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Writing Material for Stage

© Vince Martin

The key thing to remember when writing material is that there is no formula, no rules, and no shortcuts. While the majority of comedians use similar structures, comedians as diverse as Mitch Hedberg and Richard Pryor have used unorthodox styles with impressive results. So, the most important thing to remember in comedy is to do what you think is funny. If it works, great; if it doesn't, play with it, tinker with it, change it or even junk it. But you have to be yourself, in your act and your material.

All that said, there are certain guidelines, tips and tricks to help you write new material and improving existing material. This format is far too short to cover those in detail (please see the list of recommended books for this topic - I highly recommend Judy Carter's The Comedy Bible and her associated website), but we can cover a few of the common pitfalls that new comedy writers often face.

The Setup and The Punchline

Most jokes follow the standard structure of setup followed by punchline. The setup "sets up" the joke by giving the audience the information and direction of the joke. The punchline provides the humor. To use an old joke, the setup would be, "My Aunt Lucy is so old." The punchline would be, "Her Social Security number is 7." Most beginning comedians make the mistake of taking too long with their setups. No matter how good a punchline is, a set cannot flow if your setups are taking thirty, forty-five, or even twenty seconds. One of the best tips I was ever given was, "Take your best fifteen minutes and trim it to ten." Even if you can't cut that much, the few minutes you can cut out will give you a tighter, funnier set. Limit the setup to the information required for the joke. If the joke is about your Aunt Lucy, you don't need to tell us that she's your favorite, or she's cute, or she's not really your aunt but your mother's aunt. The audience probably doesn't care enough (and neither do you, apparently, making jokes about your poor sweet old Aunt Lucy).

As for the punchline, it's important to remember that it needs to be funny. It sounds basic, but I've seen so many beginning comedians set up a perfectly funny situation, only to follow up with, "Can you believe that?" or "I didn't know what to do." Well, you should know. You're now a comic. It's your job not only to find humor, but to bring it out. A good friend of mine who is not only a comic but who books rooms in New York City once commented about a group of auditioners, "They all think they're doing observational humor, but it's just observations. There's no punchlines there."