New to comedy.. Advice is good!!

[Thor Smash]

I think my style of comedy includes off-beat topics filled with multiple mini punchlines and one "culminating" punchline at the end (for the most part). I think it's kind of one-linerish, but there is a bit more story to it. The question I have is, I'm not too sure about it, but I think comics with the more clever punchlines and story are funniest. Is that at least somewhat true? A lot of audiences like clever punchline? Do any of you ppl have experience with off-beat topics without a great backing story to the joke. Randomness I guess. The longest joke itself takes around 1.5 minutes to tell and my humor is scattered. I've got things about weather, evolution, skin color-not necessarily racism (not my goal, at least), games. No real connection. All over the board. Any experience or advice would be appreciated. Thanks!!

[drieux]

There's not really a question in your post, but from what I can gather you are:

(a) brand-spanking new
(b) really, really excited about it
and (c) grasping for some way to define yourself comedically.

Blah blah blah, you're new. Enjoy yourself, write as much as you can and perform whenever possible. Read the Open Mic Experiences thread, calm down and just relax. Trying to define your comedy now is futile and meaningless. Just do what you think is funny and all that other stuff comes later.

[JayRunner]

I hope you watch all of this.

[YOUTUBE]kHhmzGzfVI0&feature=related[/YOUTUBE]

Be amazing.

[chrisrozwod]

Be mediocre. That's a more likely goal to reach.

Haha!

[Vercetti]

Yeah, that's a great video. He sums up some basics very well.

Basically just get out, do it and keep doing it. Listen to what kinds of things people laugh at and listen to feedback. Getting out there and doing it is really the best way to learn and get better.

[JayRunner]

Although I'm glad my sarcastic joke of a post is paying dividends I don't want people thinking I actually endorse that bootcamp filth. That video is garbage, if you watched it you were tricked.

Read drieux's post if you want advice and value your time.

[chrisrozwod]

Haha!

[JayRunner]

Ha, you almost had me! But I won't be so easily tricked into watching that video.

[nixonjames]

Maybe I'm more of a craftsman but I think beyond "always write" try to push yourself and your writing. Whether it's through more extensive brainstorming or making idea clouds or whatever. There is a massive array of techniques available for any given situation and one of my driving factors in improving is learning as many writing techniques and practices as I can.

While it's not MAKING me funny it is giving my writing much more depth because I do'nt hang on the same things over and over again.

Also stage time is invaluable. I think trying to find that balance of excitement, motivation, and burn out is key. I think everyone's point is different.

Listen to as much comedy as you can as well and try to figure out what the people you find the funniest are doing and how and that's a pretty good jumpoff point to trying things out.

[ErikNielsen]

I'd say the reverse. Don't write if you're not inspired. If you have an idea, get in there and write it. But if you don't have an idea, all you're going to do is grind your gears and produce material which is... well, uninspired. (Ultimately, the material that is going to work is the material that happens naturally. Not saying you can't tweak it, add tags, expand on it... but if it doesn't come to you in the first place, you'll never go to it.)

If you go that route, the forced material's failure will frustrate you, and trying to shove yourself into writing will frustrate you, and you'll end up hating comedy. (This will affect your stage presence as well -- a resentful comic is a bad comic.) But if you love comedy and don't try to wring material out of your brain, jokes will come to you. Stand-up writing is just a matter of recognizing those jokes when they do, plucking them out of the air and putting them together.

(One more thing -- have you ever considered starting with the punchline? I know a lot of self-proclaimed comedy teachers say to start with the premise... which is reason enough to doubt that advice. The way I've always looked at it, if you start with the premise, you will frequently end up with a bit which is about the point, not the comedy, and which sort of fizzles out.

But if you start with the punchline, you know you have an ending. You just have to build up to the payoff, rather than the alternative, which forces you to develop the payoff from scratch. And the payoff is the hard part -- building the joke is, well, a type of building. It's the manual labor of comedy writing -- it can be learned. Whereas the punchline has to sound like inspiration. So isn't it easier if the punchline is inspiration?)

[Vercetti]

One thing I notice is that now that I've been doing stand up regularly for a couple years, I write significantly less. I mean, I WRITE JOKES obviously, but I generally don't do long writing sessions. I think it out first or say it out loud before I write it down. From there I'll riff with it, work it live and add to it/subtract from it. Often times I'll have a few little jokes about the same subject. Mainly it's just a matter of finding the premise, set up and punch for me. Anything beyond that is usually stuff I don't use. I'm generally really big on condensing and simplifying. Get in, get the laugh, move on, etc.

I know guys that basically write blogs and then try to whittle them down into jokes, and if that works for you, cool. Everyone has their own approach. I guess it's just really about finding an approach that works for you since every comic works differently. I go with my approach because it fits my style, which is mostly short and punchy.

[Thor Smash]

Thank you guys so much.