Learn to be funny: the Steve Allen technique
Here’s a pretty simple method that can help you learn to be funny; or more specifically perfect the grace you already have.
Legend has it that American comedian Steve Allen learned to write jokes by copying them from joke books. Now, while he doesn’t advocate learning how to write jokes as a basis for using humor in speeches or presentations, it’s something we can certainly learn a lot from.
The goal of the technique I’m about to outline for you is not to steal someone else’s material. That is completely deplorable. The idea is to learn about quality.
Here is an easy method to improve your humor writing skills:
1. Select a favorite comedian. Take a DVD or use YouTube and select about 5 minutes of your performance.
2. Then what you do is transcribe their material word for word.
3. Watch the clip again and make a note on your transcript where they laugh. You can do this using an asterisk
or whatever annotation works for you.
4. Count the number of words used in the moment before the laugh (the setup line).
5. Then count the number of words used in the sentence that makes you laugh (the punch line).
It would also be worth noting the laughs generated by things other than words. For example, a gesture, a sound or a look, etc.
Remember, you’re not looking for funny reading material on the page. In fact, it probably isn’t to be honest with you. Your humor doesn’t need to look funny on the page, leave that to humorous prose writers. We are dealing with humor from the spoken word.
What this exercise allows you to do is get a feel for the quality of the material as it appears on the page. You will gain an understanding of the brevity and conciseness of what is being said. If you do this with a couple of different comedians, you should count the number of words each comedian uses in their setup line and punchline and average them.
It’s all about the number of words you need to use to convey your humor in the most compact way.
I’m not sure if Steve Allen wrote the same jokes over and over to learn how to be funny, or if he wrote new jokes each time. But what he would do is go back to the comedian that he first used and write that material several times. Don’t shorten this step by using cut and paste, write the material by hand so you learn by osmosis.
By regularly working through this exercise, you’ll begin to get a feel for how you can edit your own speeches once you’ve written them.
