Editing techniques to help you craft authentic stand-up

It's simple, just get rid of all the unfunny bits

Some AI art to unsettle you

Even if you’ve half-arsed my exercises, you should still have pages of material. If you’ve done them fully, then your fingers should be worn down to nubs, and you should have a mountain of unhinged material. Remember when I kept saying “It doesn’t have to be funny”, now is the time where we remove all of the “not funny” bits - well, leave just enough so it makes coherent sense and isn’t just bum, willy and poo over and over.

Editing is the key to turning incoherent ranting into sharp stand-up material, but you have to be brutal, “Interesting” won’t do, we need to chisel and hone your clutch of mad ideas into something resembling stand up comedy. The great thing is all the hard work has been done (for now). Generating ideas, and mining your soul for nuggets is the hard part, this is the easy part and it can be where a lot of the magic happens.

This is where the magic happens - Photo by Vitor Fontes on Unsplash

Not every technique is for everyone, for example some people would never write out their material long-form - and just have scraps of ideas written on receipts and bus tickets (me). Like with any of these exercises, just use what resonates with you.