I hear critiques of comics, most recently of Louis CK, that “he seemed to be rambling,” through his first abortion joke. They don’t seem to realize, that’s a style, something he’s doing on purpose, and something he had to work really, really hard to get just right. And we don’t talk about that enough with outsiders.
Betsy Borns points out that there’s also a social taboo against talking about writing stand-up that obscures the work. Seinfeld argues comics are “supposedly unsophisticated,” and stand-up is not considered art (237). But jokes are often quite sophisticated and require careful crafting. Don’t want to put in the work? Seinfeld has said, “People don’t want to get up in the morning and drive a truck every day either, but they do – that’s their job and this is my job” (Borns, 237).
I see people at open mics all the time, usually newbies, just rambling about their day or thoughts, as if they believe they could just wing it and something funny will happen. Sometimes it does, and sometimes they get a small reaction that indicates they can work on one piece or bit more, but most often it’s just painful. Maybe this is something that you can do when you have years in the business, and have a clear sense of your voice and that where you’re going is funny, but I don’t recommend it for newcomers. Maybe I just lack the balls.
Other people have a writing process, but it is so ingrained and idiosyncratic, that they’re not even aware of it: the joke just seems to happen. This also leads them to fall into patterns, and to write the same kinds of jokes, which can be great to develop your voice, but also runs the risk of going stale.
Everything starts with the jokes. Until you’ve got material that consistently gets laughs, you’ve got nothing – and you need at least five minutes of quality material to move to the next level. So where does it come from? See the next post: How To Write a Joke.
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions? Do you have a process? Do you treat it as work?
References:
Borns, Betsy. Comic Lives: Inside the World of Stand-Up Comedy. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987.
