Rise & Fall
Tags: amateur comedians, comedy writing, determination, Saskatoon comedians, The Stand-Up Diaries, Trevor Dean comedian, trevor dean saskatoon, writingWhile I wait for the guest contributors to put together posts for me, it dawned on me that I haven’t done any postings for this month. I figured I should write something just to let others know I’m still alive.
It has been a relatively stress-free couple of weeks thus far where I have been able to come home in the evening and solely focus on creating material. I mentioned before that I was in the process of writing more story-based material based more upon personal experience.
It’s been writing every night, first to write out the entire story as it happened. Then with each time through the material it gets edited, condensed and tightened with laugh points sprinkled throughout. Taking material that is more from my life experiences should make it easier for me to memorize and get down cold, because the story will sell itself with its humour. I have always wanted to be like other comics who can just tell a story and it’s just naturally funny, where it sounds like it really played out the way the comic describes it.
With me, I’ve had to tell stories, but try to interject laugh points into the story itself to increase the humour. I’m hoping that with these four topics that it will start to see me grow in my performing.
I really believe these could be the game changers I have been looking for. After my last set at the pro comedy club here in the city, I need to take a couple of months and really get a couple of new pieces of material down so I can submit clips to the agency to see if I fit into their plans over the next several months.
I’ve told a couple of comics a snippet of my new story that I hope to debut next week, and instantly it gets a laugh. It’s not very often that I’ve received that sort of reaction to material that I’m writing. Actually, it’s almost been never. That’s why this has me so excited and motivated. Every day for the past month it’s been full of rewrites and edits.
When I started out doing open mics with the local guys when I first started, I always wanted to try and make the comics laugh moreso than the audience. On some nights the comics would outnumber the audience in attendance. If you could get a good laugh from the comics in the room, or get one of them to lay an egg for almost a minute (it’s happened to me twice – same guy each time), then you know you’re onto something.
As I mentioned before, comics will hear things from other comics differently than the audience would hear things. For example, at the open mic last night, one of the two headliners were sitting at a booth with their back to the co-headliner. The comic onstage then did a series of callbacks and tags for one joke, and the headliner turned around to watch to see how it turned out. The audience didn’t give it the response it should have received, but it just goes to show that the trained ear of a comedian can really make a difference to your set, provided you structure the jokes properly.
Well, back to writing. Keep watching for the guest pieces coming soon.