Category: Stand-up comedy tips

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How Do I Find the Humor in a Story?

A current student recently emailed me with a great question: “How do I get to the humor in a story?” She understood all the different comedy tools we had covered in class—exaggeration, analogies, rule of three, act-outs, etc.—but when she looked at her own stories, she couldn’t figure out how to turn them into punchlines.

She compared it to sculpting: You can look at the slab of marble, know where to chisel and know there’s a statue hiding inside, without knowing how to hammer it. First of all, it’s about time someone compared me to Michelangelo. Second, I think the marble analogy is actually making this harder, because it assumes there’s already a perfect joke hiding inside every story and your job is to uncover it. Sometimes there is! But sometimes you have a slab of marble and you just need to glue a funny (metaphorical) penis onto it.

Instead of running the entire story through every comedy tool you know, start by asking: Why do I want to tell this story? What part is strange, frustrating, embarrassing or shocking? Where did you have a strong opinion or emotional reaction? What moment do you keep thinking about? Usually that’s where I’d start looking for the comedy. You don’t necessarily need to make the entire story funny at once. Find the part where there’s some comedic tension and start there.

Then zoom way in on that moment. What did you actually think but didn’t say? What’s the exaggerated version of how you felt? What’s strange about the other person’s behavior? What would an insane person do in this situation? What’s the opposite of the reaction you’re supposed to have? If your story is about getting fired, for example, “I got fired” isn’t necessarily the funny idea. Maybe it’s that your boss used the phrase “exciting new chapter” while removing your health insurance. Now we have somewhere to chisel.

Another trick I use is much less intellectual: say the setup out loud several times and see what your brain wants to put after it. Don’t stare at a blank document for forty minutes trying to construct the mathematically perfect punchline. Say, “The weird thing about my mother is…” five times. “What pissed me off was…” “I couldn’t believe this guy would…” Sometimes your brain naturally starts completing the thought differently. Write down all the endings, including the stupid ones. Especially the stupid ones. Your first usable joke might be hiding three bad ideas after the one you thought was brilliant.

Once you’ve identified the funny idea, that’s when the comedy toolbox becomes much more useful. Can you exaggerate it? Make an analogy? Act out what you or the other person was thinking? Find an opposite? Add a rule of three? The tools aren’t slot machines where you insert a story, pull the “exaggeration” lever and a joke falls out. They’re ways to explore an idea you’ve already decided is worth playing with.

And if you can’t see those opportunities yet, that’s normal. Finding where to look for the joke is itself a skill. Any attempt at a chisel is better than none. The more stories you break apart, jokes you write and sets you perform, the faster you’ll start noticing the interesting spots without consciously going through a checklist. Eventually you’ll ruin perfectly normal conversations because while your friend is spilling their guts about their divorce, you’ll be thinking, “There’s definitely a punchline here.”

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How Long Does It Take to Get Good at Stand-Up Comedy?

A student recently asked me, “How long does it take to get good at stand-up?”

Great question. Unfortunately, comedy does not have a black belt system. Nobody watches your 200th open mic, hands you a certificate and says, “Congratulations. You are now funny. On Monday morning you will report to Don’t Tell Comedy.”

The annoying answer is: it depends. But almost everyone gets noticeably better with consistent writing and stage time. In the beginning, you’re learning several skills at once: how to write a joke, how to perform it, how to be comfortable onstage, how to pause for laughs, and how to figure out why the brilliant joke your friends loved received complete silence from 37 strangers and how not to panic about it.

One reason people have wildly different timelines is that “doing stand-up for a year” can mean almost anything. One comic performs twenty times a week, writes constantly and listens back to every set. Another performs once every six weeks, hasn’t rewritten a joke since February and spends most of their creative energy shutting down the bar. Technically, they’ve both been doing comedy for a year.

Your first goal also shouldn’t be “become good.” That’s too vague. Try to get better at specific things. Can you consistently get laughs during a five-minute set? Can you cut unnecessary words? Can you recover when a joke doesn’t work instead of looking like someone just told you your dog died? Can you tell the difference between a joke that needs rewriting and a joke that needs to be taken out back like Old Yeller?

And progress in comedy is annoyingly uneven. You might improve dramatically for six months, then feel stuck for two years. You might suddenly write your best joke ever and then spend two weeks writing material that should be investigated by the local DA. That’s normal. Getting better doesn’t mean every new joke is better than the last one.

The biggest thing you can control is reps with intention. Write. Perform. Record your sets. Listen to them. Notice where people laughed. Deliberately choose one specific change/new line to test during each. Or one new way to say an existing joke. Then do it. Notice where you expected them to laugh and they stared at you. Rewrite. Try it again. Merely standing onstage a lot while people stare at you helps, but repeating the exact same mistakes 300 times is technically experience too.

Also, don’t compare your timeline too closely to another comedian’s. Someone in your class might seem naturally comfortable because they’ve acted for fifteen years. Someone else may write quickly because they’ve been a professional writer. Another person might improve faster because they’re performing constantly. And someone who appears to be crushing after six months might simply have four excellent minutes and be out of comedy in another two years.

So how long does it take to get good at stand-up? Longer than you’d like but less time than you fear. You can absolutely become noticeably funnier within weeks or months of focused practice. Becoming consistently good in different rooms, with different audiences, when you’re tired, when they’re tired, and when the microphone smells suspicious—that takes years. Also as you get better, your standards go up, so you’ll probably never actually be satisfied. That’s a good thing!

Fortunately, you don’t have to wait until you’re “good” to enjoy doing comedy. You’re allowed to be a beginner. You’re allowed to have three good jokes and seven terrible ones. You’re allowed to improve in public. That’s basically the entire business.

So instead of asking, “How long until I’m good?” ask: “Am I better than I was six months ago?” If the answer is yes, keep going. If the answer is no, change how you’re practicing.

Then hop on Amazon and treat yourself to a black belt.

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I Did a Show and Bombed! Am I Fired From Comedy Forever?

Recently, a former student sent me a panicked midnight email: “I did a show and completely bombed. It was awful. Does this mean I should stop doing comedy?”

My answer is: Yes. Your comedy license has been instantly revoked. You have ten days to return your microphone to the nearest Chuckle Hut.

But seriously, every comedian bombs. Beginners bomb. Professionals bomb. Famous comedians whose Netflix specials you watched last night eat it on a semi-regular basis. I bombed twice writing this sentence! The main difference is that experienced comics have bombed so many times that one terrible show doesn’t immediately make them delete their Instagram.

After a bomb, there’s a simple process that always works.

First, get blackout drunk. Second, never think or speak of the set again. Third, rinse and repeat as needed until you’re a superstar.

In reality, try to get back on stage as soon as possible, ideally the same night, even at an open mic. Doing it again will train your nervous system to not go into negativity spirals. The more reps you get, the less each one affects your self-worth. And if you can’t get on another stage the same night, watch a TV show that makes you laugh or something.

Then the next day, start an actual post-mortem. (Which you should do after good shows too!) “I bombed” feels like useful information, but it’s actually just the beginning of the investigation.

After a bad set, I recommend doing something comedians hate doing: wait until you’re slightly less emotional and actually listen to the recording. Where did you lose them? Were there any laughs you forgot about because you were busy remembering the three minutes of pain? What would you change next time? Pick one or two things to work on instead of deciding that your entire comedic identity was a clerical error.

Figure out what kind of bomb you had. Did none of your jokes work? Did your first two jokes fail and then you panic-sped through the next eight? Did jokes that normally work suddenly get nothing? Was everyone else bombing too? Was the audience drunk, tired and/or chatty? It’s somehow possible to have all three things happen at once. Were all thirty people sitting super far from the stage, or was the entire audience four people, three of whom were asleep? (That’s a real show I’ve done!)

If jokes that normally work suddenly stopped working, don’t immediately rewrite your entire act. One audience is one audience. Sometimes the room is bad. Sometimes you went up at the wrong time. Sometimes they just don’t like your face. I’ve had audiences hate me before I finished saying hello. Apparently my eyebrows have range.

On the other hand, if the same joke dies three shows in a row, congratulations: now you have data. Maybe the premise isn’t clear. Maybe the setup takes too long. Maybe you’re stepping on the punchline. Maybe the joke simply isn’t funny enough yet. This is why getting reps matters. One bad set can be random. Multiple bad sets in the same place usually means you should stop blaming Mercury being in retrograde and rewrite or remove the joke.

Also, bombing is its own skill. One of my best skills is what I call “bombing gracefully” where I’m not getting the response I want and deserve, I’m frustrated but the crowd, the other comics and the bookers don’t even realize it. Sometimes making a potentially horrible situation simply an “unremarkable” set is harder to accomplish than getting huge laughs with an already hot crowd.

When you’re new, the first joke doesn’t work and your brain goes: WE’RE DYING. EVACUATE THE BUILDING. Then you start talking faster, stop pausing, abandon your personality and stare at the audience like they’re personally responsible for your mortgage. You also mentally leave the room and do your jokes like someone pulled a string in your back.

With experience, you learn to slow down, acknowledge what’s happening in a funny way, change gears, try different material, and occasionally turn a terrible room into a merely mediocre one. Progress!

And sometimes you did everything reasonably well and still bombed. That’s one of the deeply stupid things about stand-up. You can write, prepare, rehearse and perform something that worked great on Friday, then say virtually the same words Saturday and receive the kind of silence normally reserved for someone reading a will. There are too many variables to judge yourself from one show.

The goal isn’t to reach a point where you never bomb again. If you keep performing, you’re going to bomb again. The goal is to get better on average, bomb less often, recover faster, and learn more when it happens. So no, you’re not fired from comedy forever. Unfortunately, you still have to come back to work tomorrow.

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Am I Supposed To Write My Own Jokes? How Do I Come Up With Ideas?

A common misconception among beginner comedians is that stand-up works like karaoke: you find jokes you like, memorize them, and perform them yourself. That might mean repeating jokes from famous comedians or using old “street jokes” that have been passed around forever. And decades ago, comedians were more likely to share generic “joke-jokes,” but today the art form is much more personal. Modern stand-up audiences, clubs, and other comedians expect you to write and perform your own original material.

The good news is that you already have plenty of material to work with. Your jokes can come from your relationships, family, jobs, frustrations, and all the questionable decisions you’ve made along the way. You don’t need an extraordinary life to become a comedian. You need to notice the funny, strange, annoying, embarrassing, or ridiculous parts of an ordinary life and figure out how to communicate them in a funny way.

One of the easiest ways to start writing stand-up is to keep a running list of things that get a strong reaction out of you. What annoys you? What confuses you? What do you (not-so) secretly judge people for? What happened this week that you immediately wanted to tell someone about? Write those ideas down before worrying about whether they are jokes yet. Once you have a topic, ask yourself why you find it funny or irritating, what is unusual about your point of view, and what exaggerated or unexpected conclusions you can draw from it.

Your personal history is another great place to look for comedy material. Childhood, school, your first job, dating, marriage, family traditions, embarrassing moments, and terrible decisions can all become stand-up. The key is specificity. “I went on a bad date” is something thousands of comedians could say. What makes the story yours? Maybe your date brought their mother as well as their grandmother’s engagement ring. Maybe they spent forty minutes explaining cryptocurrency in a way that actually made sense. Maybe you realized halfway through dinner that you had already hooked up with their roommate. The more specific the details, the more original the material tends to become.

If you’re stuck, instead of staring at a blank page and demanding that you “write jokes,” try giving yourself a narrow assignment Pick one period of your life—middle school, your first apartment, your first relationship, your worst boss—and spend ten minutes listing memories without trying to make them funny. Then circle the three memories that create the strongest emotional reaction. Those are often the best places to start turning stories and observations into premises and punchlines.

And if you want more structure, a stand-up comedy class can speed up the process by giving you writing prompts, deadlines, feedback, and a room where you can test ideas before performing them for strangers. But whether you take a class or work on your own, the basic rule is the same: don’t worry about finding someone else’s jokes to perform. Start paying closer attention to your own life. Your point of view is where your material comes from.

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How to Adjust Your Stand-Up Comedy for International Audiences

One of the questions comedians ask all the time is:

“How do you tailor your comedy for audiences in different countries when everyone’s sense of humor is so different? Or even in different parts of America?

The answer is: less than you probably think… but more than not at all.

You don’t need a completely different act for every country you visit. Nor do you need to fully change it up for Oklahoma vs California. But you also can’t assume that what kills in New York will automatically work in Costa Rica, Scotland, or Tokyo.

Here’s a simple approach that works.

1. Build an Act That Works for Tourists

One of the best testing grounds for international material is performing for tourists.

If a joke consistently works for people visiting from all over the world, there’s a good chance it’ll travel well. On the other hand, if a joke only works because everyone understands a very specific New York reference, it may not be the best choice for an international audience.

That doesn’t mean local jokes are bad. It just means they aren’t always portable.

2. Go Through Your Set and Cut the Risky Material

Before the show, look through your act and ask yourself:

“Would someone who has never been to my city (or country) understand this?”

If the answer is probably not, save that joke for another audience.

You don’t need to throw those jokes away forever. You just want to increase your chances of getting laughs by choosing material that’s easier for everyone to follow.

3. Think About Who You’re Actually Performing For

“International audience” isn’t specific enough.

There can be a huge difference between:

  • Tourists visiting a country
  • Expats who live there
  • Locals who speak English fluently
  • Audiences hearing English as a second language

Those groups often respond very differently.

If English isn’t everyone’s first language, simplify your act. That doesn’t mean making it less funny. It means making it easier to understand.

Choose jokes with clearer setups. Use simpler vocabulary. Avoid unnecessary complexity that makes the audience work harder than they need to.

If you’re performing for native English speakers living abroad, you can usually perform much closer to your regular act while adding a few local observations to acknowledge where you are.

4. Expect Some of Your Predictions to Be Wrong

No matter how much preparation you do, you’ll guess wrong sometimes.

A joke you thought would never work might become the biggest laugh of the night.

A joke you’ve done hundreds of times might suddenly get silence.

That’s normal. Just don’t panic, make a joke about it and keep going.

The goal isn’t to predict everything perfectly. The goal is to pay attention and adjust in real time.

Great comedians don’t just perform their set—they perform that audience.

5. Learn From Every Show

If you’re doing multiple shows in the same city or country —or for similar audiences—don’t treat each performance like it’s happening in a vacuum.

Listen back to your recordings.

Notice what consistently worked, what confused people, and what got a bigger response than expected.

Then make adjustments before the next show.

The fastest way to get better at performing internationally isn’t guessing better. It’s doing more of those shows and making adjustments in between.

The Bottom Line

You don’t need a completely different act for every country you visit.

Instead:

  • Test material that works for a broad range of audiences.
  • Remove jokes that rely on highly local references.
  • Adjust based on who is actually in the room.
  • Stay flexible during the show.
  • Learn from every performance.

The more audiences you perform for, the better you’ll get at recognizing what makes people laugh everywhere—and what only works back home.

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How to Get Back Into Stand-Up Comedy After Taking A Break

Whether you took a couple of weeks off, six months, or somehow blinked and realized it’s been two years since your last set, getting back on stage can feel weird.

Your jokes suddenly feel like they belong to someone else. You vaguely remember your act, but it feels like it happened in another lifetime.

The good news? That’s completely normal.

Here are a few ways to knock the rust off before your next show.

1. Watch Your Most Recent Set

Before you write anything new, watch one or two of your most recent performances.

You’ll remember jokes you forgot you had, tags you stopped saying, and transitions that used to happen naturally. More importantly, you’ll remember what it looked like when you were comfortable on stage.

2. Perform Your Entire Set Out Loud

Don’t just read your notes.

Actually perform your set.

Stand up, talk at full volume, use the pauses, and go through the entire thing from beginning to end.

You’ll probably stumble over a few sections. Good. Better to find those in your living room than in front of an audience.

3. Say Your Set List From Memory

Even if you don’t have time to run your whole act, say your set list out loud.

Just naming the topics in order helps rebuild the mental roadmap of your act.

Instead of wondering, “What comes after the dating joke?” your brain starts reconnecting the pieces before you ever get on stage.

4. Start Preparing a Few Days Early

One mistake comedians make is reviewing their set only on the day of the show.

Instead, start two or three days earlier.

Watch one video of yourself each day leading up to the performance. You don’t even have to study it. Just watch it.

By the time you get on stage, your material won’t feel nearly as distant because your brain has already been thinking about it.

5. Use Open Mics to Get Comfortable Again

If you can hit a couple of open mics before the show, great.

Don’t put pressure on yourself to write ten new jokes.

The goal is simply to get your timing, confidence, and stage instincts back.

Sometimes the biggest thing you’re rebuilding isn’t your material—it’s your rhythm.

6. Take a Comedy Class

If it’s been a while since you’ve performed, sometimes the hardest part isn’t remembering your jokes—it’s getting yourself back into the habit of doing comedy.

A good stand-up comedy class gives you a deadline, regular stage time, and people expecting to see you perform each week. Instead of wondering, “Should I hit an open mic tonight?” you’re already committed.

You’ll also get feedback on what’s working, what’s worth cutting, and whether the “rust” you’re feeling is actually just in your head.

This Is Especially Helpful If You Perform Infrequently

Not every comedian gets on stage every night.

Maybe you’re busy with work or family. Maybe you only perform on weekends. Maybe you produce your own shows. Maybe you perform in another language and those opportunities only come around every few weeks.

Whatever the reason, if you’re regularly going two or three weeks between performances, having a simple “getting back into comedy” routine can make a huge difference.

The Bottom Line

If you’ve been away from stand-up for a while, don’t panic.

Your material is probably in better shape than you think.

Before your next show:

  • Watch one or two recent sets.
  • Run your entire act out loud.
  • Say your set list from memory.
  • Watch a video of yourself each day for a few days before the show.
  • Hit an open mic if you can.

You’ll feel far more prepared than if you simply hope it all comes back once the host says your name.

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“What if I’m just not funny?”

Recently, a former student emailed asking, “What if I’m just… not funny?”

My answer: First: maybe. Comforting start, I know. I only offer emotional support during class hours. Respect my boundaries. But “not funny” is usually too broad to be useful. A better question is: was this joke funny, to this audience on this night, told this way, by you, at this point in your development? Stand-up is an ever evolving pop-quiz administered by drunk strangers who never taught the subject.

Sometimes an audience will just hate your face. Like literally. There are nights where your energy, your look, your topic, your first joke, the room temperature, or the fact that the audience had three margaritas and a workplace layoff announcement earlier that day all combine into: “No thanks, comedy kid.” That doesn’t mean you’re not funny. It means one crowd rejected one version of you for 5 to 55 minutes. Annoying and painful? Yes. Legally binding? No.

More often, you’re probably funny, but the material choice was wrong for that crowd. A smart little joke about your therapist may crush in a class show and die at a sports bar where a skinny guy named Fat Sal is yelling at the Knicks. That doesn’t mean the joke is bad. It might mean the context was wrong, the setup was too long, the premise needed more clarity, or the audience needed a joke that hit faster before you earned the weirder stuff.

Also: you might not be funny enough yet. That’s not an insult. That’s the point of practicing and getting reps. Comedy is a skill. You get better at writing, trimming, pausing, listening, adjusting, and not looking like you’re waiting for a firing squad after every punchline. Nobody hears one bad piano lesson and says, “I guess I’m not musical.” But in comedy, people do one open mic where eight comics stare into their phones and suddenly decide God revoked their joke license.

And sometimes you are funny, but you don’t yet have the experience to handle a bad room: too drunk, too tired, too chatty, too cold, too corporate, too weirdly seated, too “we just came from a funeral but didn’t want to waste the babysitter.” Experienced comics don’t magically avoid bad crowds. They’ve just dealt with more bad crowds than you and learned how to make them better by failing. 

So don’t ask, “Am I funny?” Ask: What worked? What didn’t? What can I adjust? And how do I get more reps so one bad crowd doesn’t become my entire self-image?

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Should I Quit Stand-up Comedy?

Recently, a former student emailed asking, “I took a different comedy class (scheduling, sorry!) and the instructor told me my jokes felt ‘old-fashioned’ and wouldn’t work with audiences. Now I’m wondering… does that mean I should just quit?”

A student at one of our packed class graduation shows. (This student is not the one who emailed me.)

My answer: One comedy teacher not liking your jokes does not mean you should quit comedy. (Even if that teacher were me — which it wasn’t. I try to focus on what’s working and how to make it stronger.) All this means is: one comedy teacher didn’t like your jokes. Which is annoying, yes. Possibly useful, perhaps. A divine verdict from the Council of All Laughter? No.

That said, if someone says your jokes feel “old-fashioned,” it’s worth asking what they actually mean. Do they mean the references are dated? The rhythm feels too setup-punchline in a way that sounds written instead of spoken? The premise feels like it belongs to a different era? Or do they just mean, “This isn’t my taste,” but with more confidence and less usefulness?

The better question is not, “Should I quit?” The better question is: what am I really trying to say here, and what is the funny part? Once you know that, you can usually update the joke without betraying yourself. Sometimes one word, one reference, or one sharper angle makes the same idea feel more current. You’re not getting a comedy facelift. You’re just changing the lighting.

And sometimes the answer is: don’t hide the old-fashioned part. Use it. If your style is a little retro, formal, theatrical, cranky, wholesome, vaudevillian, whatever — great. Make that part of the joke. Let the audience know you’re in on it. “I know this sounds like it was written on a telegram, but stay with me.” Now the thing that sounded like a flaw becomes part of your point of view.

So no, don’t quit because one class didn’t click. Quit only if you genuinely don’t enjoy it anymore. But if you still like writing, performing, figuring out what makes people laugh, and occasionally humiliating yourself under fluorescent lighting for personal growth, then keep going. Find the version of your style that works in front of today’s audiences — not because someone told you to become someone else, but because the goal is to become the funniest version of you.

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What Happens in a Stand-Up Comedy Class?

If you’ve never taken a stand-up class, it’s easy to imagine one of two things:

  • either it’s terrifying
  • or it’s just people trying to be funny with no structure

It’s actually neither (if the class is good).

Here’s what really happens.

Week 1: Getting Comfortable + Finding Ideas

You don’t walk in and perform.

You start with:

  • exercises
  • prompts
  • identifying what’s already funny about your perspective

Most people realize they already have funny life stories — they just need shaping

Weeks 2–4: Writing + Feedback

This is the core of the class.

You:

  • write short bits
  • try them out
  • get feedback
  • refine them

You learn:

  • how to tighten jokes
  • how to structure setups
  • how to make things hit harder

Weeks 5–6: Performance + Polishing

Now it becomes about:

  • delivery
  • timing
  • stage presence

You start putting together a real 5-minute set

The Graduation Show

At the end:

  • you perform in a real comedy club
  • in front of an actual audience

This is the part that changes everything

What Surprises People Most

  • how supportive the room is
  • how quickly they improve
  • how fun it becomes

And also, “I can’t believe I actually did that”

Who It’s For

  • complete beginners
  • people curious about stand-up
  • people who want to try something new
  • people who have dabbled in comedy a few times and want to get better, faster

NYC Comedy Class Format

  • 6 sessions
  • small group
  • Manhattan location
  • graduation show
See upcoming stand-up comedy classes

Final Thought

You don’t need to be funny to start.

You just need to start.

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Can Stand-Up Comedy Improve Public Speaking?

Short answer:
👉 Yes — dramatically.

Longer answer:
It’s one of the most effective (and uncomfortable) ways to get better at speaking.

Why Stand-Up Works So Well

Most public speaking training focuses on:

  • posture
  • eye contact
  • filler words

Stand-up goes deeper.

It forces you to:

  • organize your thoughts clearly
  • say something that must hold people’s attention
  • handle real-time feedback

1. You Learn Structure

A joke is basically:

  • setup → expectation → surprise

That’s the same structure as:

  • a story
  • a pitch
  • a presentation

You learn to get to the point faster

2. You Get Immediate Feedback

In most speaking situations:

  • people nod politely
  • or stay silent

In stand-up:

  • they laugh
  • or they don’t

There’s no ambiguity.

3. You Build Real Confidence

Confidence doesn’t come from:

  • affirmations
  • or “visualizing success”

It comes from doing something hard repeatedly and feeling yourself improve at it.

Stand-up forces that.

4. You Learn to Handle Pressure

Bombing (not doing well on stage) is:

  • uncomfortable
  • but incredibly useful

Once you’ve survived that a work presentation feels easy

Who This Helps Most

  • professionals who present
  • people who feel nervous speaking
  • people who want to be more engaging

Where to Start

You don’t need to “be funny.”

You need:

  • willingness
  • curiosity
  • and a structured environment

That’s exactly what beginner classes are for.

At NYC Comedy Class:

  • beginners are the majority
  • classes are small
  • you build toward a real performance
Register for a stand-up comedy class

Final Thought

Public speaking teaches you how to talk. Stand-up teaches you how to be heard.