I’ve had a busy month. I’ve been doing the Amused Moose Stand up comedy course, run by Logan Murray whose excellent book I reviewed here. As a result I haven’t had time to write anything on the naked speaker for the past month, but I do have several interesting links that I would like to share.

Marsha Meets…

Each week, in this superb podcast, Xfm presenter Marsha Shandur has an informal conversation with a stand up comedian. The questions are considered and well researched and often focus on the craft of writing comedy and the comedian’s rise to fame. She has attracted big names including TV and Radio personalities including Stewart Lee and Milton Jones. I was particularly impressed with Rufus Hound’s interview.

RSAnimate

Creating visual aid that compliment a speech is tough. But in this series of videos the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) has produced an impressive and humorous collection of hand drawn visual aids that half way between illustration and animation.

(Watch this 11:11 video on Youtube)

More are available on the RSA’s youtube channel.

How Steve Jobs beats presentation panic

During the announcement of the iPhone4 Steve Jobs had trouble connecting to the WiFi during his demo, but was able to recover due to his meticulous preperation.

He did not panic. He did not look hot under the collar of his trademark turtleneck. His hours of practice and intimate knowledge of every inch of every slide made him comfortable enough so that he could jump around to another part of the presentation

Last year on the Naked Speaker: Learning from Roald Dhal

Learn the creative secrets of one of the greatest short story authors.

It’s the end of another month, so it’s time for another roundup of the best articles, videos and audio relating to public speaking.

Best of this month on The Naked Speaker

This month don’t miss my three steps for writing a better speech title.

One Year ago on The Naked Speaker

This time last year The Naked Speaker featured a guest post about presenting in a foreign language from UCL German student and multi-linguist, Maureen McGuinness.

From around the web

Live episode of This American Life

I’ve been a fan of This American Life for a long time. It’s an hour long radio show that features a series of stories (anecdotes rather than news). The show is consistently interesting and can teach you a lot about storytelling. They have a huge archive that can be heard online for free. This month they recorded an episode in-front of a live audience while simultaneously broadcasting video to theaters around America.  The show is available here. The show features two beautifully constructed stories and includes a musical appearance from Buffy the vampire slayer creator Joss Whedon.

That’s it for this month.

This is the second installment of a series about writing  stand up comedy material. Read Writing for stand up part 1: What is a joke?. The third and final part is coming soon.

A joke subverts an assumption. A comedian must identify or create assumptions and then surprise the audience by veering off in another direction. But that is easier said than done. Most people need some kind of process to harness their ideas. In this article I will outline some of the different methods that comedians use to write jokes.

Naturally Funny?

Many people believe that successful comedians are naturally funny. You probably know someone you think is naturally funny. Maybe you’ve even suggested they should try stand up. But their humor is probably based on shared experiences, friendly rapport, and fueled by alcohol . The kind of humor that works on stage is very different. You have to work a lot harder. You have to be more polished. You have to be more consistent.

In his autobiography Frank Skinner describes being able to make his friends laugh from an early age. He thought stand up comedy would be easy. It wasn’t. The audience at his first gig was unresponsive apart from a couple of small laughs and a groan. He had to work hard, exploring and experimenting, to get as good as he is.

Being considered “naturally funny” is nothing more than a small head start. The transition into stand up comedy will still involve blood, sweat and tears.

Funny Ideas

A joke needs a funny idea at its core.

Various authors and comedians have proposed processes for generating ideas. But one thing everybody agrees on is that you must carry a notepad with you at all times. The spur of the moment ideas that occur to you at inconvenient times and places are always the best… and they are the most transient. If you don’t jot those gems down they’ll be forgotten forever. My preference is a pocket sized moleskine. Most of the stuff you write down will be shit. But the rest will form the basis of your funniest and most original material.

If ideas aren’t forthcoming there are techniques you can use to stimulate ideas. I’ve roughly divided these techniques into two categories: Derived and Inspired. Both have pros and cons and most comedians will use a combination of these approaches to develop jokes.

The Derived Approach

The derived approach is systematic and methodical. It involves understanding the fundamental rules that jokes conform to, and constructing jokes based on those rules.

In his book, Step by Step to Stand-up Comedy, Greg Dean deconstructs the elements of a joke with surgical precision. Then he outlines an exercise called The Joke Prospector which can be used to squeeze humor out of practically any subject. The exercise involves choosing a subject, creating a list of things associated with that subject, and then writing a list of negative opinions about each of those associations. Greg Dean is very keen on negative opinions. He writes:

Whether your jokes go from good to bad or bad to worse, they’ll always be moving towards the more negative. If you’re uncomfortable with this concept, get used to it because it’s a consistently useful technique that will come in handy whenever you’re writing jokes.

These negative opinions are the premises for jokes. The setup suggests a story that is neutral or implies a more positive opinion, then the punchline reveals the reality. Here is one of his example jokes:

I call my mom all the time - But in polite company I can’t tell you what I call her.

This joke was the result of picking the subject family, the association my mother, and the negative opinion my relationship with my mother was very bad. In the setup he hints at a good relationship. In the punchline we learn otherwise. He could have put this joke together in an infinite number of ways. Furthermore the other associations and negative opinions generated as part of this process could form the basis for other related jokes that could be grouped together into a routine.

The process is very systematic so you can get started even if you lack inspiration. But you have to write a lot of jokes. Dean describes writing lots of jokes using this method and testing them on audiences to reveal the funny ones. He says “if you are able to write one hysterical joke a week, at the end of the year you will have 52 hilarious jokes” - but rather than being empowering, this statement hints at the amount of work required to generate just a few minutes of material.

This method runs the risk of producing jokes that are predictable, cliched and lack depth. And by beginning with the premise you may have a hard time telling if the joke is funny. Stewart Lee has made the following suggestion about Dean’s book:

“By doing the opposite of everything he suggests you may get a great act together” - Stewart Lee

The Inspired Approach

The inspired approach involves coaxing yourself into a creative mindset and collecting any funny ideas that arise.

It works in the opposite direction to the derived approach. Comedians begin by generating a huge amount of material using exercises like: group improvisation, free association writing, ranting into a voice recorder, keeping a diary, having conversations. The next step is to identify the parts they find funny.

This is an effective way of writing funny material as at least one person (the comedian) will have found the concept funny at one stage.

In his book, Teach yourself stand-up comedy (read my review), Logan Murray includes many individual and group exercises that can be used to search for ideas. In this article Jo Caulfield defines ten steps for writing a joke. Parts two and three neatly describe how she employs this inspired approach:

3. Write as much as you can about your chosen subject. Use similes, oxymorons, cliches, proverbs, double entendres, whatever you want. Make lists of people, places and things associated with the subject (eg Jordan, Kerry Katona, Big Brother, Paris Hilton, Heat magazine, BBC3, Lily Allen, Pete Doherty, her with the rats maze hairdo and tattoos, Heather Mills buying a shoe).

4. Cast your eye over what you’ve written and the funniest bits will stick out. Those are the bits you want.

But she also warns that you will have to work hard for these funny bits:

Your mildly amusing two-page story can become a fantastic one-line joke

Using this method you run the risk of working for several hours without yielding anything funny. Also, this exercise won’t work if you’re tired or distracted. But the jokes that you do produce are likely to be more funny and more original.

Next Step

Using the methods above you can produce jokes. They will probably be rough around the edges and need to be refined. This is what we will look at in the next installment of this series.

Last month I was the Contest Chairman for my Toastmasters club’s speech contest. This was the first round of an international competition run by Toastmasters. Toastmasters competitions are worth watching as participants bring their best material and their delivery is deeply considered and rehearsed. Our competition was no exception. Congratulations to Michael Grew who went on to represent our club in the Area finals.

As contest chair my main responsibility was to emcee the meeting. I had to warm up the audience, explain the rules and introduce each speaker. Before the meeting I had to rush around collecting the speech titles from the participants. I was surprised that only one of the six contestants had prepared a speech title in advance. The rest had been so caught up in the body of their speech and hadn’t given it any thought. Each of these people were put on the spot and had to think of something there and then.

The title of your speech deserves more thought.

The title is your audience’s first exposure to your speech. It may appear in an event program or agenda. It will be used when you are introduced. It is the headline for your speech and provides a big oportunity to influence your audience.

A compelling title may attract a larger audience. If you’re competing for an audience at a conference where lots of talks run simultaneously, or if you’re trying to persuade someone spend their evening listening to you, then your title is your first (and perhaps only) chance to market your speech.

The title can hint at the content or the structure to make it easier to follow i.e. Three reasons why you should vote for me. A title could be used to plant an assumption or misdirect the audience to add emphasis to your opening joke or message. Either way, your title should compliment your speech and be just as considered as the body.

Finding a good speech title is hard. It requires the same creative effort as any other element of your speech. However there are some basic guidelines that you should be aware of:

1. Write in Plain English

You should make sure that the person who introduces you will have no trouble pronouncing your speech title. The easiest way to do this is to make sure it is in plain English. If you have a special reason for including a foreign/uncommon name/word then you should include a note with a phonetic representation of the word AND speak with the your host before you are introduced. The same goes if you have an unusual name (like Gary Vaynerchk), title (like Monsieur le Président) or position (like Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science).

The title of my second Toastmasters Speech was Esse Quam Videri. I was lucky that the Toastmaster of the evening had no trouble pronouncing it, but it could have been different if he hadn’t been forced to learn Latin in school.

2. Hook your audience

Your title should be of interest to your audience. They shouldn’t forget it immediately. The best way to do this is by offering value, or posing an unanswered question.

If you’re making an informative speech don’t be cryptic in the title. Be up front and clear about what your speech will contain. An effective way to do this is to include (or allude to) a number. For example The seven rules of highly effective people or The only thing you need to know about beer. This article on how to write titles for blog posts describes how this strategy makes a strong impact:

“Any headline that lists a number of reasons, secrets, types, or ways will work because … it makes a very specific promise of what’s in store”

If you’re telling a story, or want the content to be a surprise, then you need to grab attention in some other way. Planting a question in the audience’s mind is an effective way of doing this. Last year I watched a speech by twice UK and Ireland Public Speaking Champion Simon Bucknall. His speech title was Two words, although we didn’t learn what those two words were until half way through the speech. If you force the audience to ask a question, they will be more eager to discover the answer.

But be aware, mysterious titles will not make sense when read on their own. They may not be as effective for marketing your speech, and could make the contents harder to recall afterwards.

3. Be relevant

Obviously your title should have some relationship to the contents of your speech. You want to avoid disappointing an audience by promising information that never comes and any questions that are raised in the title should be answered by the end of the speech. If your title is misleading the audience may be annoyed.

Do you have a key phrase that you repeat in your speech? Can you distill your message into a few words? Both would be good candidates for a speech title as they are highly relevant to the content.

In her book Teach Yourself Creative Writing, Diane Doubtfire describes how she chooses a title for a novel.

It is important to find [a title] that is arresting, unusual and perfectly in tune with the book.

She suggests writing key words that relate to your content and trying them in different combinations until inspiration strikes. If you use the same exercise to create a speech title the result will be tightly coupled to your speech contents.

If you follow these steps you’ll have a title that’s pronounceable, includes a memorable hook, and is relevant to the content. Now you just have to work on the speech itself.

I’ve had a busy month. I performed my thirteenth stand up comedy gig. I completed my eighth toastmasters speech. I packed up all my stuff and moved back the the UK. Now I’m in the Netherlands visiting a friend.

Best of this month on The Naked Speaker

This month I completed the seventh project in the Toastmasters Competent Communicator manual (and my eighth speech at Toastmasters).

Toastmasters speech no.7: A boring lecture about statistics

One year ago on The Naked Speaker

Last year I wrote one of the most popular articles on this site that explains how to use mind maps to learn, write and brainstorm.

How to use Mindmaps for speech writing, brainstorming and learning

From around the web

The School of Life Secular Sermons

The School of Life is an organisation, based in central London, that creates products concerned with how to live wisely and well. It was founded by the writer and philosopher Alain de Botton. One of its popular events are the Sunday Sermons, a secular alternative to religious sermons, where “maverick cultural figures” take to the podium to explain their ideas about living well. Videos of previous sermons have been made available online.

In Particular I recommend watching Alain de Botton - On Pessimism.

How do I keep my students off the internet during a lecture?

If you’re teaching a class it’s infuriating to see half your class browsing the internet on their laptops or phones. But if you ban laptops then you’re penalising people who are taking notes or using their phones for legitimate business reasons. The following thread on meta filter has some thoughtful comments about how to deal with this scenario.

Ask MetaFilter: How do I keep my students off the internet during a lecture?

“If somebody “banned” anything I was doing, … it would not sit well. I would actually be irritable and less engaged in that meeting. Why? Because I’m an adult. “

A public speaking train wreck

(Watch this 2:45 speech on Youtube) (via Reddit)

(Watch this 6:45 video on Vimeo or Youtube)

Research

The research speech is notorious for being one of the most difficult speeches. When you’re talking about something unfamiliar it’s hard to memorise, and even harder to improvise your way out of a mistake. But the biggest challenge is choosing a topic that is small enough to fit into a seven minute speech. No one wants to be overwhelmed with facts. I discarded topics such as “The placebo effect” because they’re too big. I chose to talk about Benford’s law, because I think it’s interesting, it’s a small topic and I could combine it with a personal anecdote.

My research consisted of re-listening to the podcast that introduced me to Benfords law, reading the Wikipedia article on Benford’s law, and searching Google for an explanation of fraud detection.  I found a great video describing financial fraud detection. The research paper I refer to is Bolton, R.J., Hand, D.J.: Statistical Fraud Detection: A Review available here (in reality I only read the abstract).

Feedback

This was my last meeting at Toastmasters of the Cove as I am moving back to the UK next week. For that reason a lot of my “feedback” was actually farewells. Furthermore this meeting was a “backwards meeting” where the agenda is reversed, this means I received a humorous evaluation that predicted what I would do well/badly, but I didn’t get a proper evaluation. Here are the audience’s feedback slips:

I’ve had a great time at this club, so I will be sad to leave it. Everyone has been extremely friendly. And as it was my last meeting I even got a poetic tribute from two of the members, which was a very nice and surprising gesture. I’ve included one of the poems here. It’s very referential to my previous speeches and table topics.

He got his relief from pasta and the basil leaf
He now goes to Hooters to get away from computers
Where babes in apron strings bring him big juicy chicken wings

As you go back to Britain, Belgian camping can be rewritten
Think twice before taking parents’ advice
Put on American rappers to hide the noise of candy wrappers
Then you don’t need to brush your teeth in the spring Belgian heat

As you lift a beer mug, try to remember times with Doug
Need an audience for open mike?
Let Doug know, he’ll invite
Nothing rhymes with Toastmaster of the Cove
But we are a treasure-trove
If you want to escape the rain, come and visit us again!

By Anya Singleton

This post is my second monthly round up of links (see last month’s). It’s been a busy month for me involving lots of reading about, writing and performing stand up comedy. So there is an obvious slant towards that here. Btw, you should be following me on twitter here.

Best of this month on The Naked Speaker

Writing for stand up part 1: What is a joke? Learn the basic requirements of a joke. Subsequent articles in this series will appear in April.

Microphone Technique. learn how to use a hand held microphone and avoid the common mistakes

One year ago on The Naked Speaker

Snowflake method for speeches. Learn how to expand your speech from a premis, rather than attaching a moral onto a story.

From around the web

New Bill Hicks interview from 1992

Nick Doody, a British stand up comedian, interviewed Bill Hicks in 1992 and has just released the recording on his podcast Doubling Up. It’s a interesting and touching interview with some great insights into stand up comedy. Bill Hicks died in 1994 and many comedians claim to be influenced by him. Go and listen to the pod cast, you can skip 7:20 to go straight to the interview.

I come up with all the material on stage so therefore you know a large part of it is open ended. I don’t sit around and write comedy all day then perform it, I just have an idea and take it on stage, and it adds on to itself.

Stories from The Moth

The Moth, a not-for-profit story-telling organisation, released two excellent stories this moth as part of their podcast.

Deborah Scaling Kiley: Lost at Sea (21:32 mp3), a gripping story about surviving a shipwreck and a shark attack.

Starlee Kine: Radical Honesty (19:58 mp3), a story about attending a radical honesty bootcamp and learning a surprising lesson.

Comedy Insider

Stand up comedian, Christian Thom, presents a series videos about comedy. The videos are packed with insights about performing, writing and the business of comedy. Check out all the videos here. Below is a video about hosting a comedy show.

(Watch this 8:13 video on On Networks)

#2 Friday 19th March: Winstons, Ocean Beach

A friend from Toastmasters emailed the entire club to let them know I would be performing. This was a slightly unwelcome surprise. As a new comic there’s still a high probability that I’m going to forget my next joke / get tangled in the mic cord / generally embarrass myself. Furthermore I was planning on doing some “blue” jokes, which would not be appropriate at Toastmasters. But it worked out well. I had six friendly faces in the audience, and they sat in a group at the front which created a good atmosphere in an otherwise quiet bar.

My set was a cut down version of the previous Tuesday’s open mic performance, with a few of the less successful jokes removed. The set went very smoothly. I felt more relaxed and I was able to make eye contact as the stage lighting was dimmer.

#3 Tuesday 24th March: Comedy Palace

My second time at the Comedy Palace. The room was pretty full with plenty of non-comics which created a nice atmosphere. There were plenty of people sitting in the front row and I could see them through the glare of the lights.

I left much longer pauses after my punchlines which lead to much bigger laughs.
I tried out a new routine at the end, but I limited myself to the four best punchlines rather than committing my self to a much longer and potentially unfunny joke. Despite getting a bit lost in the middle I got solid laughs for three of the four punches. I’ll try an edited and expanded version next time.

#4 Friday 26th March: Winstons, Ocean Beach

The open mic starts at 6pm. Not being able to drive makes this pretty difficult to get to. I arrived late at about 6:10 and was told I was the next act. I had a couple of minutes to compose myself then I was straight up on stage. This turned out to be a good thing as I didn’t have any time to be nervous.

I did very similar material with a few minor changes to the last routine. It’s getting there, but there’s still a bit that goes on for too long without a punchline.

#5 Sunday 28th March: The Comedy Store, La Jolla

I met up with a friend from my stand up comedy class for an hour of work-shopping jokes, then we went over to the open mic at The Comedy Store. The format is strict and regimented. There’s a guy with a guitar who sits next to the stage and if you go over your three minutes he plays you off, you don’t even get time to finish you last joke. Although this is stressful for the comedian, it’s actually a very good thing as it forces you to really consider what you want to include and to rehearse. And the bad performers were more tolerable as you knew they would be off stage soon.

In the recording I noticed that I was speaking very fast and stepping on a few of the laughs. I probably need to have less material. But overall I was happy with my performance.

Last night I performed my very first open mic stand up comedy set. This was a big personal milestone for me and is my first completed resolution of 2010.

I performed a five minute set that I have been working on in my stand up comedy class. It’s essentially a cut down version of the speech I performed at the Toastmasters Stand up comedy night, with a few rude jokes added in. I practiced it a lot over the weekend, and even got to rehearse it in front of my class the night before. On the night I turned up two hours early and nervously paced around the area rehearsing my set under my breath.

It was at the Comedy Palace in San Diego. Every Tuesday night they hold a new material night where comedians get five minutes to try out their jokes. The audience was mostly other comedians waiting to go on stage and a few of their friends. I was ninth on the list, so I had a while to wait. I was impressed with the other comedians I saw, most of them were trying out new jokes, some hit some didn’t, but they were engaging the audience and improvising which made their sets a relaxed and conversational. I was very impressed with the host, Christian Spicer, who improvised a joke after each set before introducing the next person.

After I was introduced I went on stage and said “How about a round of applause for our host”. It was very strange hearing my own voice, mainly because I’d bean hearing American accents all night, and now I was hearing my English accent very loudly. It’s like when you’re watching a Hollywood movie and an English actor appears, their voice sounds strange. The audience weren’t expecting an English accent either and I heard someone say “Oh wow!”. I was expecting this and had a joke about accents ready at the top of the set.

The biggest surprise about being on stage is that you can’t see anything. The lights dazzle you and all you can see is a bright white haze. I felt very enclosed and alone up there. I couldn’t see anyone.

I ran through my jokes. Some did well, others didn’t. I got one big laugh in an unexpected place, which was nice. Overall it went pretty well, and I can use the recording to identify the best bits and cut/rework the rest.

Afterwards I felt great. It’s quite an adrenalin rush, and I finally got to have a couple of beers which I’d been avoiding before hand. I think the most important thing now is to keep the momentum up by performing regularly and writing/reworking jokes. I’m going to another open mic this Friday so I’ll be able to try an improved version of the same material.

Last week I was teaching a four day technical course to a group of software engineers. The biggest challenge when teaching a long course is maintaining your voice. You have to project your voice to fill the room, which means you lose much more moisture through your mouth. After about ten minutes my mouth was feeling dry and sticky, and by the end of the first day the back of my throat was sore and my lips are dry.

Last year in India I taught two three day courses with a weekend in between. My voice held out until the last day, but for the next two days my throat was so dry and sore I couldn’t speak above a whisper. The hot climate, polution and dry air during the flight home were all contributing factors. Since then I’ve started to take steps to protect my voice even if I’m speaking close to home.

Use a microphone if one is available

Using a microphone is extra hassle. It may take some time to set-up and it’s one more thing that could go wrong. But if you’re speaking for days rather then minutes an amplification system can help save your voice. The half hour on the first day looking for batteries and untangling wires will be worth it in the long run.

Warm Up

If you’re presenting away from home you might not speak to anyone between waking up and arriving at the venue. I don’t think it’s healthy to jump immediately into loud voice projection after saying nothing for hours. Singers will warm up their vocal chords before performing. Forever Singing suggests humming the lowest note you can make which “loosens the vocal cords and helps remove mucous”. At the very least you should introduce yourself to the attendees as they arrive and have a normal volume conversation before you begin.

Sip room temperature Water

You need to replenish the moisture you’re losing through your mouth. I’ve read lots of conflicting advice about the best way to rehydrate (including herbal tea, chewing gum, water spray, water/tea with lemon). The one consistent piece of advice is that you should drink water at room temperature. Take sips often, and be prepared to take lots of toilet breaks.

Lip Balm

You’re lips will get dry and chapped. A chap stick can make things much more comfortable.

Rest your voice

Allow plenty of time to rest your voice. If possible have a co-presenter so you’re only talking for half the time. Take breaks throughout the day and try to avoid getting caught in lengthy conversations during these times. In the evenings you should avoid noisy bars and restaurants where you have to shout to be heard, which may be difficult if you’re away from home and have no choice but to eat out.

Presenting a long course is a daunting task, but it gives you massive exposure to public speaking and can really help you build your stage presence. Following these simple steps will make you more comfortable and clear. Happy Fillibustering.