Writing & Material
Generating and refining bits
Become a member to post in Banter
Tough Crowd is a members-only community. Your first 24 hours are free — cancel anytime.
Become a memberDo you keep the line that gets a laugh if it pulls the bit in the wrong direction?
I’m trying to get less sentimental about lines that work. Sometimes a throwaway gets a decent laugh but suddenly the audience thinks the bit is about something I don’t actually want to explore, so the next thirty seconds become me dragging them back to the original premise. Do you keep a reliable laugh and rewrite the route after it, or cut it if it keeps teaching the audience to expect the wrong thing? I’m starting to think “funny” and “useful to this bit” are annoyingly separate tests.
When a new tag gets a bigger laugh than the original punchline, do you rebuild the bit around it?
I’ve got a bit where a throwaway line I added at the end is starting to get a better response than the punchline I actually built the thing around. Do you treat that as a clue that the tag is really the destination and rewrite the setup to get there faster? Or keep the original structure for a few more runs in case I’m overreacting to a couple of good nights? I’m trying to follow the laughs without rebuilding the entire bit every time something unexpected works.
When you get a new line onstage, how quickly do you write it down?
The annoying ones are the little accidental lines that get a proper laugh and then vanish from your brain by the time you’re on the train. I try to get the wording into my notes as soon as I’m offstage, before I improve it into something I didn’t actually say. Do you capture the exact line first and decide later whether it belongs in the bit, or wait until you listen back to the recording? I’m much more interested in preserving what happened than trusting my post-gig memory.
When you cut a setup, how do you know you haven’t cut the bit the audience needed?
I’m very good at being told “get to the joke faster” and then deleting so much context that the punchline technically arrives sooner but makes less sense. When you’re tightening a setup, what are you listening for to tell the difference between dead wording and information the audience actually needs? I’ve started trying to cut one sentence at a time rather than doing a heroic rewrite, but I still find it hard to tell whether a shorter setup is actually a better one.
When a bit only works inside the longer show, do you keep it?
I’ve got material that feels weak as a standalone five but makes much more sense once the audience knows the earlier stuff it’s calling back to. I’m torn between treating that as evidence the bit is doing a useful job in the show, or as a warning that it can’t stand on its own. When you’re building longer material, do you still expect every section to survive independently, or are some bits allowed to earn their place mainly through context and callbacks?
Tough Crowd member feature
Never lose a bit again
Capture every idea the second it hits — by voice, text, or brain-dump. Tough Crowd tags and stores it for you.
How do you tell whether a tag is helping the bit or just delaying the next joke?
I’ve got a couple of bits where the first punch works, then I keep adding little follow-ups because they get *something*. The problem is the whole section starts feeling slower even though technically there are more laughs in it. How do you decide whether a tag has earned its place — size of laugh, whether it changes the idea, whether it sets up the next beat? I’m trying to get better at cutting lines that are fine but make the stronger stuff arrive later.
Do you write the premise first, or discover it after the jokes?
I keep ending up with three or four lines that make me laugh but no clean answer to “what is this bit actually about?” Part of me thinks I should force myself to write the premise in one sentence before I keep going. The other part thinks that’s how I turn something funny into homework. When you’re building a bit, do you want the premise clear early, or are you happy to let the jokes tell you what the premise was afterwards?
Do you test one change at a time, or rewrite the whole bit between gigs?
I’m trying to get less chaotic with new material. If a bit half-works, my instinct is to rewrite the setup, swap the punchline and add two tags before the next gig — then if it improves I’ve no idea which change helped. Is it actually useful to change one thing at a time for a few runs, or is that far too scientific for something as room-dependent as stand-up?
How many versions of a new bit do you keep?
When I rewrite a new bit I keep ending up with several versions and then forgetting which change I was actually trying to test. Do you keep every draft, keep one current version plus notes, or just overwrite it and trust that anything worth saving will come back? I want enough history to learn from changes without turning five minutes of material into an archive project.
Do you write tags straight away, or wait until the main joke works?
I keep doing this thing where I get a premise that might have one decent laugh in it, then spend an hour writing six tiny follow-ups before I’ve proved the actual joke works. Starting to think I’m decorating a house with no walls. When you’re building a new bit, do you deliberately get the main setup/punch working first and only then chase tags, or do the extra lines sometimes help you find what the bit is actually about?
Tough Crowd member feature
Build tighter sets
Drag, drop, and time your set with a live timer. See the shape of your hour before you hit the stage.
When do you actually retire a joke instead of endlessly fixing it?
I’m getting better at rewriting bits that nearly work, but I’m also starting to suspect I’m keeping some of them alive because I’ve already spent so much time on them. If something has had a few proper tries and still only gets the occasional laugh, when do you bin it? Do you have a number of gigs in mind, or is it more about whether you can still see what the fix might be?
Do you listen back to every set, or only when something feels different?
I’ve started recording sets because I know I’m missing useful stuff once I get off stage, but now I’ve created a new problem: a graveyard of voice notes I never want to hear again. For people who actually learn from recordings, what are you listening for? Exact laughs, where attention drops, wording changes, pace? And do you review every gig or only the ones where something noticeably worked or died?
How do you know when a bit is ready for the stage?
I tend to either rush new material on too early or hold onto it too long. What's your signal that a bit is ready to try in front of a crowd?