The last class was great! I saw the lights go on in our class three writing exercise. As we continue in my Stand Up Writing class, I would like you to be conscious of your theme. What’s the pattern running through your stories? If your jokes are coming from your stories they carry your theme. This pattern should be in the set we’re developing for November 5th. Your theme is money! The jokes you’re writing are deposits! Your story is the bank!

REMEMBER: For class this Monday please have: A story from your life that you’re passionate about or at least a little excited about. (Don’t share a story you’re worried might offend or don’t care about. The more you care about your story the more your audience will care about it also!) Write 3 jokes for your story: an opening joke, middle joke and closing joke; if you can, from different perspectives. Also, use misdirection to foreshadow your set.

HERE’S AN EXAMPLE: (My story and theme with 3 tags. A tag is turning a sentence or idea from a story into a joke: OPENING JOKE 1: “So get this! My buddy Frankie asked if I wanted a treasure map! Right away I’m thinking plunder, diamonds, gold, Pirate Treasure! Not so much. I got a map to Blue Berries. I tell Frankie, I might be an idiot but I don’t want the freakin map and Frankie says not thinking blue berries are treasure is an anti-oxidant waiting to happen! MIDDLE  JOKE 2 Sold! Frankie convinces me, not with stats, facts or proof, he sells me with the most wicked of all sales pitches, the rare produce section PUN! CLOSING JOKE 3 SO I spend an hour dragging my bike and two five gallon pails down a thorn encrusted hell, what’s that place called again at the end of 167, behind the Giant Tiger, by those trees? Ho yah, VIETNAM!!!”

REMEMBER: Begin with a story you like. If you love it that’s even better. Rehearse your story know it. If you have any doubt, TAG AND BAG IT. Write a joke about the doubt and insert it in your set! Write THREE JOKES beginning middle and closing! If you want to write more, go for it!

MISDIRECTION: Write out the premise: I carried a bike down a hill infested with thorns. 1) What do we feel? Locate the emotion of the premise?  What’s the emotion here? Stupidity, anger, confused? SECOND, What’s the point of this premise? Why didn’t I think it through, why didn’t I leave the bike? Boy am I dumb! 3) Make sure the 3 amplifying statements are connected to the set up not the punchline. REMEMBER: the punch words is the one word in the PUNCHLINE that triggers the joke. We want the punch word as close to the end of the joke as possible!We begin the joke with the SET UP: Blue Berries are 5 dollars a pound. AMPLIFIERS: I carried a bike and two pails down a thorn infested hill for an hour to pick blue berries. PUNCHLINE Which means I get 5 dollars an hour for my work. (PUNCH WORD IS WORK.)

REMEMBER: I can be booked for KEY NOTES and WORKSHOPS and for CHRISTMAS PARTIES. You can see me on YOU TUBE, FACEBOOK AND MY WEBSITE. Our Stand Up Grad is OCTOBER 24. Invite your friends and tell them about my class please. Share my website please!!!

I hope you had a great Thanks Giving and that you’re jornaling three pages a day about your set, joke writing and perspective, rehearsing, and working on your joke mechanics and making sure the punch word is AT the end of the punch line. Alright, great first class and second class!!!! For your homework next Monday October 15, have a FIVE TO SEVEN Minute set ready: a personal story with FIVE JOKES. If you can, make a few of these jokes from a different perspective.  RELAX, HAVE FUN! (REMEMBER, our energy on stage is what delivers our material. When you’re having fun so is the audience. If you’re afraid, so are they. Also: write jokes about your fears and share them in your set.  What ever you bring to class we can build off. These are the steps for your SECOND CLASS homework 🙂

We’re going to take a moment from your life and write some material for it. This is called, TAGGING. ( TAGGING: taking material from a story and amplifying it or writing jokes about the story.) When we take an idea and expand off of it, the stand up term is called TAGGING. Tagging is the same as building off or expanding.

Tagging and using it in on a memory or story from your life is different than lets say, writing jokes about the news: ( this genre is called TOPICAL MATERIAL. If you’re tagging the news, we learn about your opinions but don’t really learn about you. Real moments from your life solve this. Also, if you’re going to talk about religion or the news, you’re going to miss your business model, unless this is your business model.) If I play with a news story like a robotic lawn mower, I can QUESTION and Answer the PREMISE within the CIRCLE from different perspectives and come up with a joke like: “You can now buy a Robot Lawn Mower. How much does it cost? If you’re too lazy to get off the couch you can own a Lawn Robot for the low low price of, DIABETES!”

Now, if I have a story about lawn and yard work I can drop this joke into my set but what I’m asking is: 1) Locate a moment that really reveals you, a lawn story that you’re embarrassed or unsure you should to tell us. 2) Q and A EACH SENTENCE OF THE STORY and ask yourself what the vulnerable point is (punch line) and ask what we feel about the point-(premise) INSERT THE JOKE AFTER EACH SENTENCE. (you’re tagging each sentence. 3) Tape your story with it’s tags and rehearse it for Monday’s class.

EXAMPLE: I was in a Canadian Tire last January to drop off my fuel pump to get a new one, (TAG, I will have the punch line at the end of this information.) My wife must have thought I was going to Victoria’s secret because she said I could do my Christmas shopping 360 days early. Well, there wasn’t any lingerie but I still haven’t told my wife about the work bench I bought, so technically, it is a secret.  I thought of her and bought one of those rings you can slip through 18 plastic bags to make my wife’s grocery experience more pleasurable. For a year I told her I bought her a giant ring. I also got her an Edmonton Oilers steering wheel cover. Every time she grabbed her steering wheel, the cover screamed, began crying and demanded to be traded.  (TAG) I also got her a talking Christmas card that played The 12 days of Christmas; well it would of if the battery wasn’t almost dead 11 months later. When she opened it, the 1st day of Christmas played so slow, it sounded like Celine Dion on Demerol. Anyway, I do my shopping and drop my fuel pump off at the automotive department. I asked him if he had a new one. He says yes but asked me why I brought in my alternator.        I’ll tag this story for class. Please do the same. with your story. ( 5 to 7 minute story and five jokes inserted into your story.

REMEMBER: look at a sentence in your story: 1) Ask what the point is, look for more than one: the elephant in the room, the thing you don’t want to admit, from another perspective. This is the PUNCHLINE. Look at the PUNCH WORD, change it, try others.  2) How do you FEEL about the PUNCHLINE? Again, the deeper you look the better the PREMISE. have fun kids!!!

We’ll be playing with MISDIRECTION and FORESHADOWING  in the next class, CLASS 3

REMEMBER: YOU CAN SEE ME ON YOU TUBE AND FACE BOOK. You can also have me appear at your Christmas Party. Ask me in class about my work shops for your office and retreats. E mail me for any questions at: paulsveen@shaw.ca