3 Easy Ways To Get Over Joke-Writer’s Block
Here’s a blog post I wrote as a guest blogger a while ago. . .on the Incurrable Disease of Writing blog: http://www.missyfrye.net/Blog/?p=2653.
So I’m re-posting it here. . .
3 easy ways to get over joke-writers block
So I took like a month or so off of my blog/twitter/facebook/linkedin communications, and I’m now having writers block as to what to start this blog back up with. Soooo, so why not start with how to get over joke-writers block. Here’s a couple of quick tips that I use weekly. . .
Do something else – when I’m trying to come up with some jokes on a particular topic, like, say, dogs, then I sometimes I have to leave it alone by either doing something completely different and/or working on jokes about another subject. Last week I wrote jokes at the same time for both a cartoon strip and for a ventriloquist. My brain seems to work behind the scenes – while I was actively thinking about bits for the ventriloquist, then my subconscious came up with bits for the cartoon strip, and vice versa. OR sometimes I just do something completely different. . . make phone calls, mail out packets, take a walk. . . .Anything I can think of to interrupt my lack of inspiration and let my subconscious take over. It usually works.
Secondly, when I get stuck, I try to un-jam my joke-writing by doing some quick research – I start looking at the way other people are talking about my subject. In the dogs example above, I’d do this research by going to Wikipedia, doing Google searches, checking out dog blogs, etc. . to just see what people are saying about dogs. A lot of times the reason I’m stuck is because I’m only looking at the subject from one angle. . . and many times the way the information is worded in my research will give me an idea for a joke and a different perspective. Remember, I’m not looking up dog jokes. . . that’s my job and I don’t want to accidentally incorporate something someone else has written. I look up dog facts and figures.
And finally, I’ll re-read other joke I’ve sold, regardless of the topic. It doesn’t necessarily have to be jokes about the same subject I’m writing on. . . any jokes will do. This is more to remind myself that I can write and to give me a little motivation. When you’re all by yourself, and YOU are your only motivator, you sometimes have to remind yourself that you’ve done this before, you’re funny, and you can do it again. This also gets my mind off of “stuck” mode, and gives me a little breather.
Of course I think it was Keith Richards who wrote one of the biggest Rolling Stones hits while he was high. From what I heard, he just woke up after a major party black out and the words were on the paper. . . so that’s another way. But my ways are legal, cheaper, and a little healthier.
jan
Writing jokes – current events
Here I am in one of my favorite places – Sedona, AZ. Away from all the current events!!!
Topical jokes – jokes about current events – are a great way to freshen up a standard speech and make it sound like you just wrote the whole speech today. I started out writing topical jokes for my comedy act, and in fact I thought I’d do ALL topical jokes, but they got out of date so fast (can’t still talk about Lorena Bobbitt!), that it was hard to keep up with. Now I just sprinkle them into my act to freshen things up. I started thinking about topical jokes because the first joke i ever sold to late night TV was about the Super Bowl. . .see below. . .
To get material for topical jokes, you can look at news sources on line and in print. Yes, in print. USA Today is written so that the set-ups are almost already there – all you need is a killer punch line. And check out whacky news sites or gossip-type sites like the Smoking Gun for some great topical ideas. The set-ups for almost all of my topical jokes are pretty much word for word from news stories. Once you get your news ideas, a quick way to make a joke is to examine “how” and “what”. For example, here’s my first late night TV joke. . .
• “CNN reports that this Super Bowl weekend lots of vendors will be selling counterfeit sports items that aren’t officially licensed by the NFL. An NFL spokesperson said that you can tell if the T-shirt is not an official NFL t-shirt. . .IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT!!!”
For this joke I looked at the words “counterfeit sports items” and gave some thought to how can you tell???
And the cool thing is, you CAN reuse some topical jokes . . .the super bowl will come around again and though one movie star goes into rehab, you can bet that another one will take their place at the bar. Also, if the news item isn’t too well-known, like some obscure fact, then people won’t realize you’re talking about a report that happened 2 years ago.
Here’s a couple of past topical favorites that i sold to various places that I can actually use again because they’re so obscure.
• According to Redbook magazine men really enjoy fixing stuff around the house. . . as long as it doesn’t involved the word “relationship”.
(what other things do guys fix and not fix)
• 5 guys survived a blizzard in Oregon by making a fire out of their credit cards and cash. It could have been worse. They could have totally wasted the money by going to see Blades of Glory (or some other silly movie).
(I looked at how else could you waste your money)
Start paying attention to the news to come up with some fresh material!
Jan
3 Tips for Things to Control so Your Jokes (and speech!) HIT
Here I am sitting in Phoenix Airport today! Flight is late coming in from San Jose. . I’m headed to a show in Oklahoma. Ain’t travel fun!
Okay, every once in a while, the jokes I write specifically for the group don’t hit. OWWW! Luckily I have so much faith in my act that I know I’ll usually get ‘em back if I jump into my standard jokes. BUT for those of you who are new to using jokes to kick off a presentation, it might freak you out. The good news is that there are many, many things you can pay attention to in advance, that will give your material a fighting chance. I’ve lived through A LOT of things that have worked against my material, so I’ve got a page of stuff on my show set-up sheet that will help the client in setting the stage correctly. I’ve included a couple here – feel free to contact me if you want the whole list.
Check the room layout. I know they’re going to have dancing after your speech, but they can’t have the dance floor between you and the audience. . . that makes the show/speech loose it’s intimacy. If need be, you may have to get on the dance floor and deliver from there. . . as long as everyone can see you, it will work, AND it’s beats having people lose interest and break off into focus groups. With that said, you also need to make sure the stage is on the long side of the room. It’s easier for you to look left and right than try to engage the people who are wayyyyyy in the back of a long room. If the room is too long, make sure you have imag screens up front AND ½ way through the room.
Triple check that they have the right intro. This isn’t so that you get all of your credits read, it’s because on several occasions they’ve read my bio. This is longer than my intro, and much more boring. The purpose of the bio is to give background to the client so they hire me and/or for people to decide to come to my session. If they’re already sitting in the room, then they don’t need all of that info. PLUS in my bio are some of my jokes. I’ve had people read my jokes before I go on. Sure they get the laugh. But then I don’t get the laugh when I say ‘em (and I’ve got lots of tag lines and callbacks so I HAVE to say some of my jokes – even if the emcee read ‘em).
And finally, remind the client (it’s in my set-up sheet) that the purpose of the person introducing you is to get the crowd quiet and focused, so that I don’t have to; I always tell them that they don’t want to pay for 10 minutes of my time to do what the emcee should be doing. Also, sometimes the people introducing you are trying to be funny with your intro, and that doesn’t work. Not only is their ad libbing usually bad, but it’s confusing to the people trying to figure out who is coming up. I just had a guy read my intro and when he got to the part about how I wanted to be a comedian since I was 12, but my parents wouldn’t let me, he ad-libbed that they tied me up and chained me to the house. That was ridiculous and people kind of stared at him and me. The emcee will probably get more laughs just reading the intro the way it’s written.
So there’s a couple of the big things to do to get off and running. Handle the easy stuff like this, and if the jokes are funny, they’ll laugh.
Jan
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