Comedians write and remember their jokes through practice. If you have ever heard prior proper practice prevents poor performance then you know how true that saying really can be. If you have never heard it, now you have.
Building a set or routine is the goal of every comedian. While all comedians are not the same there is a process that works no matter the style or type of the comedian.
- Write A New Joke(s)
- Practice With Friends Or Family
- Get Feedback And Rewrite
- Take The Rewritten Joke(s) To An Open Mic
- Perform And Record The Joke(s)
- Listen To The Recorded Joke(s)
- Rewrite The Joke(s) And Trim The Fat
- Perform And Record The Joke(s) To Another Open Mic
- Listen To Joke(s) Response
- Tweak the Joke(s)
- Perform And Record The Joke(s) On A Show
- Listen To The Recorded Joke(s) From The Show
- Repeat The Process
Ever comedian finds their rhythm and their strengths when building sets and routines. Using this outline will help you skip common mistakes and refine material faster and easier.
Write A New Joke(s)
Writing is instrumental in becoming a better comedian. If you don’t write something new every day you will stagnate. Do you have to write comedy gold every day? Not at all. But you have to write a premise, a punchline, or an idea every day. The more you write the more you have to test.
Ideally, you write all of the above and build a new bit but start small and it will come. The key is consistency. Great comedians are great writers and writing comedy is the most difficult skill to master.
If you write one joke every day by the end of the day, you will have 365 to try on stage and to refine, massage, and form into longer bits. Some may even be combined to build a bit that becomes a few minutes in your routine.
Practice With Friends Or Family
Friends and family know you. They love you and most likely they will chuckle even when a joke sucks. But they are your first best resource. Try your joke out by working it into a conversation.
It does not have to be word for word to make it work but if you have the basic setup and the punchline you can turn a conversation into comedy gold. All those comedians who “sound” like they are having a conversation with the audience most
PRO TIP: If you are talking with people and you make them laugh, write down whatever you said as soon as you can. That may be a tag or punchline you can use in the future.
Get Feedback And Rewrite
So you told your joke to friends and family. If they laughed it might be worth taking to an open mic and trying on other comedians, who are some of the last people to laugh at others jokes.
If they chuckled then look at the joke. Read it out loud. Hear the beats of the words. Trim the fat, and tighten the words. Does that “the” need to be there? Will “a” work better? Instead of generalizing the name of something would the brand name make it funnier? often it is the smallest changes that make or break a joke so think before you speak.
Asking these questions after your feedback will allow you to rewrite the joke so you can head to the stage and the open mic. Never waste feedback, just
Take The Rewritten Joke(s) To An Open Mic
The Open Mic scene is a comic’s most hated but most useful place. Sure there are great comedians there who make you wonder why you even want to be a comedian. there are even bad comedians who you’ll wonder why keep doing stand up. And then there will be you, the bright eyed, driven comedian who won’t let anything stop them from their dream.
Comedians have a dream to make people laugh in a dark room, from a stage, on a Tuesday, while they enjoy overpriced drinks, and leave with nothing but the warmth of their laughter. That’s the thrill of stand up comedy. That is why you must train over and over on as many stages as possible.
The open mic is your training ground. Your dojo. The open mic stage is where you should be taking your beatings, where your joke should live or die, and where you should build up the thick skin and confidence to slay a paying audience. Comedians are the WORST audience. Don’t play to them or make jokes only comedians will laugh at.
Sure, Open Mic comedians often don’t pay attention, look at their own notes during your set, and don’t often laugh but, if you keep working the stage, hear the grumblings while you do your set, then you will know that your jokes have what they need to make an audience laugh. No matter be true to yourself and your comedy voice but if you get a laugh from a joke, it’s probably a good one to keep.
Perform And Record The Joke(s)
You did record your open mic set, right? On your phone, or some other device? If you didn’t you could have lost a better setup, a funnier way to say your punchline or even that one random line you said at the end of your punchline that could have been a killer tag. The worst feeling in the world is saying something new that got a huge laugh only to have not recorded it and totally forgot what or how you said it.
Recording your set is THE most important thing you can do as a comedian. In fact on his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, Joe Rogan often talks about how he records his sets and listens to them on the way home from the club he just did the set at. That’s dedication. That’s a skill that a high-level comedian does daily and well we all see the fruits of his labor. Record the set, listen as soon as you can. You will find gems that will change your jokes for the better.
One word or one new punchline can be the difference between laughter and a chuckle. It’s what separates the pro from the amateur. Take the time to listen to your sets and you will hear yourself getting better with each performance. Even a one percent change is something. And every small change has big impact because repetition is the biggest key to comedy success.
Listen To The Recorded Joke(s)
The moment of truth. Once you hit play on that set you hold your breath. You start to think, did they laugh or did I make it up? Was I funny or did I bomb? There is nothing harder than listening to your set. You are going to be your worst critic and that is great, just don’t beat yourself up and never stop to give yourself praise.
What you care about is dead air. Dead Air is the time after you tell a joke and when the audience laughs. Is it a few seconds, or 30, or 60 seconds? Did they laugh and you talked over them by starting a new joke? Listen and hear what you do and say.
If you talk while the audience is laughing you need to learn to pause. You are killing your own laughs, and that’s the currency of comedy, laughter. Every laugh you kill shortens the laughter for each subsequent set of laughs. The audience learns and adjusts. If you let the laughter breath, they will laugh to fill the void.
Take the jokes that worked and put them in their own document. You got the laugh. Keep those safe. Take the jokes that bombed and ask yourself, honestly, do you think they are funny? Is there any funny in them? Is it really a joke or is it a comment. If you can answer yes to all of them move onto the next step.
If you answer no to any of those. Put them in a new document and save them for the future. Oh did you think I was going to tell you to throw them out? NEVER ever throw out a joke. EVER.
PRO TIP: Every joke has value. It may not fit your voice but there may be a time where you see or hear another comedian who it fits and then you can offer to sell them that joke. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
Rewrite The Joke(s) And Trim The Fat
Take those jokes you think you can save and read them. Trim the fat. Cut the words that slowed down getting to the punchline. Trim the punchline so that the last word hits even harder and makes them laugh louder and longer. Laughter is all that matters. That’s the only goal of a comedian, get more laughs.
Comedians are like boxers. Every setup has to be ready to be followed up with a punch. Every punch has to be followed up with the furry of tags. We want the people listening to out jokes t be laughing so hard they never recover. We want them to remember our names and our jokes. We want to be legends. Think of yourself as a prizefighter and you’ll have the right frame of mind.
Just like fighters cut weight to get lean and strong, comedians have to cut the extra words from jokes. When you make every joke fast and tight you keep the audience on their toes and laughing in their seats.
Perform And Record The Joke(s) To Another Open Mic
Now that you tightened up the jokes and trimmed the fat, it’s time for round two. You will take those jokes that bombed and do it all over again. Make sure you record them so you can listen to them again. I know what you are thinking, these jokes sucked before why am I doing them again?
Well these are not the same jokes, right? You rewrote them, tightened them up, fixed the punchlines, and cut the dead space. If you did those things they are the base of the old joke that bombed, but just like a 50-year-old Beverly Hills Housewife after plastic surgery, they look AND sound different.
Listen To Joke(s) Response
So you rewrote your jokes, tried them out, and recorded them. Now is the moment of truth. Playback the recording. Go ahead. I’ll wait. So? How was it? Was it better or worse? If it was worse then move those jokes to that other file where you put the jokes you said had no chance of being better. So you should have two files, one for those that you will continue to perform, and one for jokes you will come back to in the future. Again don’t throw any out, even if they are not your style or your subject matter if you toss them you could be tossing out money.
If they are the same OR better put them in your act. Put all the jokes that got laughs in your act in and order that flows as naturally as possible and now you have a set. This is how comedy set building begins.
Tweak the Joke(s)
I know what you are thinking. I just rewrote these jokes. Yes you did. Now you have to rewrite the jokes you already rewrote. There is a saying that “rewriting is writing”. This is the same for comedians, authors. screenwriters, or anyone who writes. The hardest part about comedy is not your time on stage. That’s the payoff. The laughter is the payment for the hard work, sweat, anguish, and hand cramps that come from writing and rewriting.
Each time you go through this process and add more working jokes to the set. Spending time listening and refining makes every joke tighter, sharper, and if one right, funnier. Once you tweak these jokes it’s time to take them to paying customers. Now it’s time for the big show.
Perform And Record The Joke(s) On A Show
Now you should have taken all those jokes that worked and put them together into a set. This set could be anywhere from three to five minutes. Maybe it’s more, but if you are starting out, a five-minute set should be your goal. This is the battle you trained for, this is our moment of glory. The stage is your arena and you are ready to kill the crowd (with humor not any kind of physical assault).
You will be following the same routine as your open mic. Get on stage, record your set, and listen to it afterward. This is the time to have fun. Worry about laughs and being comfortable on stage. The stress of life, writing, and moving forward in your comedy journey should not even be a concern. You can do it, you are funny, and you will make them laugh. Keep repeating that mantra and it will happen.
Listen To The Recorded Joke(s) From The Show
So you did the set and unless something catastrophic happened you recorded it. Now is the moment of truth. Listen to your set. Did the jokes work? Did they bomb? Did you step on laughs? Did you give long enough pauses for the audience to catch up? Did you talk too fast or too slow?
If it worked with the crowd, keep it and do it over and over. But, be honest with yourself, don’t stroke your ego, and don’t assign blame to anyone other than yourself if you bombed. Listen to the set, note any changes you can make, and then make them. Sure it was a Wednesday at nine and three people were in the crowd but that’s not an excuse.
Taking time to listen to the set and edit them while you listen will help you grown leaps and bounds and build your set faster than if you did a new joke on stage every day.
Repeat The Process
So you did the steps and you have a three or five-minute set. Congratulations. However, it’s not over. This is the beginning of the journey grasshopper. You have learned to take the punches and give them out to the crowd and make them laugh. You have learned how important recording and rewriting your jokes are.
Start the process over with a new joke and keep building the set until it’s second nature. Day after day. Week after week. Year after year. Alright you do need a vacation but still you will find those gems during your everyday normal life, grab them, jam them into note pad, or a voice recorded so that they can become the backbone of your comedy album, special, or set that gets you booked, making money, and living the life of a Comedypreneur. Be funny, make money. That’s the goal.
