an ex, school, traffic tickets, sports, celebrities, hygiene, politics, and religion. There are many more, just pick what upsets you the most and what is the highest interest.
Association List
After you pick a topic, it is best to get more specific. An audience can best relate with something that is concrete, understandable, and relatable. Breaking your topic down into smaller, more specific categories will help create more material for your jokes. Having more specific categories will make it easier to write several jokes on the same topic, forming a story of related material.
Here is an example of an association list for traffic tickets. Traffic tickets are a good topic because most everyone has an emotional connection with them. What is associated with traffic tickets? Police, motorcycles, red lights, sirens, traffic school, speeding, large fines, attempting to get out of the ticket, warrants for an arrest, going to jail, and suspended licenses. You don’t have to stop here. Write as many associations as you can. Write a few more associations after that. Get started!
Attitude
Attitude gives the joke its energy. An attitude is your perspective on the subject. It can be but is not limited to: dismay, anger, frustration, confusion, love, hate, hostility, excitement, boredom, tired, weird, scary, hard, stupid, wonderful, frightened, and pride. Most every subject can have a different attitude. Every joke has some type of attitude or a point of view. An emotional attitude will help build tension, which will fuel the emotional release or laughter.
Here are a few of the popular attitudes:
1.Love
2.Hate/Hostility
3.Confusion
4.Superiority
5.Pain
6.Scary
7.Weird
8.Hard/Easy
9.Worried
A comedian’s attitude can change from joke to joke. One topic could be love; the next could be hate. A persona or basic point of view should be maintained throughout an act. For example George Carlin had many attitudes. However, he maintained his persona or point of view as an antagonist and often a voice for the people.
Logan Murray in his book Be a Great Stand-Up writes about the seven deadly sins. He gives an example where you can use the same setup, and then insert a separate punchline for each sin. (see Template #58)
These are the seven deadly sins Murray writes about:
•Greed
•Sloth
•Pride
•Gluttony
•Anger
•Lust
•Envy
You can use them or you could use kinder attitudes, such as faith, hope, charity, trust, or dream. Note: When you use a softer attitude, the emotion is less and often the emotional release, or laugh, is less.
Targets
Most jokes need a target, something or someone to be the brunt of the joke, something or someone to compare against. The target is what or with whom you have a problem, whom you love or think about as being frustrating or difficult. The very best and safest target is yourself. Self-deprecating humor not only is safe, it helps build rapport. Rapport is what helps you connect, and connection is good, even if you don’t get a laugh.
A general rule with a target is to aim higher. It’s better to make fun of the bank president than the janitor. The safer targets are the government, professional star athletes, top movie stars, your hometown, and food. Should you choose to make fun of a specific nationality, race, sex, or religion, it is best that it be your own. If you are a white Anglo-Saxon man, it’s not a good idea to talk about black Muslim women. When you choose an appropriate target you are more likely to engage and build rapport with your audience.
Punch Premise
Greg Dean, in his wonderful book Step By Step to Stand-Up Comedy, talks about a Punch Premise, which he clearly defines as, “What negative opinions do I have about some smaller aspects of my topic?” He turns it around to help create the next step, the Setup Premise.
Setup Premise
Dean instructs the comic to write what is the opposite of the Punch Premise. When you disapprove of a particular politician, you say how much you love him or her.
Now you have an ideal setup where you can mockingly praise the topic that you’re upset about. Finding a punch line to state your real point of view will be easy. Here is an example: I really admire the way Joe Politician can…ignore the truth.
Setup
The set up is the story, the first part of a joke leading to the payoff, or punch line. The punch must contrast the setup with the unexpected. That punch contrast is what makes a joke funny. The setup is what gets the attention of the audience. Setups are informational and introduce a general theme. For the most part, a setup is realistic and factual, in contrast to the punch line that is exaggerated, crazy, and made up.
The setup is the opening section of the joke. It leads to the funny, or punch. The setup explains what the comic is talking about. It’s like a sentence as it needs to be complete on its own. The setup should tell a story that the audience can follow and comprehend. A setup’s entire purpose is to lead the audience clearly to the promised land of the laugh. The setup needs more than anything to be understandable. It needs to be basically factual; otherwise the audience won’t believe you. You can embellish, but the basic story must be true. For example, you can’t talk about your dead mother who died when you were five and a minute later say you just had dinner with her last Wednesday.
Assumptions
What is it that is assumed by the setup? When the setup is written properly, there will be something that should be assumed by most everyone in the audience. At the very least there should be a major assumption. This first major assumption can be considered a story. This leads us to the next section, the clash of two stories.
Clash of Two Stories
A joke is where two stories unexpectedly clash together. One story could be the truth, and the other will be a surprise story. We have the first story (the setup) and the second story, which is the punch line.
Think of the first story as a bus going down Main Street, Your Town, USA. Everyone expects it to keep going through the downtown along Main Street. All of a sudden, without any warning or expectation, the bus takes a quick, unexpected left turn. Story one led us through town on Main Street. Suddenly the second story takes us on a sharp and sudden left turn.
Punch line or Second Story
The punchline is the payoff, the last words or the second story. The punch line or second story is when and where the story takes a sudden