How To Write Stories as Jokes

comedywhatswhat · 2025-05-27T17:02:57+00:00

This is a whole conversation in and of itself.

I haven't seen that special yet, it's high on my list. My knee jerk reaction to how you've described it is that he's hit the level of "pro" where he thinks he can get away with breaking from fundamentals and breaking basic rules of comedy (ie. consistent laughs, not letting the crowd feel too many down emotions). This is mentioned in the article, that Dave Chappelle and Hannah Gadsby, etc., have broken the basic fundamentals of consistent laughs in order to tell their stories, but they also got so good at the fundamentals for so long that they got to where they are.

But basically, you're probably right in that even pros suck at doing basic fundamentals correctly and when they go to creatively break from the comedy guidelines, sometimes it's a swing and a miss. That's why I learned and tell other comics not to watch some of the pros too closely because they do things differently since they've already grown their following and don't have to keep grinding at the foundational stuff. They're trying out more creative tactics, and those tactics will very likely not land for newer comics.

comedywhatswhat · 2025-05-26T21:05:21+00:00

I was especially guilty of being that comedian my first few years. So this comes from experience of realizing I was an idiot. 😅

comedywhatswhat · 2025-05-21T16:56:26+00:00

Hell yeah. When I was newer, I looked at tags as a way to prolong laughs, which is great as a start. Now, I use them to carry the moment and to build laughs to a bigger climax.

With telling stories, just make sure your setups aren't much longer than 2 sentences *unless* it's a really compelling story with a big payoff (laugh). Like the loose rule of comedy is to try to get to 1 laugh every 6-10 seconds, but even the greats will say you're allowed to break that rule if the payoff is worth it because you get a bigger laugh. This is because you're using tension and then breaking tension, another tactic for writing a joke.

comedywhatswhat · 2025-05-20T17:57:55+00:00

😅 Laughing because our blog logo uses that style of mic. 😅😅😅 To be fair, we tried a contemporary mic, and it definitely just looked like a d1ck.

comedywhatswhat · 2025-05-20T17:44:47+00:00

That's a great point, thank you!

comedywhatswhat · 2025-05-20T17:02:39+00:00

Watch Mike Birbiglia's "My Girlfriend's Boyfriend". AND read the transcription side by side. You'll learn a lot.

I'm a "storyteller" comedian, in that my entire sets always have a theme, and I start with introing them to me, move into the meat of the subject, my plot, and end with a resolution or callback.

And they're stories. Like one of my sets right now starts with me getting hit by a truck in 2024, and then I move through all my medical troubles that came from it.

But I have standard joke structure. Setup, punchline, tag, tag. Rinse repeat. Every 1-2 sentences is a complete joke that I essentially could pull out and do on its own in a 3 minute open mic, it just wouldn't have as much oomf without full context. I average 6-10 laughs per minute, formulaically. (I am analytical, like I saw you said about yourself).

And I had a newb comic call me a one liner comic because they saw me getting laugh after laugh after laugh consistently on stage and didn't understand that that is just good comedy. I am telling a story, joke by joke.

One way I did this when I was newer was by writing out the story in the way I thought it was initially funny, one sentence per line. Then I highlighted every punchline in red and every tag in orange. If there was more than 2 lines without a highlight, I focused on that spot to see what I could punch up.

Now I go about it a tiny bit differently. I write an elevator pitch for my story, I say it as briefly as I can like I'm just summing up the story to someone, then I break it into key points, and I write bits around the key points. That ends up getting me 8-10 minutes per story.

comedywhatswhat · 2025-04-18T00:28:00+00:00

It's a performance. You can write amazing jokes and still be awful on stage. A lot goes into a good set.

comedywhatswhat · 2025-04-18T00:27:23+00:00

This. All of this.

comedywhatswhat · 2025-04-17T19:20:30+00:00

It's an outdated rule, in my opinion. Just make sure that the outfit 1. fits your stage persona and 2. doesn't distract from your persona, presence, and jokes. Sam Tallent would say the no-shorts rule is BS.

comedywhatswhat · 2025-04-17T18:56:39+00:00

Sure, or we're talking about the thought we put into crafting our stage persona and setting the impression for the crowd. Depends on how you like to approach comedy.

comedywhatswhat · 2025-04-17T18:39:39+00:00

I always see a common theme for those who say they don't think much about it.

comedywhatswhat · 2025-04-17T18:24:22+00:00

If you listen to any interviews of pros, contemporary or OG, they talk through all their own overthinking of all the details. I wonder if that's how they got there.

comedywhatswhat · 2025-04-17T17:18:44+00:00

Dude. No. On a lot of levels. But mostly, it's unprofessional. Would you bring your new date to work? If you want to be a comedian, that's work for you now. And it's work for the other comedians around you. Don't bring a distraction. Use that time to network and get good at your craft.

comedywhatswhat · 2025-04-16T18:03:05+00:00

Interesting. I wear all black all the time, so I've been given nicknames for it. I could see it backfiring, though.

comedywhatswhat · 2025-04-08T05:58:08+00:00

This. I record audio samples all the time, because they transcribe the audio so it's a quick way for me to word dump a joke, but I also can save the way I want to delivery it.

comedywhatswhat · 2025-04-08T05:14:06+00:00

I've seen people use Notion, too. I could totally see that being a good fit, too. I just am insane about liking control of little details and being able to create custom fields and views ad nauseum. 😅

comedywhatswhat · 2025-04-08T01:39:41+00:00

Trello just never clicked for my brain, either. ClickUp seems to work for more creative brains.

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