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

Question: What’s a good hit rate for new material to work?

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Answer:  When  I  was  a  stand-up  I  once  set  myself  the  task  of  getting  one  new
joke a week into my act on the basis that by the end of the year I’d have 52 new
jokes. My act had roughly three jokes per minute so 60 jokes per 20 minute set.
To do this I found I needed to write ten jokes a week, try out three or four and
one would stick. I did this religiously for about six months but despite putting a
lot  of  work  I  didn’t  achieve  my  goal.  This  was  partly  because  some  of  it  was
topical  so  even  though  I  often  got  more  than  one  new  joke  a  week  they  were
often  gone  just  as  fast.  Still  setting  myself  that  target  meant  by  the  end  of  the
year I had about 10 minutes of solid new stuff and a bank of topical jokes that
could  be  adapted  at  will  to  each  new  situation.  People  started  to  say  I  was
prolific and it made me laugh if they knew how hard it was.
But  that’s  me,  other  people  are  different.  I  remember  being  in  a  dressing  room
with Dara O’Briain one night and when I told him that I had a new joke to try he
said he did too.
And indeed we both did. I went on and did my one joke which of course took 20
seconds. His ‘joke’ was in fact a new routine, a brilliant comic idea that took him
five  minutes  to  expound.  He  only  needed  four  new  ‘jokes’  to  get  a  new  20
minute  act.  Yes  I  was  jealous  but  that’s  Dara;  for  the  rest  of  us  there’s  joke
writing

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Summary
If  you’ve  written  some  jokes  but  they  don’t  work  yet.  Stop  moaning  and  start
honing!

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