The Serious Guide to Joke Writing: How To Say Something Funny About Anything pdfdrive com

Question:  Why  do  I  sometimes  not  see  the  joke  potential  for  months  or  years
after I wrote it?
Answer: I don’t know! It happens to me too. But I do know if you really want to
speed things up then you should share your ideas with a friend or a group who
understands  joke  writing  philosophy  and  will  go  with  the  flow.  There’s  more
about this in Chapter 10, ‘Never be ashamed of your joke writing process.’ But
basically the more brains you have to work on ideas the more chance you have
of someone spotting the joke.
Question:  I’m  a  stand-up  comic  and  now  I’m  getting  paid  gigs  I  don’t  like
trying out new material because surely the audience have paid for a good set?
Answer: I know it feels like that but all audiences will cope with one joke that
doesn’t work, especially if it’s not your opening line. And deeper than that they
might even love you for it. They know stand-ups have to try jokes out, if you can
acknowledge that something doesn’t work then you can probably get a laugh out
of it. And then the audience will warm to you even more. If I managed to try one
new  joke  out  in  a  20  minute  act  it  gave  me  a  spring  in  my  step,  set  my  whole
routine afire, gave me a bit of excitement that I wasn’t going through the same
old  thing  again.  Frank  Skinner  says  ‘if  you’re  not  going  forward  then  you’re
going  backward’.  Just  doing  one  new  joke  per  set  means  you  are  going
somewhere.