When Stories Go Stale

How to make your comedy
fresh and authentic

By Judy Carter

“Has this ever happened to you? You have a “really funny story” about something that “really happened” and you’re excited to tell it at your next Toastmasters meeting. But when you do, you’re met with deadly silence. “Well, I guess you had to be there,” you mumble.

Yipes! What happened? How can we re-create real-life humor when in front of an audience? As a longtime comedy coach and author of a how-to guide on comedy, I have some tips.

1. Capture Laughs as They Happen

The best way to write killer material, the kind that rocks a room and threatens to cause hernias in people laughing too hard, is to capture events and details that get laughs as they happen. When you plot out “funny” stories while sitting at a computer, those stories can sound literary, and not like something that really happened.

When you see something funny, write it down on a notepad or record what is happening on your smartphone. These are great ways to save special moments. When you get home, review your notes or transcribe your recording. If the incident made you laugh, it will probably get a laugh onstage.

Let’s say you’re at a party and the subject of bad dates comes up. You join in with stories about your own dating problems and you get laughs. Write those stories down. Capture the energy of your delivery and save it for your audience.

Have you ever had a fight with someone that turned funny? There you are, two people yelling at each other when suddenly you take a right or a left turn into the funny zone. You’re still angry, but you both start laughing. Write down the details before the other person does—so they won’t accuse you of stealing material!

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The best way to write killer material, the kind that rocks a room and threatens to cause hernias in people laughing too hard,
is to capture events and details that get laughs as they happen.

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Or what about this: While shopping with a friend, you look at yourself in the mirror and notice you’ve gained weight. Instead of calling yourself a worthless tub of lard, riff on your bulging midriff and tell yourself about the advantages of being fat. Flaws can be funny. You have leaped into the funny zone. Write it all down.

Start mining your own life for laughs and you’ll find a gold mine of material to use for the Humorous Speech Contest.

2. Get a Comedy Buddy

Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey and Ricky Gervais don’t develop material alone—and neither should you. Running material by a comedy buddy is an important step to take before trying things out on an audience. You want a critic and a friend who will be your sounding board. Note to comedy buddy: Be honest, but gentle, in the feedback you give.

When working with a comedy buddy, be careful not to shoot down any ideas. Your job is to add to them. A productive comedy session is like a hot game of tennis. Play only with someone who is going to return your ideas and maybe even put a new spin on them. If you keep serving and your comedy buddy never gets the ball back to you, think about working with someone else.

To find a buddy, post a note at myspeakerbuddy.com, a social network for aspiring speakers.

3. The Holy Grail of Comedy — The Act-Out

If you tell a story that got laughs some-where but doesn’t hit the mark at your Toastmasters meeting, try acting out your dialogue. An “act-out” is when a comic or speaker animates the people he’s talking about in a scene, which typically scores big laughs. It’s not show and tell; it’s show, don’t tell. Instead of talking about…”

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Click on the video below to watch Judy Carter, author of The Comedy Bible, perform at the Ice House in Pasadena, CA:

Formula for Funny

Structure your humor around
three elements: surprise,
tension and relationships

By John Kinde, DTM, AS

“Most humor is unplanned. It just happens. Spontaneous events with friends, clients and co-workers create the surprises and uncomfortable situations that call for humor as a coping tool.

Fifteen years of experience in comedy improv (teaching over 1,000 workshops) has taught me that humor surrounds us. In creating a scene, improv players arrive at the laughter not by going for the gag but by letting a natural scene unfold. Life is funny enough.

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When you structure a humor bit for a speech, don’t signal that a joke is coming.

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And so it is with creating humor for a Toastmasters speech. Tune in to what’s happening around you. Be open to seeing the funny relationships, natural connections and stumbles that fall into your daily activities. Get in the habit of mining the humor in your personal stories. The humor is there. You just need to train yourself to see it, save it and say it.

Regardless of where your humor skills are now, you can improve them. Three elements will help you understand and structure your original and customized humor: surprise, tension and relationships.

These principles are illustrated by the classic slip on the banana peel. The slapstick spill produces surprise because we don’t expect someone to fall. It creates tension because somebody could get hurt. And it twists relationships. Seeing a distinguished person, perhaps wearing a suit, sprawled on the sidewalk is a relationship that is not normal. Surprise, tension, relationships… we laugh!

We are startled by the person’s fall and feel tension, which is then released with laughter after we see that he is OK. It’s not a joke in the classic sense, but the same principles apply to the creation and delivery of many jokes. Tension, relief of tension, laughter.

Keep ’Em Guessing

When you structure a humor bit for a speech, don’t signal that a joke is coming. We want the audience to be surprised. A line like “A funny thing happened to me on the way over here” announces to your listeners that a joke is coming. That lessens the element of surprise.

To enhance the surprise, place the punch line at the end of the joke. And within the punch line, say the punch word last. The punch word is the trigger that releases the surprise. By putting the punch at the end, we give the surprise more impact.

An example of that is the famous joke by the late comedian Henny Youngman: “Take my wife… please!” The first part of that phrase, “Take my wife,” signals this kind of meaning: “For example, my wife.” But the last word—“please”—suddenly changes the meaning to: “My wife—you can have her!” The punch word gives the joke its humorous twist.

If your humor falls flat, just pretend as if you weren’t trying to be funny. Since the audience didn’t realize you were making a joke, you don’t need to apologize for the misfire or explain it. Turn your surprise into your secret.

Tap into Tension

Laughter is a pressure relief valve that results in the involuntary release of tension. Uncomfortable situations, fear and pain are all tension builders that cry out for humor. Likewise, humor is often a coping tool in highly stressful work—in hospitals, combat situations and law enforcement, for example.

You want to provide your audience with an opportunity to release tension. To heighten your humor, place a…”

LOGIN HERE TO READ
THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE

The current issue is available for viewing only by Toastmasters members.If you are a member, CLICK HERE to login. You must enter your user name and password to view this month’s issue. (If you’ve never accessed it this way, your user name is the same as your member number, which is easily found on your Toastmasters magazine label.)

Click on the video below to watch Judy Carter, author of The Comedy Bible, give a talk titled, “You can’t spell message without a m-e-s-s,” given at TEDxBayArea:

Meeting Theme: Be Funny

Your Comedy Checklist

Ask yourself these 10 questions to get the laughs you want

By Gene Perret

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When you turn on a light switch, you expect results. You expect the light to go on. If it doesn’t, you run through a checklist to correct the problem. Is the lamp plugged in? Is the light bulb burned out? Is the fuse blown? The same process is true of using humor in your presentation. You want the audience to laugh, and if they don’t, you need to figure out how to fix the problem.

This 10-point checklist will help you correct flaws so your humor will be effective.

1. Does your humor end with a surprise?
2. Is your humor based on recognizable reality?
3. Can you be heard and understood?
4. Is your humor current?
5. Is your humor concise?
6. Does your humor create a vivid image?
7. Are you letting the audience know when to laugh?
8. Are your references applicable and appropriate?
9. Is your humor right for this audience?
10. Is your humor clever and incisive?

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Think about something you’ve said before that everyone around you thought was funny. Which of these 10 checklist questions did you successfully use in that scenario? Think about the parts of comedy you get right and the ones you’ve heard others get really right. Let’s talk about ways we can improve our ability to be more funny at our next meeting.

Need more information about these tips? CLICK HERE to read the full story.

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JIA Toastmasters meets promptly at 6:30pm on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of each month, except holidays. We meet at the Historic Springfield Community Learning Center, located at 1601 North Main Street, 2nd Floor, Jacksonville, FL 32206 (Above Wells Fargo Bank).