closely identify with. It’ll help mold your material and style around your real personality, instead of the other way around.

Day Two: Develop Material

If you were interested in stand-up comedy and thought about becoming one yourself, chances are you’ve had a list of jokes and ideas lying around somewhere way before you started reading this guide. If you don’t, fear not, today we’ll walk you through developing stand-up comedy material using nothing but a pencil, a piece of paper, and your brain. For those of you that have a list of ideas from before, set them aside for now; we’ll walk through some exercises that will poke and prod at your inner self and squeeze out every last bit of comedic material.

Once we create a large corpus of material to work with, we’ll bust out the stand-up comedy scalpel and knife and shape your raw brain dump and ideas into top-notch jokes. Let’s get started!

Brain dump

The best way to develop stand-up comedy material is to write things down. Write, write write. Writing is one of the most primitive cognitive activities that human beings engage in, and it writing ideas down helps with memory and insight. The more you write down, the more material you can reference and mold. It also helps you feel accomplished and productive, and prevents moments of fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

The easiest way to get started is to start compiling lists. The idea is to compile a list of things you like, love, hate, upset you, have no control over, or have any remote emotional connection to. To help you get started, let’s walk through some exercises and show you some example lists. As you follow along, get out a pen and paper and create lists of your own in the same fashion.

Your bad qualities

It’s time to be truthful with yourself. Let your inner critic speak loudly. What are some intangible characteristics and qualities that you or others may not like about you? Remember, even if you think it’s a good quality to have, others may not think so. Be honest and let it all out.

For example, some common traits may be:

Shy, introverted, low-talker

Procrastinator

Anti-social

Attention deficit, easily distracted

Perverted

Cheap, too frugal, money pincher

Intimacy issues, unwillingness to share

Immature, obnoxious, annoying

Hopeless romantic, eternal optimist

Insecure, self-conscious

Your unique qualities

Rewind the mental video tape of your life and think about everything you’ve gone through. What are some unique qualities that you have that very few other people have? It can be something you’ve done, something you’ve accomplished, some place you’ve been, something you are, something you have or don’t have. Imagine yourself stopping a stranger in the street and telling him or her about your unique quality, ability, trait, or characteristic. If the stranger will find it funny, awesome, weird, strange, or quirky, then it’s probably a worthy unique quality to write down. For example, some unique qualities people may have are:

Immigrant, born in another country, English as second language

Unique condition - birthmark, deaf in one ear, lactose intolerant

Unique job - forest ranger, zookeeper

Your physical qualities

Okay, everyone can see exactly who you are and what you look like, so just fess up. Plainly list your physical characteristics. As a heads up, the more unique you are in your outward appearance, the more comedic potential. If you are a minority, are overweight or anorexic, have no hair or are really hairy, then you’re on the path to stardom. The best part is, you didn’t even do anything yet! Some physical qualities may include:

Nationality/race

Facial features - furry eyebrows, big nose/lips/ears, dimples

Body structure - really short or tall, skinny or fat, muscular, hunchback or bad posture

Let’s get emotional

It’s time to get in touch with your emotions. Remember how we talked about how your emotions and attitude are the best tools for generating stand-up comedy material? Well, we’re going to put them to work here. Feel free to go grab more paper, because these lists are probably going to be quite long. Remember to be honest and write what you really feel, because that’s the best way to develop material that fits your personality and style.

Uncertainty and doubt

Dig deep and start compiling a list of things that worry you, make you feel anxious, or have doubt about. These emotions are a treasure trove for fantastic comedy material, so be thorough and jot it all down. The more weird or unique your issue is, the funnier it can become. You may also feel emotionally relieved to finally write about some of your worries. Examples include:

Being alone on a Friday or Saturday night

Uncertain career goal

Kitchen sink full of dirty dishes

Slowing metabolism and gaining weight

Gray hair, getting old, saggy or wrinkly skin

Squeaking car brakes

Getting pooped on by birds

Global warming

Fear

Now, think of the things that truly scare you. Things, persons, or places that frighten you to no end, and make you want to curl up in the fetal position and hide under the bed. Dig up the old fears from your childhood and embrace them. For example:

UFOs, Martians, aliens

Kitchen sink trash compactor

18-wheeler trucks

School bullies

Driving up hill

Expired milk

Cockroaches

Anger, hate, and disgust

This should be the easiest exercise of them all. Treat your pencil and paper as a sounding board and get it all off your chest. Start ranting about anything and everything you think is wrong with the world, and just make sure to write it all down. From the mundane to the extreme, the intangible to the tangible, the more passionate your hate for the subject, the better.

At the end of this exercise, you may feel a certain weight lifted off your shoulders. Feel free to put the pencil down, go outside, and skip around for a bit. When you’ve gotten it all out of your system, come back and we’ll start making all of this raw material stage-ready. Some things that people may be angry about include:

Grapefruit

Public restrooms

People that talk loudly on cellphones

Being broke

Doing the dishes

Bad breath from a dog

Nose hair

Stereotypes

Waiting for the bus

Flossing

Rich people

Explosive diarrhea

Sounding off

Now that you have lists of things you have an emotional connection to, it’s time to work on identifying those emotions and adding some attitude. At this point, most if not all of the things you’ve written down are things you can relate to yourself. Chances are, other people can relate to it as well. The key is that you want to formulate and present this material in a manner that facilitates this connection between you and your audience.

Pick and choose

The best way to do this is to sit down and actually start rambling about every topic you have. Before you start, go through the lists of your qualities and emotions, and highlight the ones that you feel are most special and have potential. A usual rule of thumb is that the more unique or strange the topic, the better. This will help narrow down the things you need to ramble about.

If you’re willing, you can also rate each topic by giving it a number from one to ten, or a rating out of five stars, or whatever works for you. Then, you can work your way down your lists by selecting the higher rated topics first. This will help you prioritize and identify material more effectively.

Get emotionally attached

We’ve talked a lot about emotions. Here’s where they come into play. Before you start vocalizing your raw material, you need to give each topic a piece of your mind. Many of the topics on your list already have emotions attached, so that’s a start. If you’re scared of Chihuauas, you can rant about how scary they are.

For an even more dramatic effect, switch up the emotions and try out opposite or unexpected emotions for each topic. Comedy is all about hitting the audience with the unexpected - think of it as a metaphorical pie. If you hate being broke, most people will probably relate to you, but the comedic potential is limited. However, if you talk about how much you actually love being broke, a whole new world opens up. For example, to revisit our earlier examples with emotions already attached, you can try rambling about how you:

Enjoy being alone and dateless on a Friday night since you save money by not having to invest in unnecessary sets of silverware

Are excited about global warming since your heater just broke

Think cockroaches are cute and would make good pets since they never seem to die

Look forward to having explosive diarrhea because it’s an excuse not to have to call your mother

For some of the topics that don’t have emotions attached, try thinking of how that topic makes you feel. For the qualities you listed, you can talk about how you are proud of, or love, or hate, or scared of whatever quality it is. Swap emotions in and out for various topics, and try them on for size. Experiment with opposite and unexpected emotions, and see what kind of effect they have. For example:

I enjoy being lactose intolerant. When I watch TV, the milk advertisements just fast forward themselves.

I love being a short person. I get to eat at the buffets for half off at the kids price.

Ramble and record

When you’re ready, get a tape recorder and record yourself while rambling about each topic. An even better option is to record yourself on the computer, and save each recording as a file and label it with the emotion and topic. This way, you have an archive of the raw material you’ve dumped out of your brain, and can revisit them at anytime.

As you record, talk as freely and openly as you can, and let your mind wander. If you get stuck, just stick to talking about the topic and emotion of choice, and how those things make you feel. The idea is to unleash your brain and see what kind of rants and raves pop out of your mouth as you ramble on about each topic. There’s no need to ramble for a long time about each topic; a minute or two should suffice. Once you feel you’ve exhausted the things you have to say about the topic, stop.

Revisit, pick, and choose

After you’ve recorded yourself talking through each topic, you can go back and listen to yourself. Take note of the passion you exhibit for each topic and the strength of each emotion. If you hear anything funny or ridiculous, make a note of it. If it’s possible, it’s highly recommended that you take time to listen through each recording and write down everything you’ve said. Using a computer and typing it all out may be easier.

Once you get your recordings on paper, read through them and underline the funny material. If you’d let yourself drift enough during the recording exercise, you should find plenty of funny, interesting, and ridiculous things that came out of your mouth. For example, a ramble about having a thing for women with mustaches might look like:

“I have a thing for women with mustaches. It’s sexy. I don’t mean women with full-grown beards. Just gentle peach fuzzed lips. It’s soft like baby’s hair. I’d like to just kind of stroke it. Most women these days just shave it, but I prefer the au naturel look.”

Additionally, label each topic with a word or short phrase, such as “global warming” or “parking tickets.” After you’ve underlined all the funny material and labeled the topics, you can do a further examination and circle the ones topics you think have the most potential.

Congratulations, you now have a collection of comedic material! The next step is to figure out which jokes work and which don’t, and craft them into stand-up comedy bits.

Getting dirty

Before we venture into the world of comedy craft, we should talk about going the "blue route." Blue jokes are jokes that are considered off-color humor - essentially anything that deals with nasty, controversial subjects, involve a lot of curse words, etc. Generally, you don't want to censor yourself. Feel free to be whoever you are. However, be aware that if you go the blue route, you tend to limit yourself as a comedian. Blue routines aren't necessarily appropriate for certain audiences or venues, so you will have limited opportunities.

Day Three: Make It Funny

Now that you have a long list of ramblings about random topics off the top of your head, what should you do? As much as you’d like to hear it, you’re not quite ready to go up on stage and start spewing out jokes. We’ll need to learn the craft of shaping and molding your raw material into comedic gold.

Dry testing

Before we begin, however, we’ll want to go through one more process of refinement. Although you’ve sifted through your rocky material and picked out the nuggets the most closely resemble gold, there’s no guarantee that an audience will actually find it funny. Chances are, the material you’ve produced will for the most part stand on its own, but we want to be doubly sure and pick out the real winners.

Dry testing is a marketing concept that has been around for ages. The idea is to test whether or not a product that is yet to be produced is viable and will be profitable enough to pursue. To do this, a situation will be created to test whether or not there’s actual consumer demand for the product, and to measure the consumer response to the product. This can be done, for example, by running an advertisement in the newspaper for the product, and listing a phone number for interested parties to call. The amount of phone calls will be indicative of consumer demand.

In a similar vein, we can use the dry testing approach for your raw stand-up material. The best way to dry test any concept or idea is to hide the fact that you’re actually testing it. Go through the list of topics that you’ve narrowed down to, and pick a few to try on your friends, family, or co-workers. Strangers work just as well, and in some cases, even better. Your jokes could serve as good ice-breakers at parties or on dates. Just don’t let them know that you have some jokes in mind and want to run it by them - that won’t work. To sell effectively, don’t let them know you’re selling.

Instead, work the rant, rave, or whatever topic you have into the conversation naturally, and gauge their reactions to it. If it gets a positive reaction - i.e. laughter - make a note of it and bubble it up to the top of your list. If the topic halts the conversation and causes tumbleweeds to blow by, push the topic down on your list. Once you’ve tried the topics on your list, you should have a good idea of what really works and what doesn’t.

Crafting comedy

At this point, we’ve gone through several stages of refinement. You should have pretty good confidence that the set of topics you have do possess great comedic potential. Now, let’s craft them into actual jokes.

You should think of your stand-up comedy act as a “State of the You” address. That is, the audience gets to learn about your relationships, job, family, whether you’re happy with where you are in life, etc. Keep in mind that the jokes you craft should reveal more and more about yourself, as the audience gets to learn about you on a personal level.

Joke structure

At a basic level, a joke consists of a setup and a punchline. The setup provides the context for the joke, and paints the picture for the topic that you’re talking about. The punchline is the funny word, phrase, sentence, or sentences that will knock the joke out of the park. When crafting your setups and punchlines, be aware of economy and brevity of words. You should only say enough to let the audience understand the punchline. Too many words, and it becomes a ramble, which is not what you want to deliver on stage.

Remember, you don’t want to tell stories on stage. Thus, your setup should be concise, to the point, and on topic. Stick to being informational, contextual, and truthful. Once you’ve set the audience up with something that’s run-of-the-mill, knock them out with something totally out of left field.

If you remember one thing, remember this: keep the setup simple, go crazy and hit hard with the punchline. One good way to ensure this is to contrast the setup with the punchline. Comedy is all about the unexpected. Try using contrasting emotions as discussed earlier, and exaggerate or embellish the punchlines as needed.

Jokes may also contain additional, smaller punchlines that come after the initial punchlines. These are called tags. The initial punchline gives you the big, roaring laughter, and the subsequent punchlines help you maintain the laughs for the current joke. However, depending on the joke and the punchline, the tags may actually elicit more laughs and prove to be more effective than the initial punchline.

Thus, the structure of a joke looks like this:

Setup

Punchline

Tag

Tag

... and more tags

Laugh Curve

It is also important to be aware of the laugh curve, or the amount of laughter you get as you deliver the setup, punchlines, and tags of a joke. With a standard setup/punchline joke, the laugh curve looks like this:

As you build up the setup to your joke, the laughs you get start to rack up. The peak of the laugh curve is when you deliver your punchline. As the laughter trails off, you can throw in additional tags to keep the laughter rolling as the joke wraps up. That’s called rolling with the punches.

Stand-up comedy formulas

To formulate your material in the standard joke structure, we can take advantage of some standard comedy formulas. Depending on the topic, emotion, and what you want to convey about the topic, different formulas may apply. Use these formulas as guides for shaping your raw material into setup/punchline jokes, but don’t be worried if they don’t fit directly into the mold.

Lucky number three

For some reason, listing things in sets of three is very funny. Watch any professional stand-up comedy act and you’re sure to spot some jokes in there with this structure. The key is to make sure that one of the things is not like the other, and put that last. The opposite or unexpected nature of the third thing in the list is what makes the joke funny, as that third thing acts as the punchline.

For example, suppose your topic is about how you’re proud of being a cheap guy. Your setup and punchline may be: “I like to take women on dates to places that are...”

Special (normal)

Memorable (normal)

Affordable (zinger!)

Personification and mimicry

A great way to inject humor into your material is to act it out. You can make fun of someone by acting like him or her, but this isn’t necessarily the same as doing impressions. You can even act out inanimate objects or animals with personification which provides humor because it’s unexpected. For example, comedian Chris Rock does a great job of personification when making fun of the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction incident at the Super Bowl. He pokes fun at the situation by mimicking Janet Jackson’s breast and how scared it was when it was exposed for the world to see.

Look back on your material and see which jokes would sound better if the subjects were acted out or personified. The more ridiculous the notion, the more effective. There’s no need to go out of your element and do full on imitations of characters. Often times, simply taking on the persona of any thing or object is sufficiently humorous. For example, to spice up a joke about office supplies, consider mimicking a stapler and complain about how it feels to be pounded on dozens of times a day.

Compare and contrast

One great way to achieve the opposite/unexpected comedic effect is to point out vast differences between two different things. This comedic formula fits nicely within the standard setup and punchline joke structure; the setup can describe something normal and expected, and the punchline will compare and contrast it with something outrageous or unexpected. For example, consider this comparison of the days before the Internet and the digital age:

"The Internet has improved our lives a lot. Before the Internet existed, if you were dateless on a Friday night, you'd sit on the couch, eat ice cream, and watch infomercials. These days, if you're dateless on a Friday night, you can go online and blog about how you're sitting on the couch, eating ice cream, and watching infomercials. Life's so much better now."

Observe and comment

One of the best sources of good stand-up comedy material comes from the observations of everyday things. Comedians like Jerry Seinfeld are especially good at turning his observations of the mundane and ordinary into comedic gold.

The key is to focus on an object, thing, action, or anything that people encounter in their daily lives, and to point out just how absurd it is. For example, an astute observer of the life of a 9-5 office worker may recognize just how ridiculous some of the daily rituals are.

“Elevators have unspoken rules. I tried to mix things up and stood facing the opposite direction of everybody else, but then the elevator just stopped working.”

Similes

You may remember from grade school that a simile is a figure of speech comparing two unlike things. As a stand-up comedy formula, a simile is pretty much the same concept; you just want to make sure the first thing is ordinary and the second thing is extraordinary. Much like comparison jokes, the setup and punchline contrast two subjects. However, a simile is an explicit comparison in that it equates the two subjects, often in an ridiculous manner.

Simile jokes are probably one of the easier comedic formulas to adapt. Simply think of something you want to poke fun at, and try to relate it to the most preposterous, unrelated thing possible. Keep in mind that the relation you draw between the two subjects needs to be reasonable; making a joke about two unrelated things and using a non-sensical comparison will make the joke fall flat. Notice how the following joke incorporates the rule of three along with a simile:

“Finding a good woman is like buying a new car. You want one that’s curvy, affordable, and comes with an extended warranty. In case the headlights fall off someday.”

Callback

The easiest, cheapest way to create a joke is to re-use a joke you already used by referencing it later on in your act. That’s what a callback is. A callback is a great comedic tool since it helps you establish a connection with your audience - they feel more closely connected to your performance when they recognize a joke that you’ve already shared with them. At the same time, it makes the audience feel smart, because they get the reference. It’s a win-win formula.

You can easily mix callbacks into your set if you have separate jokes that touch on the same topic. Sometimes, even completely unrelated jokes can serve as callbacks. Some skilled, daring comedians sometimes take it up a notch and even callback to jokes told earlier by other comedians.

Let’s suppose that, earlier in your act, you did a joke about how you’re looking forward to a zombie apocalypse because of the unrestricted use of sawed-off shotguns. You can then easily call back to that joke if, for example, you start doing jokes about how crappy your job is and how much you hate your co-workers. See the connection?

Tips and tricks

By now, you should have converted your jokes into the standard setup and punchline structure, and applied the comedic formulas to maximize the humor and make them stand out. Here are some additional tips and tricks you can use to round out the corners and really put some polish on your material.

Hard consonants

It is generally well-known that hard consonant sounds are funnier than regular consonant sounds when spoken. The harder the consonant sound, the better. The punchier syllables help give an extra kick to the joke. The strongest consonant sounds are “K,” “C,” and “Qu.” The “T,” “P,” “G,” “D,” and “B” sounds are also considered hard, but slightly less effective.

To hear the difference, say the following pairs of words out loud and think about which one is funnier: “sweetie” vs. “cupcake,” “Monday” vs. “Tuesday,” and “beef” vs. “pork chop.” It often helps to put extra emphasis on the hard consonant when you deliver your jokes. Remember, like all good things in life, hard consonants are best enjoyed in moderation. Don’t go changing up all your jokes and replacing all the words.

Specificity over generality

When given a choice, describing something in detail is usually funnier. Earlier, we mentioned that you should utilize word economy when crafting setup and punchlines. That rule still holds true, and should be respected in most cases. However, you can consider adding some zest to your setup and punchlines by being more specific. It is especially useful when talking about visual things, since specificity helps paint a better mental image for the audience, and a better mental image gets more laughs.

For example, consider the following pairs of words and phrases that are general and specific: “gun” vs. “sawed-off shotgun,” “steak” vs. “eight pound filet mignon,” and “dog” vs. “an overweight pug.”

Repetition

Often times, all it takes to get the audience to laugh is to repeat something. If a phrase or line is particularly effective, repeating it may help. It also helps to repeat certain elements of a setup when delivering the punchline, as the repeated elements of the setup lines help pinpoint the exact part of the punchline that the audience should pay attention to.

For example, consider the comparison joke from earlier about the being dateless on a Friday night in the Internet age. Elements of the setup were repeated to emphasize the minute, but funny differences between the setup and the punchline. Think about how the joke would sound if the repetition were removed. It's easy to see that the joke wouldn't be as effective, since the repetitive portion is actually the meat of the punchline.

Set order

All right, you now have a set of finely crafted, highly humorous jokes. But don’t jump on stage just yet and start rattling them off. The order in which you deliver your jokes is a very important factor in determining the effectiveness of your material.

Since stand-up comedy is all about personal humor, you’re essentially revealing intimate secrets about yourself on stage. Like any interpersonal relationship, you want to reveal yourself in order of escalating intimacy. That is, don’t come right out to the audience with details about your personal life - they’ll be shocked and turned off. You want to make a good first impression, warm them up, and slowly expose yourself one joke at a time.

At this point, go through your jokes and give each one a rating from one to ten. You can base your ratings on how effective you think they are, go through them with a comedy buddy, or base them on the reactions you got when you tried the jokes out. The ideal set order should then have the following order of jokes:

High rating (best)

Low

Low

Low

...

High rating (second best)

You only get one chance to make a first impression, so you want to step out with your best foot. Using your best joke first helps draw in the audience - it lets them know that you’re actually a very funny guy or gal, and they should pay attention to what you have to say. At the same time, you want the performance to end on a high note, and make a lasting impression on the audience. Using your second best joke last lets you exit the stage while the audience is still rolling in laughter, and keeps them wanting more.

How you want to order the rest of your set is pretty much up to you. If you want your material to have a certain flow, you can tie certain jokes together. If there’s a logical progression, you can go with that too. It’s all up to you! Pick an order that fits your style and the way you want to engage the audience.

One good way to open up your set is to pick a joke based on one of your physical characteristics. Since the audience will see you before you even open your mouth, you get the setup for free. Just make sure it's a very identifiable, obvious trait, otherwise the joke will most likely fall flat.

Day Four: Practice, Practice, Practice

You’re trying to do something pretty incredible. Go from an average Joe or Jane to a bonafide stand-up comedian in seven days. That’s not a lot of time. We’re half way through the program, and you have your first stand-up comedy act fleshed out and crafted to perfection. Now it’s time to start practicing delivering your jokes and getting your act imprinted into your brain.

Memorization

If you’ve done any kind of public speaking or given a speech or presentation, then you know that memorizing your material is of utmost important. Nothing says “amateur” more than a comedian going up on stage with notes. Seven days might not seem like a long time to create, refine, memorize, and perform stand-up comedy material, but it’s definitely doable. Many of the graduates of this program have done just this, and have seen tremendous success. Here are some tricks to memorizing your jokes.

Set list and bits

We’ve already been various terms of stand-up comedy terminology throughout this guide, but we can go ahead and properly define them here. As you’ve probably figured out by now, a set list is the list of the jokes for your stand-up comedy act. Additionally, a bit is simply comedy parlance for a joke. Comedians prefer to refer to their jokes as bits, since a bit doesn’t necessarily fall into the traditional definition of a joke. Actually, a bit is however you want to define it - it can be a single joke, or a collection of jokes that are logically grouped together.

The first step to memorizing your stand-up comedy act is to gather all of your bits and label each one. You can reuse the names and labels you used for the raw material you came up with when developing your material on day two; or, you can come up with new ones that more closely match the essence of each bit after they’ve been refined. The key is to use something that you can easily identify, as to make memorization easier. An example set list may look like this:

Dogs

George Bush

Safeway

Crackers

Dry run

Now that you have a set list with labels for each bit, you can simply write the set list down on an index card or post-it and use it during practice. First, read through your set a few times out loud, and get a feel for the flow. Once you’ve gotten the gist of each bit, try doing dry runs in front of the mirror with only the set list with labels. Don’t fret if you have to look down and refer to the set list; just practice going through it and memorizing the order.

Memorization is all about repetition, and one of the most effective ways to do this repetition is to spread it out over time. Don’t try to cram everything into a few hours and memorize it all at once. Instead, do a few dry runs, then take a break and do something else. Give the material time to settle and your brain time to absorb it. In the meantime, you can do other things to start gearing up for your first performance.

Look for open mic and amateur comedy nights

Now it’s time to get your first gig. Since you’ve only been a stand-up comedian for four days, chances are you won’t be getting phone calls inviting you to play at the Apollo. You need to get proactive and seek out some venues so you can get your feet wet and start performing your act.

Hop online and do a search for “stand-up comedy in <your city>”, or something to that effect. Most major cities and metropolitan areas have several comedy clubs, and they should have shows throughout the year. Contact the comedy clubs and see if they have amateur nights or open mics, where amateur stand-up comedians can jump on stage and try out their material.

You probably won’t be getting paid for these gigs, but they represent great opportunities for your try your material and learn the ropes. If a club has openings, set a date and time. Getting on stage is the most important part of the process. Don’t think, just do it. If you’ve followed along with the program so far and haven’t strayed yet, you’ll probably do just fine.

Invite family and friends

A good way to build your confidence for your first stand-up comedy act is to invite as many family members and friends to your performance as possible. Stand-up comedy is a two-way street - without the audience, there’s no laughter. Amateur and open mic nights usually have sparse audience participation, so it’s a great chance for you to pick who you want to watch you.

Remember, you’re the one with the courage to go on stage, so you’ve already proven yourself as a special person. Having your family and friends there to support you in your first comedic endeavor should give you the extra boost needed to really knock it out of the park.

Use the Internet, young grasshopper

You might think we’re getting ahead of ourselves here, but it’s time to start building your fan base. Once you’ve booked a time and place for your first performance, use social media tools like Facebook and Twitter to announce the event. If you’re feeling extra confident or extra vain, create a Facebook fan page or a Twitter account for your stand-up comedian persona; invite all your friends to become your fan or follower.

This is a great way to get the word out to everyone about your performance, and help drive people to watch you and build a supportive audience. Moreover, as you start doing more performances and getting more exposure, comedy clubs can actually look you up and check out the buzz you’ve been generating. That will give you extra credibility.

Practice, practice, practice. Then practice some more.

You can start practicing your stand-up routine well before you fully memorize every bit. Once you’ve memorized the general flow and ordering, start practicing in front of a mirror. Get used to not looking at your notes, and focusing on your audience (or in this case, the mirror).

Try to recreate elements of a stage so that you can get used to it during practice. For instance, you can hold a water bottle in your hand and pretty that it’s a microphone. This will help you get used to having something in your hand as you deliver your jokes.

A great way to improve while practicing is to record yourself. You don’t need a high quality video camera; any standard point-and-shoot digital camera these days will work. If you don’t have access to a video camera, you can buy a cheap microphone and record yourself on the computer.

Being able to watch or listen to yourself is of tremendous help, as it lets you see and hear the things you do that you might not notice. Another side benefit is that you can save these recordings as files, and send them to friends. See what they think of your practice runs, and you can tweak your set or delivery based on their reactions.

Another great way to get some actual practice doing stand-up comedy in front of other people is to gather a bunch of comedian buddies together. This works well since fellow comedians understand the trials and tribulations of other comedians, and what they need to do to hone their craft. You can use websites like Meetup to find local amateur comedian groups, and plug into your local comedy community.

Use your friends as guinea pigs

Utilize the concept of dry testing that we used in day three to test the effectiveness of your raw material. Since you now have fully crafted jokes, the likelihood that your friends will react positively is much higher. However, remember not to reveal your intention. People won’t bite if they know they’re being sold to. Be surreptitious and casually sneak your jokes into conversations.

Don’t perform, yet

At this stage, you should avoid any kind of “formal” performance situation. That is, don’t try to set up an impromptu stand-up comedy act at a party you’re attending by performing in front of all the party goers. This approach can be ineffective, and possibly detrimental to your confidence, for several reasons.

First, a stand-up comedy routine has a special social dynamic in that the audience sits down with a certain level of expectation. They’ve come to the comedy club because they want to laugh, so there’s an unspoken understanding of their role as the audience. The “audience” at a random house party did not attend the party to see your stand-up comedy act.

Also, an audience usually has a vested interest in seeing a good stand-up comedy routine. They’ve usually invested - in the form of a cover charge or drink minimum - some money to see the act. Thus, they want you to do good and succeed. This dynamic and prerequisite doesn’t really exist in other contexts.

Moreover, it’s actually easier to perform a stand-up comedy routine in front of a large audience. This is because the laughter in an audience has a feedback cycle - if one person starts laughing hysterically, other people will be clued in and realize that they can and should laugh as well. At a random party, chances are you’d be performing your act while standing in a small circle of people. Doing your stand-up comedy act in this situation won’t be very effective at all.

Additionally, being on an actual stage helps a lot. It contributes to the separation of roles for the audience members and the performer, and lets people know that you have the floor and you’re the one telling the jokes. All of these dynamics are hard to recreate outside of a comedy club; thus, performing in other situations is less than ideal.

There are plenty of ways to practice your material in a stealth manner. Just think of yourself as an undercover stand-up comedy secret agent. You want to test our your comedy arsenal secretly so the victims won’t know what hit them. Save the actual performance for the stage.

Day Five: Stage Presence

Learn from the amateurs - Watch live comedy

Watching professional stand-up comedy acts is fun and enjoyable, but can only do so much in terms of demonstrating what it takes to actually do it yourself. If possible, you should definitely take some time out and catch some live comedy acts. If you’ve already contacted local comedy clubs and scheduled your performance, then you should definitely go check out the events at the same club to get a feel for the venue.

Amateur comedy nights and open mics are great venues for stand-up comedy education because you get to see others in your situation strut their stuff on stage. After watching a few performances, you should start to pick up on the nuances of actually performing a stand-up act, and what kind of things work and don’t work. This is especially important if you’re performing at that place for your first gig.

In particular, there are various aspects of being on stage that are will take time to learn. As you watch other comedians perform live, take note of these things. We’ll walk through some of those aspects here, and discuss various ways to tweak your stage presence to improve your comedy routine. We’ll assume that you’ve done some preliminary reconnaissance on the venue you’ll be performing at. If you haven’t, or aren’t brave enough to jump on stage yet, these tips will still be helpful.

Going on stage

Stand-up comedy is, at its core, just another form of public speaking. Thus, many of the best practices for public speaking naturally apply: dress, body language, eye contact, delivery, voice inflection and project, etc. However, the personal nature of stand-up comedy acts means that these rules are much more flexible. That is, even if you’re not a good public speaker, you can still be a good stand-up comedian. Your “flaws” will simply become part of your style, and the audience will recognize that.

Dress for the part

It seems silly to talk about dress and attire for stand-up comedy, but it is a pretty important facet of your stage presence. Dress up for the audience, but work with what you have. You should be comfortable and think about what kind of attire fits your personality and style on stage. If you’re not a big hip-hop and rap music fan, going on stage wearing a Viking helmet and a big clock around your neck a la Flavor Flav is probably going to give the wrong impression and make the audience very, very confused.

Instead, pick something comfortable and familiar. Dressing nicely doesn’t hurt, but it’s a little awkward seeing someone on stage in a new shirt or blouse that they clearly purchased just for the performance. Until you’ve made it big time and have your own wardrobe assistant, we recommend that you stick with what you have in your closet.

The first few times you practice your act, you should dress up the way you want to appear on stage. This might seem unnecessary, but it’s a good way to eliminate as many unfamiliar variables before you actually jump on the stage. That way, there’s one less thing to worry about, and it decreases the chance that you freak out when you discover on stage that there’s a big hole in your favorite Hawaiin shirt.

Keep the applause going

The first thing you should do once you jump on stage is to help keep the applause going. At most performances, there will be a host or someone acting as the emcee of the show, and introducing the performers as they come up. Once your name is announced, the audience will start applauding. By the time you get to the stage, however, the applause will have trailed off and stopped.

In order to keep the energy up and avoid any awkward silence moments, you should say something to the effect of “keep it going for <name of host or emcee>, everybody!” to cue the audience to continue their applause. As the applause continues, it will also give you a few precious moments to get your bearings and get acclimated to your home on the stage for the next several minutes.

Where and how to stand

This depends largely on the layout of the stage you will be performing on. For the most part, there will be a spotlight trained on the stage. It goes without saying that you should stand in the middle of the spotlight! Don’t stand too far back up against the (usually) brick wall, since that distance makes you appear weary and scared. Remember, there’s nothing to be scared of! Standing too close to the audience is bad too, since that becomes a little intimidating and too close for comfort.

For the most part, you want to hang out in the center of the stage. If you feel like moving around during your performance, feel free to roam. But just remember to reset yourself in the center so the audience doesn’t get distracted by all the movement. Pay attention to where the props are located on the stage. At the minimum, the stage should have a microphone stand and a stool. Even if you don’t use the props, just be aware of them so you don’t trip as you move around the stage.

Dealing with the microphone

The microphone is every beginning comedian’s first real obstacle. Most people don’t have any experience dealing with stage microphones, and that becomes a bit of a problem. The first thing to do is to decide whether you want to have the microphone in hand during your stand-up act, or leave it in the stand.

Having the microphone in hand allows you to be more fluid during your routine, and walk or pace around while making motions. Leaving it in the stand is a lot easier and more straightforward - you don’t have to fuss with the stand and the audience has only one spot to pay attention to. However, that also limits your range of motion and movement. We recommend leaving the microphone in the stand the first couple times you go on stage. Once you’ve gotten used to the experience, you can experiment with having the microphone in hand.

The main drawbacks to having the microphone in hand is that a lot of people don’t know how to move when on stage. If you want professional comedians on stage, their movements and pacing are quite methodical. Nothing is sudden or distracting - it all fits in well with their delivery style and the pace of their performance. These things require time to pick up, so it’s better to impose a restriction on yourself so that you don’t start moving all over the stage and distract the audience from your jokes.

You should also practice adjusting a microphone stand, so that you can do so in a fluid motion when you hop on stage. More often than not, the microphone will be too high or too low for you to stand comfortably and deliver. Pay a visit to your local Guitar Center (or any other musical instrument store) and play around with the microphone stand. Practice using two hands to adjust the stand - one near to adjust the angle of the microphone, and another to adjust the height of the stand. With a little practice, you should have this down pat.

If you do decide to go with the microphone in hand, you should practice taking the microphone out of the stand, and moving the stand several feet behind you in one fluid motion. You should do this at the very beginning of your act, as your start delivering the setup for your first joke. That way, the motion remains natural and blends into your act, and there will be no awkward pause while you get situated on the stage.

Delivery

Your delivery should be tailored to your style. It’s a simple as that. Don’t worry if you have a monotone voice. Just talk normally, as if you’re talking to friends. When first starting out, err on the side of a slow delivery. Take some time to let the jokes sink in, and let the laughter draw out. Having these pauses will help you maintain a good pace, and prevent you from going too fast and messing up the jokes or forgetting them altogether.

Eye contact

Maintaining eye contact with the audience is important when doing any form of public speaking. It isn’t as critical in stand-up comedy, but it is a useful tool to utilize to make some jokes more effective. For the most part, you should let your eyes wander as they please, but don’t change your focus rapidly. As you go through each bit, focus on one person or one area of the audience. That way, it’s easier for the audience to follow your train of thought.

In most comedy club settings, the spotlight illuminating the stage with the dimmed/off houselights will make it so that you can’t really see your audience. For beginner comedians, this actually works to your advantage. Instead of hundreds of faces staring back at you, it’s just a sea of shadows. Just maintain your eye contact on certain areas, and you’ll be fine.

For those of you that want an extra kick in your bits and get some audience participation, you’ll want to do some advanced scouting before you go on stage. When you’re in the on deck circle, waiting to go up, scan the audience and look for anyone you might want to point out during any of your bits. For example, if you’re doing a joke about married couples, you may want to look for a married couple in the audience that’s enjoying themselves and having a good time.

During your joke, you can then establish eye contact with the married couple and deliver your joke as if you’re talking to them directly. You can point them out during your setup so the rest of the audience knows what’s going on. Doing this will make your routine more personable, and make you seem more spontaneous and quick on your feet as you’re able to bring members of the audience into your stand-up act.

Timing

Timing is everything. The key to getting the timing of your jokes right is practice and repetition. Sticking with a slow, methodical delivery will help you with timing your jokes the first few times you perform. Since every audience reacts to jokes differently, you never know the exact response you’ll get to your bits. By taking your time and letting your jokes simmer for a bit on the minds of the audience, it gives you more flexibility. That way, if you need to speed things up, you can.

Wrapping it up

Most comedy clubs will have some sort of light that will indicate when your time on stage is about to be up. When you check out a venue you’ll be performing at, make sure to locate the light ahead of time. Find out ahead of time exactly how much time is left when the light goes on. It’s okay to end your set before your allotted time is over, but going over is a frowned upon.

When the light’s on, get ready to wrap it up. Even if you’re still not close to finishing your set list, you’ll want to bail at the first chance you get. If you feel gutsy and think you can skip to your last few jokes, go for it. Otherwise, you should try to end your performance when you get a big laugh. Being an entertainer is all about making the audience want more. You want to end on a high note. If you get a very positive reaction to one of your jokes and you’re running out of time, wrap it up with “thank you, goodnight!” and exit the stage.

Be comfortable - It’s all about you

The real secret to success on stage is to be comfortable. Let your personality shine through, and be yourself. Be truthful and honest and the audience will love you. If you knock over the microphone stand because you’re nervous, casually pick it back up and continue on with your act. Better yet, use it as an opportunity to talk about just how nervous you are, and crack a joke about how your dates also always seem to just fall over as well. The classic way to recover from an on-stage blunder is to spin it into a joke.

Day Six: Refine, Practice, and Repeat

By now, you’ve honed and toned your stand-up comedy act, practiced it by yourself, in front of a camera, and with friends, and prepared for the stage. You’re pretty much ready for the big show! When we said that you can become a stand-up comedian in one week, we really meant it.

However, like most creative acts, your stand-up comedy routine will only get better with time. It’s always good to let ideas simmer overnight and to revisit them over several days. The best way to improve your routine is to perform it in front of people and adjust to their reactions. The second best way is to constantly revisit your jokes, and let new ideas, experiences, and perspectives help you refine and tweak your act.

Cut or tweak jokes

After several days of creation and putting pencil to paper, it’s time to take your set list to the cutting board. Remember, word brevity of the essence when it comes to stand-up comedy. Say too much and you’ll lose the attention of the audience. You also need to be aware of the time allotted to you for your performance.

If you’ve booked a slot with a comedy club, they should have let you know the amount of time each comedian will get to do his or her thing. For amateur nights or open mics, it’s usually around three to five minutes. That really isn’t a lot of time, so you want time your routine accordingly.

For instance, if you’re given five minutes, aim for about four minutes of material when delivered at a casual pace. That way, you can leave room for fillers (which we’ll talk about later) and reacting to the audience. If the entire club breaks out into roaring laughter at one of your jokes, you’ll likely want to take a few seconds and bask in it; cutting it off prematurely and moving on to your next joke will not be as effective.

Go through your set list and look for any unnecessary words or sentences. If a line isn’t contributing to the setup or the punchline, it can probably be cut. If a joke needs more context, or can be made funnier with additional tags, add some lines in. If some bits make more sense or are funnier when grouped together, reshuffle your set list to make that happen.

Fillers

Fillers are the things you say or do in between your jokes. Depending on what the action is, it can actually become a tag and make your joke even funnier. These may be things like saying “that’s right!” or “uh huh” after a joke, or simply a facial expression or body gesture. Usually, fillers aren’t planned in advance. Rather, it’s just something you say or do to indicate your emotion after a joke.

By pacing your act and leaving yourself ample time, you can throw in fillers at your leisure to make your performance even more personable, intimate, and funny. As you become more comfortable on stage, fillers will come to you naturally.

Audience participation

As we discussed earlier, it’s good to scout out your audience before you go on stage to see if there are any audience members you can point out during your routine. Sometimes, these will happen spontaneously. However, it’s also okay to go through your set list and look for jokes where the audience can get involved.

If you have any bits that involve asking the audience a question, consider actually getting a response from an audience member to build the setup of the joke. You can ask an audience member for their name, or what their relationship is to the person sitting to them, etc.

As you start out, plan some of these cases in advance. However, don’t rely solely on audience participation to make a joke work. Your joke should be able to stand on its own, or you should have a fallback mechanism in case your attempt at getting an audience member to participate goes awry.

Identify callbacks

Callbacks are and always will be great jokes to have in any set list. They almost come for free, and work like magic. Once your set list is fleshed out, you can identify more places where you can make callbacks. Cutting your material down so you have more time also gives you more room for callbacks.

Be creative and imaginative. For the most part, you can simply pick a couple different jokes and refer back to them as the act goes on. Using the same callback a couple times will be quite effective. Just make sure the original joke you’re calling back to was funny and memorable, and don’t overuse it either.

Try not to use notes

By now, you should have a pretty good grasp on your set list. In order to prepare yourself for your performance, it’s absolutely imperative that you run through your whole routine, ideally without notes. If you haven’t gotten your act down pat by now, chances are you’ll probably miss a few things on the night of the performance. In that case, suck it up and just prepare to perform with notes.

The best way to do this is to condense your set list into an index card or post-it, and bring it up on stage with you. Instead of carrying the notes in hand, leave your notes on the stool on stage. Whenever you feel like you have a memory lapse, casually pause and look down at the stool. By leaving the notes out of your hand and slyly looking at it for reference, the audience will remain focused on you instead of the fact that you didn’t memorize your act. If you brought a bottle of water or some other sort of beverage on stage, you can steal a glance at your notes while taking a sip to cover your memory lapse.

In general, the best time to look at your notes is immediately after a joke, while the audience is still laughing. Always avoid looking at your notes during periods of silence, since that only contributes to the awkward situation and makes your use of notes even more noticable.

Day Seven: Showtime

Take a deep breath. Listen for your name to be called. This is your moment to shine. Embrace it! All that hard work will finally pay off today. You’ve gone from zero to comedy hero in a mere week. That is a pretty incredible feat. Here are some final tips to keep in mind before you go on stage. Remember, be yourself, and everything will work out fine.

Forget the hecklers, but don’t ignore them

Hecklers are a part of the stand-up comedy life. If you did your due diligence and invited as many of your friends as possible to your performance, chances are you’ll have built a friendly audience. Still, there will always be drunkards that have nothing better to do than yell random things during a stand-up routine.

For the most part, you should forget the hecklers. That is, don’t worry about them. However, if they happen to rear their ugly heads, you should see it as an opportunity to capitalize on their mistake and poke fun. Not only will it make them settle down, it’ll solidify your status as a witty comedian.

The first thing you should do when a heckler speaks up is to repeat what the heckler said so the whole audience can hear it. That way, you can establish the context (think of it as the setup for your eventual punchline), and it also gives you a few moments to think of a retort. Here are some standard but effective ways to respond to a heckler. Simply comment on:

What they do (i.e. type of job)

If they’ll get laid

How dumb they are

How drunk they are

How they’re a jerk

or simply tell them “Hey, up yours!”

Remember, you have the microphone, and they don’t. A few simple witty remarks should be enough to shut the heckler up. If the heckler continues to disrupt your performance, the club management should respond and have security deal with the trouble maker.

Work the audience

Without the audience, there is no you. Remember that mantra. It’s absolutely critical that you respect and work with the audience’s response to your stand-up comedy act. Give them time to think and react to you. Love them, embrace them, and engage them in conversation. Treat your performance as if you’re sharing your thoughts and ideas with friends. Be cordial.

The biggest fear beginning stand-up comedians have is that the audience won’t laugh. If you’ve followed along so far, this fear is unfounded. What’s more likely to happen is that your set will garner more laughs than expected, but you’ll be too nervous to notice it. That’s why it’s important to take your time. Let yourself bask in the attention of your audience. Make sure your jokes don’t just work on them, but work with them.

Work with other comedians

Chances are you’ll be performing with comedians that have had more experience than you. It’s a great opportunity to learn from those who have been there and done that. It’s also a great opportunity to show off your stuff and build a little reputation for yourself. Pay attention during other comedians’ performances, especially those that are going before you. If you spot a particularly good, memorable joke that got a great reaction out of the audience think about calling back to that during your performance.

Take care to not just repeat the joke, however, as taking material from other comedians is a big no-no. Instead, make sure your delivery of the joke acknowledges the fact that the joke came from another comedian, and callback to it during your performance. The other comedian will be flattered that you gave him or her a shout out, and the audience will appreciate connection.

Have fun out there!

Remember, you’re performing stand-up comedy! Enjoy yourself, and remember to smile. You’re taking a big leap of faith in yourself. If anything, the fact that you’ve come so far means that you’ve already succeeded. Relax, breathe, and have fun.

The Afterglow: What’s Next?

You’ve become an overnight sensation. Your open mic or amateur night performance reverberated throughout the local stand-up comedy community, and the video recordings made it onto YouTube and garnered thousands of views. Is it time to quit your day job?

Well, the next steps are really up to you. Hopefully, this program has given you the basic tools you need to create and craft your own stand-up comedy routine, along the confidence to step on stage and dish out the jokes. You’ll have performed your stand-up comedy act on stage in front of dozens if not hundreds of people, and built some buzz around your comedy career.

Many graduates of the program simply did it as a one-time thing - a way for them to get away from the usual 9-5 ordeal and have their moment in the spotlight. Some of the others, however, used it as a chance to launch their comedy careers. If you want to do the same, there’s no one stopping you.

Continue building your experience and buzz by performing in your local comedy clubs. Use social media tools to build your reputation on websites like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. In this day and age of the Internet, comedic sensations have literally been made overnight, and you can do the same.

We hope that you’ll continue to pursue your dreams and remain diligent and determined in your comedic endeavours. Everyday represents a new opportunity to discover something funny about life. Always keep that in mind and you’re sure to find new and ever more humorous ways to look at the world.

Thank You.

My sincerest thank you for picking up this book and wanting to learn more about stand-up comedy. I know when I’m having a stressful day and looking for a laugh, I turn to stand-up comedians for some relief. Your sense of humor can brighten someone’s day, whether you’re on stage or with your friends and colleagues.

If you’d like to receive a free copy of a 163 page “The Stand-Up Comedy Encyclopedia” please email me at info@dostandupcomedy.com. Simply copy and paste this message.

Subject: Stand-Up Comedy Encyclopedia

Message:

Hello! I’d like to receive my free copy of the Stand-Up Comedy Encyclopedia. Thank you!

Finally, if you enjoyed what you read, please help improve the value of stand-up comedy by leaving an honest review on Amazon. The more people understand what goes on behind the scenes of stand-up comedy, the more appreciation people like you will have. Here is the review page: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NHWUEA4 (this may be different depending on your country of purchase).

Thank you again for reading the book. I wish you the best of luck in your comedic pursuits. 

Appendix

Can’t get enough of stand-up comedy? Want to learn more? Here is a list of books that you may find useful as you progress through your career. Whether you want to become a professional stand-up comedian, a comedy writer for television, or just want to learn more about the world of comedy, you should maintain an inquisitive nature and keep reading and learning.

Judy Carter, Stand-Up Comedy: The Book, 1989

Jay Sankey, Zen and the Art of Stand-Up Comedy, 1998

Bob Stobener and R. Scott Edwards, Be a Stand-Up Comic: Or Just Look Like One, 1990

Mel Helitzer, Comedy Writing Secrets, 2005

Steve Allen, How to Be Funny: Discovering the Comic You, 1998

Gene Perret, How to Write and Sell Your Sense of Humor, 1986

Gene Perret, Comedy Writing Workbook, 1994

Betsy Borns, Comic Lives, 1987

Richard Belzer, How to Be a Stand-Up Comic, 2000

Bill Maher, True Story, 2005

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