Where do we hope our humor will take us; to a festival, television appearance, Key notes? where ever that place is, the feeling you have about your destination should be the same feeling you have when you work on your material, the emotion within the premise.

The emotion you have when you begin working on a premise needs to be in the premise.  If you’re writing material about camping but you’re confused about the premise, YOU NEED TO WRITE ABOUT THE CONFUSION OF CAMPING. Always work with the EMOTION within the premise first, then branch out and explore the premise.

It’s always best to begin a premise with SOMETHING YOU HAVE EARNED THE RIGHT TO TALK ABOUT WITHIN THE PREMISE, A STORY, something you’ve lived. This story is the FRAME we’re going to insert TAGS.

Look at your set. Grab your note book and simply start TALKING about your opening joke. As you talk, ask yourself what you’re feeling, also, write down on your note book under POOL, any and all connecting words, quotes, phrases, images, songs, anything that ius connected to your first joke.

EXAMPLE: One of my jokes: “I love pets. When I say pets, I mean dogs. Cats aren’t pets. Cats are like a  teenager that won’t get a summer job; “can I have some more pot, i mean cat nip?”

You can do a few things here, listen to a recording of your set and write down ideas as they occur to you or watch your set you recorded, and talk around each joke looking for ways to improve your material. Here’s what happened when I talked around this  joke: what am I saying? Cats are lazy, dogs want to do things, As I said this, an idea bubbled up. 1st TAG: It’s as if cats are clinically depressed and want medication and dogs are also manic but are over medicated: ME:                                                                                                           “Hey spot, want to go for a walk? (the dog’s voice.) “Yah, man, (wiping my nose as if I’m on coke.) ” lets run in traffic then chase anything, cars, rabbits, shadow people, then attack the neighbor’s garbage, then scare the shit out of the old guy at the end poof the block!”

I just TAGGED  a joke by talking around it. Try this. Do this with every joke in your set and remember to tag the EMOTION in the premise.