Member-only story
by Pat Oates
Before the world took a time out and comedy went away, I was constantly working on my act. I had figured out a writing process that worked for me. It relied very heavily on having unlimited access to open mics. I’m not someone who can just sit down and write. I need to verbally work it out first. But, with open mics being extremely minimal and stage time being scarce, how do I create new material?
I’m not the type of joke writer who can sit down and just start writing. My mind doesn’t process ideas into premises that way. When an idea pops into my head, I put that brief idea or key word into my notes on my phone. Then I would go to an open mic and just verbally work out that idea on stage. I would have no structure. No punchline. I would just say whatever came to my mind when either recreating what I had observed or explaining what I had thought of. Naturally, I would try to make it humorous while telling it. But, I wouldn’t have a game plan. I’d just work it out verbally. And record the audio on my phone. I would then go home and listen to the audio. From what I said, I could now start to envision what the message was I was trying to convey. This is when I would take out my notebook and start writing out a loose structure based on what I had said at the mic. I would then go back to a mic and work out what I had written…
