- Draw inspiration from your personal experiences, then generate as much raw material on a topic or premise as you can.
- Then, refine your material into jokes with a concise setup that expresses your opinion or feelings and a surprising punchline to get a laugh and “end” the joke.
- Group similar jokes together to form bits, then arrange your bits into a logical flow. For a tight 5, begin with your second strongest joke and close with your best joke.
Finding Inspiration for Stand-up Topics
Mine topics or feelings that highlight your own point of view. Stand-up comedy is often more funny when the jokes are about personal issues, feelings, or opinions. Think of yourself as the main character in your act and use real-life, personal experiences to help you come up with topics for your jokes. This will make the story or joke easier to tell (since it happened to you), plus it’ll seem more original or unique than talking about something more generic. Think about things you love, things you dislike, and things that annoy you. The stronger of an emotion you have about a topic, the easier it will be to put a personal, unique twist on it. For example, if you have a love of Renaissance festivals, think about whether you always wear a costume that gets you funny looks in public or if there are certain “types” of people who attend the festivals that you could describe in a funny way. Or, if you dislike subway rides, describe how annoying the subway is—people sitting too close, a couple making out in the corner, the one guy who always has his music playing without headphones.
Build on a personal or entertaining story. If you've already got a funny story you like to tell, use it as the base of your jokes. Build on it by adding jokes to highlight specific moments or intertwining other stories that are related. For example, if you have a really funny story about going to a theme park, use that as your base story. Then write other jokes related to theme parks—they could be about the food, waiting in line, or dealing with kids.
Use the news or current events as inspiration. Look for news stories that strike you as particularly ridiculous or funny or outrageous. Then, make it personal using the following formula: “X happened in the news. If I did that/if that happened to me…” Fill in the rest with your hypothetical scenario, witty observation, or unexpected take on the story to make it your own. For example, if you see a news story about politicians behaving badly, you could start a joke by saying something like, “Senator Smith just spent $100,000 on a private plane for his wife. If I spent $100,000 on a private plane I'd have a plane but no wife.” Not everything that comes out of this exercise will be funny, but you'll occasionally get some good stuff! Remember, when it comes to writing jokes, quantity often drives quality.
Watch clips of professional comedians or go to live shows for ideas. If you’re feeling stuck, go back and watch clips of your favorite big names in comedy to see what types of things they joke about. Do they stick mainly to personal stories? Or, if they’re commenting on something more universal, how do they put their special spin on it? Try to identify what makes their routine unique to them, whether it’s the material, point of view, performance mannerisms, or a combination. Then, check out some local live comedy to see how up-and-coming comedians structure their shorter sets. What do they write for their opening and closing? How many jokes or bits do they fit into a 5-minute set (also called a “tight 5”)? Try comparing a pro’s early material to their most recent clips or stand-up special. How did their material or joke-telling change over the years? Also, consider reading books by established comedians that talk about their writing process, career, and performance experiences for ideas. It always helps to realize that many pros got their start in comedy the same way you’re doing now!
Generating Material for a Stand-up Set
Record your thoughts on the go. Carry a small notebook with you (or use your phone’s notes app) and take note of what you find funny. Write down something someone says, something that happens to you or someone else, or any amusing thought that crosses your mind. It can be great material for a joke! For example, if you see someone pushing a grocery cart into a store and almost trip and it makes you laugh, pull out your notebook and write down everything about the scene that made it funny, such as how the person looked and how they reacted to almost tripping. Record yourself saying jokes into your phone’s voice recorder. Don’t worry about making it funny—this is just to record your thoughts so you can hone your jokes later. Review everything you record at least once a week to retrieve your ideas. Larry David Larry David, Comedian Mine your own unique experiences for inspiration. "It's always good to take something that's happened in your life and make something of it comedically."
Write down everything you can think of about a certain topic. Don't try to force yourself to be funny while generating material—just write down whatever comes to mind. Set a timer for 5 or 10 minutes and let yourself write freely about every single detail of a topic you can imagine until the timer goes off. For example, if the topic is traveling, write down as many funny thoughts, feelings, and stories you have about trips you’ve been on or traveling in general. Try using prompts like “I hate it when…” or “I love it when…” or “I’m annoyed by…” to help launch new trains of thought. Keep in mind that the majority of what you write might be nonsense at first, but that’s OK! The point is to explore funny premises, words, ideas, and setups to refine and work off of later.
Draft a few jokes based on your brainstorming. In your free writing, you might have written down funny words, weird stories you forgot about, or even questions. All of these things can be a good foundation for jokes. Pick 1 or 2 things you like best and write out a rough draft of a joke based on them. Aim for about 250 words to get started, and don’t worry about editing yourself yet. For example, if you wrote down a bunch of funny thoughts about traveling, pick 1-2 of the funniest ideas and expand them into full-length jokes with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Make sure the jokes have obvious punchlines to get people laughing. You might start a joke by saying something like, “So I was on a plane to Mexico last week, and the lady next to me fell asleep and started to…”
Refining Jokes & Punchlines
Follow a loose beginning-middle-end structure. The beginning is your topic or premise. This is what sets up the audience’s expectations for the rest of the bit and reveals your feelings or point of view on the subject. The middle is the “crazy stuff” that happens—this could be the rising action in a story or anecdote, or the time when you heighten or follow a strange train of thought from the premise. The end is the punchline—a laugh line that sums up the joke and breaks the tension and expectations of the audience. Some zingers can incorporate all of these elements in just a sentence or two, while longer bits or anecdotes may need more. If you’re writing out a longer joke or story, consider adding mini-setups and punchlines to keep the energy up while you work toward the grand pay off at the end.
State your premise in a clear way that creates curiosity or tension. Focus on one idea at a time and lay out your premise in a single sentence that hints at your emotional connection to or POV on the topic. Keep this part of the setup short and sweet. For example, instead of saying something jumbled like “I don’t like grocery shopping because the store is all unorganized and my partner makes the list” (which introduces multiple ideas and isn’t concise), say “Grocery shopping is my least favorite chore.” To make the audience curious, make your point in a more interesting way. Sticking with the grocery store example, you could try “Grocery shopping is my weekly personal challenge.” Or, try making a bold claim for your premise to get a rise or reaction from the audience. You could say something like, “Grocery shopping is not for the weak.”
Try misdirecting the audience so they’re surprised by the punchline. Surprise endings are one way to get major laughs. To use misdirection, set your audience on what seems like a clear path from the beginning of your joke. Then, once they think they know what the punchline will be, insert an unexpected statement, punchline, or word as a “gotcha!” Lists are an easy way to begin playing with misdirection. Save your surprise for the last item in the list. For example, “I was attracted to my ex because of his personality. He was kind, funny, and had huge biceps.” Or, try changing well-known sayings to throw off the audience. For example, “I believe strongly in the Golden Rule: if you can’t say anything nice, post it online instead.”
Keep punchlines short, surprising, and related to the setup. If your setup or premise is concise and provides all the context the audience needs to “get” the joke, then write a punchline that’s a quick word, phrase, or sentence that adds a twist, gets laughs, and “ends” the joke, anecdote, or segment. Make sure the punchline is tied to your premise—introducing new material or something totally random takes away from the humor and leaves the audience feeling confused about where you’re going. For example: “My therapist told me to identify all the emotions I felt while I was gone on my camping trip to cope with stressors. So, when a bear wandered into our campsite, I screamed ‘I AM VERY STRESSED RIGHT NOW!’” Write as many possible punchlines to your setup as you can think of and test them all out at open mics or with friends. You may have to go through several duds before you find the perfect punchline (or, in the best case, you have multiple funny options to end your joke with for different occasions). When looking at your finished joke, ask yourself if the punchline “punches up,” or makes fun of someone or something that’s in a position of power (as opposed to “punching down,” which makes disadvantaged or marginalized people the butt of the joke). Jokes that punch up tend to land better and be less offensive.
Organizing Jokes into a Routine
Revise jokes to make them short enough to fit together in a routine. Once you've got some individual jokes drafted, cut your drafts from 250 words to 100, then to 50, then to 25. This forces you to get to the nugget of what's funny in your jokes. It also helps you get rid of unnecessary context or buildup, which can distract your audience. This doesn't mean all of your final jokes need to be only 25 words. This exercise shows you where you can “trim the fat” and avoid a beginner's tendency to spend too much time on the premise. Compressing shorter jokes together helps the laughter build up. When people don’t have time to stop laughing between jokes, the laughter in the room just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
Come up with more similarly-themed jokes to fill in your script. Think about the topics your current jokes are about and then think of more funny emotions and images related to those topics. Write additional jokes around these ideas to fill in your comedy routine script. For example, if you already have a couple of jokes about waiting in the lobby of the dentist’s office, try to imagine what it looks like there and how it makes you feel to come up with a few more jokes that fit into your set. You could say something like, “By the way, what’s with every dentist’s office having a fish tank? How did that get started? Fish don’t even have teeth!”
Assemble your jokes into a logical sequence. Put similar jokes one after the other to create cohesion in your set or to structure larger bits (if each joke is like a paragraph in a book, then a bit is like a chapter made of paragraphs in a specific order). Create connections to transition between different jokes if needed to string them together in a way that makes sense. Keep changing and playing with the structure to find the order that works the best. For example if you have 4-5 jokes about portable toilets, say those one after another, then lead into your story about a weird experience you had in an airport bathroom with a transition like: “Speaking of toilets, this one time I was in an airport bathroom and…” From there, you can move onto some more airport jokes or jokes about other public places.
Structuring a 5-Minute Set
Tell 2-4 strong jokes in the first minute or so to get early laughs. Start with your second-best joke to make sure you’re opening with strong, reliable material (you’ll save your strongest joke for the end). From there, continue to tell a few more of your shorter jokes to keep the laughs going. If possible, open with something that reveals more about you to new audiences—you could comment on a physical attribute (like having blue hair, for example) or something else that stands out about you. Unless you're a really well-known comic, the audience may be waiting to be impressed by you. So, deliver your opener with confidence and be yourself! The more laughs you can get at the beginning of your set, the better your set can turn out. It's also a chance to establish your tone—are your jokes sarcastic, or self-deprecating? Do you deliver in a monotone or with a lot of energy? Let your audience get to know you as soon as possible. A “tight 5” is valuable to new comedians. Most open mic nights or “new talent” shows only offer short slots around 5 minutes or so long, so practicing getting a lot of laughs in a short time can boost your early success.
Try to get a laugh about every 20 seconds for the next 3 minutes. This keeps your audience engaged. If you have a great joke that's longer than 20 seconds, make sure it's written to have a couple of punchlines along the way to keep up the energy and momentum. That keeps your audience laughing and sets them up for the big punchline at the end. The most important thing for the middle part of your set is that it flows. This is where having jokes in a logical order with good transitions between them is really helpful.
End with your best joke in the last minute. You used your second-best joke to open your set to get the audience laughing quickly, so now end your set with your best joke. You want to leave the audience laughing, and ending with your best joke will make your set more memorable. When you’re actually delivering your set in real life, don’t forget to repeat your name and thank the audience before you walk off stage. Try bringing back a punchline from earlier to close your set. For example, if you had a joke at the beginning of your set about spending Christmas with your in-laws, you can say something like: “And that’s why I’ll never go to my in-laws’ for Christmas again!”
Testing & Improving Your Jokes
Practice performing your jokes in front of small audiences. This is a great way for amateur comedians to get a feel for what works and what doesn’t work. Gather a few friends or family members together or go to a small open mic night nearby and deliver a set to your audience. Watch carefully how people react to each joke. Google something like “comedy open mic near me” to see which local bars or venues host an open mic. Most are free for performers to participate in and happen weekly, biweekly, or sometimes monthly. If you don’t live in or near a large city, open mic opportunities may be hard to come by. Consider joining virtual open mics or even starting and hosting your own! A good thing about practicing in front of people you know before you move onto comedy events is that you can ask them for feedback, too.
Move on from jokes that don't work. If you tell a joke that bombs (no one laughs and the audience is just staring at you), shake it off and move on. If you get too caught up in one joke failing, the rest of your jokes might also fail if you become uneasy or distracted. Every comic bombs from time to time—it's OK! Remember that it’s normal to be nervous in an open mic situation. If it’s your first mic, consider telling that to the audience at the top of your set. It may intrigue them and make them more receptive to your jokes. As you perform your comedy more, you start to learn when a joke isn’t going to work in real-time by watching your audience’s reactions. Then, you can cut the joke short or modify it to try and get a laugh. This is called “editing on the fly.” Remember that even the most famous and talented comedians have bombed early in their careers (and still may have hard nights when they’re working on new material). Learning from their failures is part of what propelled them to greatness, and it can work for you, too!
Work on shaping your comedic persona. Creating a unique comedic persona or style for yourself makes it easier to write jokes. Try to determine what your style is and focus your joke writing from this point of view. Keep in mind that a persona is not a character—a persona is how you present your personality, attitude, and lens on life while you’re telling jokes. Your persona can help “sell” your jokes and make you stand out from other comics. For instance, maybe you’re a shy, self-deprecating type of comic, or perhaps you’re self-confident and don’t take you-know-what from anyone. If you decide your persona is going to be making fun of yourself, you can start jokes with things like: “So the other day I confirmed what I’ve known for a while now—I’m really bad at sports.”
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