Introduction

One of the most important steps in developing stand-up comedy material is to determine what it is you are going to say and express to an audience in the first place.

This lesson will show you how to begin that process easily.

But please keep this in mind:

Most comedians set out to try to “fabricate” premises in a very mechanical and ineffective way — trying to “dream up” topics, ideas, concepts, that they “think” may be suitable for stand-up comedy material.

That approach is not only very difficult, but also not needed.

If you are a naturally funny person in everyday life, then you already know that you are exposed to potential stand-up comedy material virtually everyday of every week of every year.

That’s because of the comedic “lens” through which you observe and experience life and the natural sense of humor reactions that you have as a result.

Have you ever heard the term “garbage in, garbage out?”

That doesn’t just apply to computers and data, but it applies to developing stand-up comedy material as well, starting with the topics you will ultimately use to develop your stand-up comedy material.

Again, this course is NOT about how to “write” funny into stand-up comedy material — nor is it about trying to “write” one “joke” at a time.

So, let’s get started…

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What You Need To Get Started

To create your topic list, you will need:

• A notebook and a pen or
• A digital audio recorder (you can use your smartphone for this)

I recommend keeping your notebook or digital audio recorder (or smartphone) with you at all times so that you can capture your thoughts when they happen.

Ultimately, want to get into the habit of writing down or recording each and every potential stand-up comedy topic or idea that comes into your head.

Specifically, I’m talking about:

• Experiences and events (past and new, yours or others, all varieties)
• Observations
• Opinions, views, or insights on any particular topic
• Conversations and things others say
• Anything else that easily activates your sense of humor

You don’t want to lose any ideas, because you never know which one is going to turn into an incredible bit down the road.

It’s very easy to tell yourself that you’ll remember to write down or record your ideas “later,” but if you don’t capture them when they happen, don’t be surprised if you lose those ideas altogether.

If I had a nickel for every potentially great idea I’ve lost over the years because I forgot to write it down… I’d have a lot of nickels.

One more point before we move on:

I would highly recommend that you try to get into the habit of using a digital audio recorder (smartphone) to capture all of your ideas — to the maximum extent possible.

Although you certainly have the choice to write down your ideas in a notebook, I would like to remind you about what I emphasized earlier in this course:

If you get into the habit of talking your ideas into a digital audio recorder (or your smartphone), I think you’ll find it much easier later on to develop them into bits that already sound the way you would naturally deliver them.

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Great Stand-up Comedy Starts With Passion

Now let’s talk about two elements that are vital as you develop your topic list — your passion and your point of view (POV).

First, let’s start with passion.

The items on your topic list should be things you are passionate about and interested in, things which easily activate your sense of humor.

Passion in this context is a reflection of your interest in the topic and your desire to talk about the topic to an audience.

I can’t emphasize this enough. If you do not have some level of passion for the things you talk about on stage, it will show in your act.

Even if you do a great job in formatting, and polishing your material, in the end it will come across as a bunch of lifeless “jokes” if you are lacking passion.

It is the passion you have for your material that is the foundation for everything else you will learn in this course.

If you don’t have passion in the beginning for the things you want to talk to your audience about, all you will have in the end are mere “jokes.”

In real estate, they say it’s all about location, location, location.

In developing stand-up comedy material, it’s all about passion, passion, passion and…

Starting with topics that spark passion at some level and allow you to easily use your sense of humor.

I should also mention that passion for any particular topic is NOT dependent upon the delivery style a comedian uses.

As I pointed out earlier some comedians, like Brian Regan have an obvious animated delivery style:

Other comedians like Steve Trevino have a bit more “subdued” delivery style:

The important thing to realize is that both these comedians have visible passion about what they have to say and express to an audience — using two very different delivery styles that are unique to them.

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Your Point Of View Matters

Your topic list is the first step in capturing your perspective — your point of view (POV) — and applying the way you look at things using your individual sense of humor.

It is the truth as you perceive it.

You will find that comedians talk about things that are common to everyone.

So what really makes one comedian different from another?

They all try to make people laugh. They all talk about basically the same issues, problems, and observations.

What truly makes them different is their POV — the natural angle(s) at which they view the world around them.

The funniest comedians don’t simply tell “jokes”; they reveal a part of who they really are inside, how they see things from their own eyes, and their passion for what they have to say.

You will find that the funniest comedians usually have an easily recognizable outlook on the topics that they choose to present on stage.

Please understand that I am not talking about a made up “character” or “hook”. I am talking specifically about POV.

Look at the new school comedians who have been recognized by Hollywood and became stars — Roseanne, Tim Allen, and Drew Carey just to name a few.

They didn’t have a manufactured “character” on stage, no matter what any stand-up book authors say. Their unique “character” was them being themselves on stage.

What they each had was a POV on stage that reflected who they really are and how they look at life.

This issue of POV is an issue that I am personally passionate about.

I strongly disagree with how the subject of POV is addressed by the authors of most stand-up comedy books.

In one book on stand-up comedy, the author approaches POV from an “acting” perspective.

This author’s approach is skillful and may be great if you consider what you do on stage as “acting,” which is performed by a pre-identified “character” or cast of “characters” that you “make up” before you hit the stage.

I have done some acting. To me, it’s best to treat acting as an entirely separate and distinct entity from stand-up comedy.

I am strongly against the merging of these disciplines in order teach students how to become a stand-up comedian.

I personally find this approach flawed and congruent with making stand-up comedy a great deal harder than it has to be as mentioned in Training Module One.

It is this approach to stand-up that causes a person to deliberately or inadvertently abandon his or her own sense of humor and POV in order to find “the right one.”

The main problem with this approach is that it supports the generation of “phony” characters or POVs (unless you are already a great actor) until they are perfected.

Using this technique, one would be “throwing crap on the wall” until something stuck — in the same manner that single-line “jokes” are served up one at a time, then kept or thrown out.

To me, this path is the longest one to take in the pursuit of becoming a comedian.

I believe that a person has the POV he is ultimately going to use on stage and it is already inside him.

I also believe that if somebody “acts out” something on stage, it is most effective when it’s generated from internal thoughts, views, and passion without pre-description.

But what if this internal character is not easily recognizable or definable?

It doesn’t make one bit of difference if the audience members are laughing their rear ends off.

If someone is predisposed to acting out “characters,” I believe it’s because he already does it naturally in his own manner of expressing his POV (which by the way, is an inseparable part of one’s sense of humor, unless you subscribe to the “acting” method).

I probably had a half dozen “characters” that I did on stage during my act, but not because I said, “Okay, this character says this, thinks this way, and has this POV.”

I personally couldn’t identify one of my “characters” myself, nor did I try to before I wanted to express what I wanted to say.

I just knew that they are there from what others have told me (plus I could see them on video review).

But I don’t know anything about how they came out — they just did while I was developing my stand-up comedy material.

Let me say this:

You probably already have several distinct POVs that are specific to you and the way you see things.

You may not even know or realize what these are. But…

They’re inside you already. The way you view life around you is embedded in your sense of humor and the unique “lens” through which you see life.

You don’t have to get, make up, or formulate POVs because they’re there already. As you continue to develop your material, you may find that a dominant POV may emerge on its own. If it doesn’t, don’t fret.

Being funny on stage outweighs all else.

Nose rings, tattoos, and baggy clothes will never make someone truly unique.

What will always make you different from anyone else is the way you think and your unique POV.

You already have your POV. I believe that given the right guidance, it will appear in your material on its own.

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Everything Has Been Done (Or Will Be By Some Comedian)

Before you dive into creating your topic list, keep in mind that some comedian somewhere will have covered most anything you want to talk about. Not to worry!

When I got the opportunity early in my stand-up comedy career to open for Rich Hall of Saturday Night Live fame, we talked about developing comedy material and he said it the best:

One thing I don’t want you to do is fall for the highly flawed concept known as “hack” stand-up comedy as discussed in Training Module Three.

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Creating Your Topic List

You need a starting point when it comes to developing your topic list.

Because writing jokes is hard and writing funny ones is even harder, we aren’t going to start there!

In fact, we aren’t going to be writing “jokes” at all.

So, I want you to take a few moments and think about circumstances, events, or observations in your life that have touched you in some way or are currently on your mind.

This is where you begin to initially capture that passion and apply your POV that I talked about earlier.

There is potential material in all areas of your life.

What do you spend your time doing every day? What do you spend your time thinking about? What things from your past do you still find interesting or cause an emotional response in you? What turns you on or off about people, places, and things in the world around you?

The possibilities are endless.

The bottom line is, what topics are you passionate about sharing with others and that easily activate your sense of humor?

The important thing to remember here is — you don’t have to “try” to be funny in an unnatural way and here’s why:

We tend to be able to most easily use our sense of humor when we are talking about things we are passionate about and like to talk about.

For now, you are merely identifying topics that have some meaning to you that you may want to talk about on stage and that tend to easily activate your sense of humor.

This step is a simple way to give you choices specific to you on what you may want to talk about on stage.

I believe this is one area where most books on stand-up comedy miss the boat.

Rather than having you focus only on what you’re passionate about at this point or stuff that “touches your funny bone”, they encourage you (directly or indirectly) to “dream up” topics that you think might be funny to an audience.

I believe that’s a very quick path to writer’s block and trying to write “jokes” that are not personal to you.

Remember, for now the focus is not on “stage funny”, but simply on topics you are passionate about and can easily react to using your unique sense of humor.

Below I have provided a number of categories for your possible topics.

You are by no means limited to these categories, and you are welcome to create your own.

I provide my own examples beneath each category.

Think about things that:

Have shocked you
My favorite football player just got arrested.

Have amazed you
Why do old people drive so slow on the freeway?

Are unbelievable or absurd to you
Why do clean the skin with antiseptic before they give a death row inmate a lethal injection?

Make you angry or irritated
How come my spouse spends more money than I make?

You find stupid or unnecessary
A package of airline peanuts says – Ingredients: peanuts.

Scare you
Spiders scare me to death.

Confuse you
When a woman asks for something, what does she really want?

You find odd or bizarre
Did you hear about the guy that called 911 — while he was being arrested?

Make you uncomfortable
I hate when I have to tell a friend his breath smells bad.

Happened to friends, family, or acquaintances
Let me tell you what happened to my sister when she went to the doctor the other day…

Or anything that you have read, seen on TV, or heard about that falls in the above categories

Think of it this way:

What would be worthy of conversation if you were to share this information with a close friend?

We all experience things that excite, anger, frustrate, irritate, amuse, bewilder, shock, and please us on a daily basis.

We all experience life one way and would like it to be another. When we talk to friends, we tell them our experiences or observations we have made in life, and we do it with passion.

When we speak of things passionately, our sense of humor tends to be activated easily, with little effort.

Also, if you keep your notebook or digital audio recorder with you and add topics as they come to you, this initial brainstorming step will soon become obsolete for you quickly because…

Soon you’ll have a growing and changing library of topics, and as you live each day, more potential ideas will pop up that you can develop into comedy material.

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Enhancing the Creative Process

One of the things you don’t want to do is force the creative process of coming up with your topics.

This is the fastest way to lose passion and interest about a particular topic.

It can also cause you to begin to second guess your own sense of humor.

Instead, let me encourage you to try something different when you get stuck anywhere in this process. It’s a secret that has worked very well for me…

Have you ever had someone’s name on the tip of your tongue? No matter how hard you try you just can’t come up with it.

Then, hours later, when you are thinking about something completely different, the name suddenly pops into your head.

Why does this happen?

I think this happens because the brain has been given a task.

Remembering that name has importance. It bothers you that you can’t remember the name, making you want to remember it even more.

Even though you can’t immediately remember the name, your brain recognizes the importance of doing so and continues to go through your memory banks, searching for an answer.

And as soon as it finds it, it brings that name forward.

While this may be an unscientific rendering of what actually occurs, it nonetheless happens. This same activity can be applied to developing comedy material.

Let’s say that you have chosen a topic that you want to talk about.

But when it comes to determining what you want to say about this topic, you run into a brick wall. You try and try, and still, nothing comes to mind.

My advice — move onto something else.

Let your brain work on its own to find the answers that you are looking for. If it comes up with something, you will be the first to know.

And I will guarantee it will be right in the middle of doing or thinking about something else completely different.

This is why people can wake up in the middle of the night with great ideas. They may have been asleep, but the brain continues to work to find the answers to questions and problems that a person is passionate about.

This one secret has been responsible for a tremendous amount of material that I couldn’t seem to see when I first chose a topic.

So don’t force the creative process.

However, you need to have your notebook or digital recorder (or smartphone) handy when something pops into your head. It can happen at the darnedest times. Now, you know why.

Example Topic List

Okay, here’s an example of a topic list:

Spiders scare me to death.

Why do old people drive so slow on the freeway?

Did you hear about the guy that called 911 — while he was being arrested?

I hate when I have to tell a friend his breath smells bad.

Let me tell you what happened to my sister when she went to the doctor the other day…

You don’t have to write down a lot at this point. Just a simple sentence that captures the essence of your passion will do.

No matter what, just keep this in mind:

You can’t mess this part up unless you are already trying hard to make this list funny.

So relax and have fun making the list. It is limited only by your imagination.

Some additional notes about your initial topic list:

1. Your stand-up comedy topic list is dynamic, not static. Add to it and delete from it as you feel the urge.

You may feel more passion on one subject today than you will tomorrow.One of the keys to developing material quickly is to focus on the topics you are passionate about today.

As hard as some folks try, you can’t force passion.

2. Take your notebook or digital audio recorder with you when you leave home. Add to your topic list as you notice and experience life.

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Your Turn

Using your notebook or digital audio recorder (smartphone app), come up with 10-20 items (more if you desire) consisting of experiences, circumstances, observations, or events that spark passion and that will easily activate your sense of humor.

This will be your starting topic list.

Don’t worry about it being “ready for the stage” funny — that comes later.

If you put pressure on yourself to write down what you “think” may be funny, you will defeat the purpose and may experience a block.

Just consider what it is you like (or want) to talk about and what sorts of things easily activate your sense of humor when you think about them or talk about them.

The last thing you want is a block at this creative stage of the process.

When you are developing your topic list, don’t be afraid to include how you think about yourself — things that you find different, challenging, or annoying that are specific to you, or things that you are just not content with.

In my opinion, great comedians are able to laugh at themselves and their own idiosyncrasies as quickly as they laugh at those of others.

If necessary, transfer your list onto a computer.

Of course, you can start with your computer from the very beginning — skipping the notebook and digital audio recorder completely — or you can skip the computer stuff.

It’s all up to you. Do whatever works for you.

As for me, I find it easiest to store and organize my material using a computer.

Once you have made your topic list, choose only one topic — the one you feel the most passionate about right now. That’s the one you will want to work with.

Up to this point, we’ve only been dealing with preliminary information and steps.

But now we’re about to start the real fun — where you’ll really be able to play with a topic and let the real you come out.

So with your single topic of discussion identified, let’s do something great with it…

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