A Guide to Writing Stand-Up Comedy

Standup comedy has become a major part of pop culture due to its broad appeal. Everyday people reference, imitate, and integrate components of their favorite comedy sets into their daily lives. Despite its widespread popularity and impact on social communications, however, few people actually perform stand-up comedy as a part of their daily routine, and fewer are able to convert everyday conversations into this mode of speech. The appeal of being able to perform stand-up sketches, or at the very least integrate components of stand-up comedy more skillfully into the retelling our own happenings to our peers, is huge–everyone loves a resident funny-girl (or guy)–but often the barriers to ‘becoming funnier’ or actually performing a comedic set seem overwhelming. This guide serves to equip the reader with the tools necessary to convert everyday narratives into stand-up sets–or, at the very least, equip the reader to understand in greater depth the principles of comedy and specifically stand-up comedy that may be applicable to their lived experience.

Defining Stand-up Comedy and Classifying Humor

The first step in any attempt to utilize aspects of stand-up comedy in daily life is understanding what it is and what its key components are. Stand-up comedy can be strictly defined as an encounter with a single performer behaving comically and saying funny things to an audience, unsupported by props, setting, or costume (Mintz 1985). While this definition is limiting, it provides a good baseline definition on which to understand what stand-up comedy truly is. Another thing to consider is the distinctions in types of humor. While no stand-up set utilizes just one type of humor, it is useful to consider the different categories of jokes when creating a well-balanced set. One stand-up comedian breaks down humor into the following genres (Satyal 2016):

1. Awkward
2. Dry/sarcastic
3. Clever/quick-witted
4. Obscure/absurd
5. Dark/black
6. Raunchy/blue
7. Campy/cheesy
8. Friendly
9. Goofy/slapstick

Considering which genre of humor is your target while creating punchlines will be crucial to the word choice and tone of voice used when creating and delivering lines. Further, knowing which genres you use most frequently can be important to consider when deciding which venues you will perform at and who your audience is.

Common Rhetorical Strategies within Stand-up

Generally speaking, how should I even start writing?

In the beginning stages of making a set (i.e., your collection of jokes from beginning to end), it is important to start with small concepts and build from there rather than thinking of the broader themes you would like to discuss or include. Once you have a concept to build off of, brainstorm images and emotions around the funny concept to come up with more jokes. Next, find a way to thread those jokes together harmoniously. Finally, figure out the pacing and timing of your presentation. One key is building from funny concepts to the funniest concept, so as you come up with jokes consider restructuring your set at the end to see which order works best. Another key consideration in regard to timing is the strategy of compressing in which one joke quickly follows another, then another, then another; this strategy results in the build-up of laughter as the bit (aka a single joke or cluster of jokes) continues.

In order to get a better grasp of what these steps actually might look like, we will break this process down into its steps and use an example from a Jerry Seinfeld stand-up set.

1. Start with a concept
2. First, Seinfeld observes that people, when consoling others about the loss of a loved one, will say things like “at least he died doing something he loved”
3. He then points out the ridiculousness of this statement, saying it really would be better if he had died doing something he hated, so at least he got out of it
4. Next, he connects this concept to the next joke by saying it would be a wonderful thing if that person had died while cleaning a row of porta potties
5. Brainstorm images/emotions around the concept
6. Next, Seinfeld focused on images which conjured up the horror of the porta potty like
   1. The dread inspired by the hinges on the door
   2. The mental scarring and lack of sleep you get after witnessing its contents

• The emotions you feel inside of it

1. Note: the key here is creating a sense of relatability
2. Thread your jokes together

Seinfeld here does a really nice job of connecting his jokes–the first joke here relates to the inherent humor in certain consolations while the second joke relates to the disgustingness of porta potties. These are seemingly irrelevant to one another, but because he is able to connect the two by saying how certain tasks we as humans might rather die than do, it works (Zafarris 2019).

4. Close with a bang.

Closing can vary in terms of content, but whatever the case, you want to make sure that you close with something memorable, whether it is by revisiting an aspect of a previous joke or introducing a new one.

Putting it all together

If you want to see how these rhetorical strategies and general framework are used in an actual set, use the following link and see if you can identify some of the structural components identified. The link is a scene in Tim Hawkins’ That’s the Worst. Afterwards, reference the list below which indicates what times in the video different moves are employed to check what you picked up on and missed.

1. 0:05 – Introducing a concept
2. 0:37 – Brainstorming funny images around that topic
3. 0:37- 0:54 – Compressing jokes back to back to back & Progressing from funny to funniest
4. 1:22 – Intonations
5. 2:00 – Reincorporation
6. 2:20 – Threading jokes together
7. 2:25 – Intonations
8. 3:47 – Close by revisiting a previous joke

Mastering the 5 Minute Comedy Set

The five-minute set is the go-to when you are first starting out with writing stand-up comedy. Most open mics do not offer more than five minutes on stage for any one performer, so especially if you are just starting out it is the set you want to master.  Before proceeding, it is important that the terminology is clear:

1. Bit: an individual joke or small cluster of jokes surrounding the same topic
2. Chunk: several bits that all revolve around the same larger topic
3. Set: your collection of jokes, from beginning to end

So jokes make up bits, which make up chunks, which make up sets. And in this case, we are focusing on the five-minute set, which is typically comprised of about 2-3 chunks as a rule of thumb.

Step-by-step Outline to a Five-minute Set (Waithe 2019) 

1. Opener
   1. A good idea is to start with something that introduces you personally
   2. Ideas:
      1. Visual attributes that stand out about you
      2. The bushiness of your eyebrows

• The props you have with you

1. The quality of your voice

2. Chunk 1
   1. This is your first topic. It is easiest to transition into another personal thing about you.
   2. Progression should be from funny to funnier to funniest (bit 1, bit 2, bit 3)
3. Chunk 2
   1. This is your second topic. There does not need to be a segue between chunks, you can just start a new topic.
   2. Note: it is best that within each chunk, the bits flow nicely from one to another. So while Chunk 1 does not need to have a segue into Chunk 2, it is best that the bits that make up Chunk 1 have some sort of connection to one another and the same applies for those in Chunk 2.
4. Chunk 3
5. Topic can be related to an earlier topic, or not
6. Note: As mentioned in the Rhetorical Strategies section, one of the main strategies in stand-up is reincorporation (i.e. starting with one topic, then coming back to that topic or a related element of that topic later). This would be a good place to reincorporate.
7. Closer – can be any number of things:
8. Continuation of chunk 3
9. Could be a segue into a small Bit from chunk 3
10. Could be a “callback” aka a joke that has been said previously that was particularly funny
11. Could be a new, killer joke
12. Additional notes:
13. For a five-minute set, 2-3 chunks is the ideal
14. Build from funny to funniest within bits
15. Each chunk should last about 90 seconds to two minutes
16. Practice your set!

References:

Mintz, L. (1985). Standup Comedy as Social and Cultural Mediation. American Quarterly, 37(1), 71-80. doi:10.2307/2712763

Rutter, Jason. (2001). Rhetoric in Stand-up Comedy: Exploring Performer-Audience Interaction. Stylistyka. X. 307-325.

Satyal, Rajiv. “Standup Comedy Devices: The Biggest Traps in Writing & Performing Standup Comedy.” Medium, Medium, 11 July 2016.

Waithe, Elsa. “How to Put Together a Five-Minute Set.” GOLD Comedy, 22 July 2019.

Zafarris, Jess. “Jerry Seinfeld’s 5-Step Comedy Writing Process.” Writer’s Digest, 13 May 2019.