Expert: Tom - 6/27/2008

Question
I really want to be a comedian when I'm older, all my friends say I have what it takes and I'm always making them laugh. I'm really interested in becoming a stand-up comedian...but how do I go about writing material? I find it really hard to find funny things to talk about to an audience that I don't know. I am only able to make my friends laugh because I know what makes them laugh. please help.

Answer
Chelsea --

What a great question! I think you may already have the answer, even if you don't realize it.

I have long been a funny guy with my friends, too. But you correctly observe that stand-up comedy is not the same thing as making funny comments opportunistically with friends. However, it's still about knowing what is going to make your audience laugh -- just as you say.

When I decided that I wanted to try some stand-up comedy, I listened -- a lot -- to some routines of others that I wanted to emulate. I tried to figure out what made the lines funny to an audience of strangers. The kind of comedy I wanted to try (www.capsteps.com -- look for "Lirty Dies") is based on a story. One of the things I learned by listening to a lot of this particular material was that it is critical for the foundational story to be one that the audience already knows pretty well. It is also important for the story to have a conflict that is not easily resolved. There were other elements that I learned about, too, and the type of comedy you want to pursue will have its own characteristics, but the point is that what appears to be spontaneous funny stuff is actually carefully calculated to be funny. To make your own material, you have to make lots of notes first, to capture ideas. Then you have to write it down and go through lots of drafts, just as if you were writing a term paper.

Once I started trying some material, I also learned that I wasn't able to be 100% accurate in predicting what would be funny. This means that you have to endure the pain of delivering a lot of jokes that people don't laugh at, in order to find those ones that they do laugh at. This tests your patience and, in some cases, your self image, but I think it's unavoidable. And the result was worth the pain!

So, those are my tips -- study and keep trying. I wish you well.

-- Tom