Joke writing is as much of an art as it is a science. A good joke grabs and surprises you to the point of laughter. A great joke leaves you gasping for air as you laugh uncontrollably. Every comedian wants that second type of joke. The one that fills the air with laughter for minutes instead of seconds. This takes not only mastery of the delivery but mastery of the writing.
However writing a joke and telling a joke do not have the same impact in delivery or the amount of time it takes to deliver. Many people can read faster than they can speak. So when you spend so much time writing jokes how can you know how long a joke will take on stage? How do you account for pauses? Laugh breaks? How do you know your set length without going on stage?
There are a few different ways I test my bits when building a set so I know exactly how much time a joke takes before I ever step on stage.
OPTION #1: Speaking A Joke
Often when I am working out a new bit I speak out my joke idea into a voice memo app on my phone. I love QuickVoice for iOS but the normal voice memo works as well. The best part about this is you can hear the joke raw. This is before you cut out unnecessary words, rework punchlines and add tags. This gives you a good idea of the time a joke will take. While this is one hundred percent accurate it is the fastest way to generate material and gauge the time without writing or editing.
OPTION #2: Writing A Joke
Writing a joke can be a first or second step. If I record a joke into my phone then transcribing it becomes part two, if I start at writing then this is step one.
STEP ONE
I take the premise, punchlines, and tags and write them out line by line. If I take a breath that’s a new line, if I finish a thought it’s a new line. I make sure the lines meet my natural speaking cadence.
STEP TWO
Then I take it line by line and assign S, P, or T to the front. This is for Setup, Punchline, and Tag. I then format the Word document to Arial 14 and make sure they are single spaced. Not double or 1.15, single spaced only.
(No spaces between lines like here).
S: This is the setup.
P: This is the punchline.
T: This is the tag.
STEP THREE
I trim the fat and try to make no more than 3 setup lines before a punchline. When formatted this way each page will be 2-2.5 minutes of material. This allows you to build sets that have time built in for pauses, laughter, and hitting a large amount of punchlines and tags.
This is how I have built my tight 5, tight 10, my 15, my half hour, and from it I am building an hour.
I write everyday and even if it sucks I keep it. At the end of every year I go through the old jokes and see if any can be added to the current material and then save the document.
OPTION #3: Software Calculations
GRAMMARLY
So let’s say you hate both of my processes and the steps above are too time consuming for you. You just want to know how long your material is without formatting and doing any other changes. What options do you have?
Well you have two that I know of that have been a big help to me and my comedy writing business.
The first one is Grammarly. Grammarly is a “Ukrainian technology company that develops a digital writing tool using artificial intelligence and natural language processing.Through machine learning and deep learning algorithms. Grammarly’s product offers grammar checking, spell checking, and plagiarism detection services along with suggestions about writing clarity, concision, vocabulary, delivery style, and tone.”
What this really means is Grammarly uses calculations and algorithms to calculate all the words in your document and gives you feedback. This feedback includes a report that shows your word count, sentences, reading time, and speaking time.
These metrics make it easy for you to see how long it will take you to speak out what you have written. While this does not account for pauses or laugh breaks it does give a pretty good idea of how much material you have without any special formatting. You can find and try Grammarly here.
THE GAG APP
The Gag App is an app designed just for comedians to write, time, and modify their sets. According to the makers, “The Gag is a robust app for crafting the perfect stand up sets. What I love is that as you type your set into Gag it calculates the length of each bit. This is great if you show up somewhere and were told you were doing ten but then got bumped down to seven minutes and need to rearrange your set. You can look through your bits and be able to build a set without overthinking or stressing about your time.
Gag also allows your bits to be labeled under different subjects to keep you ready for every event. This is a system similar to the great George Carlin who had a file on every topic. You can locate more information and how to download The Gag here.
WHY KNOWING YOUR SET LENGTH MATTERS
Every professional comedian knows the worst thing you can do on stage is run the light. Running the light is when the light comes on to wrap up your set, but you just keep going and cut into another comedians time and/or making the show run longer.
In most comedy clubs, you are given a certain amount of time to perform on stage. At many of the clubs in L.A. of NYC it’s 5-7 minutes, sometimes longer. Clubs have a system to let the performer know when their time is up, which is often a light in the showroom that will be turned on when you have 1 minute left in your set. If you don’t wrap it up and keep going they will flash the light again and sometimes use music to “play you off”.
Paying attention to the light shows that you are a professional and that you know how to properly time your sets. This can be the difference between getting booked again and getting blackballed from a club.
Knowing set length is not just good etiquette but it is a way to separate yourself from others who claim to be professionals but don’t respect the light, the club, or other performers. Knowing your set length will be a big advantage as you work at more venues and more shows.