Made to Schtick

Last updated: Jun 20, 2024

I recently read Made to Stick by brothers Chip and Dan Heath. It has a ton of great insights into why some ideas are stickier than others, and how we can take our dumb ideas and make them stickier. Which got me thinking: Is it possible to apply their advice to comedy writing?

I think so.

The authors discuss how the stickiest ideas are generally Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credentialed, Emotional, Stories. Or SUCCESs for short. I think the best jokes contain the same principles.

Simple
The best jokes are Simple. The Heaths write that “if we’re to succeed, the first step is this: Be simple. Not simple in the terms of ‘dumbing down’ or ‘sound bites.’ You don’t have to speak in monosyllables to be simple. What we mean by “simple” is finding the core of the idea.”

The same principle applies to comedy. If an audience is thinking, they’re not laughing. Often when I write new material, my first instinct is to make it clever. Or I’ll try to say too much too quickly. But clever isn’t funny. When’s the last time a double entendre made you shoot milk out your nose? In general, humor that works in The New Yorker doesn’t work on stage.

Unexpected
I once heard a joke defined as “a sentence that ends in a surprise.” For example, Dating is hard, especially when you’re like me, married. The word married is Unexpected; it’s what makes the whole line funny. If you can see a joke coming a mile a way, it’s not funny. Dating is hard, especially when you’re unattractive doesn’t have the same zing to it.

Concrete
Good stories, the authors write, are also Concrete. They often involve real, tangible examples. When Nordstrom wanted to tell their employees that Nordstrom was all about customer service, they didn’t just say, “Listen up, we’re all about customer service.” Customer service isn’t concrete. It might mean different things to different people. Instead, they told stories with concrete examples. They told their employees stories about employees like the one associate, who, during a particularly bad blizzard, warmed up a customer’s car while they finished shopping. That’s concrete. That’s customer service.

Comedy can benefit from being concrete too. There’s an old idea that says you should write jokes a caveman would understand. A caveman wouldn’t know what “egalitarianism” is—I don’t even know what it is—but chances are he’d know what a girlfriend is. Or a mom or dad. He wouldn’t know customer service, but he’d know about snow and cold.

Credentialed
The Credentialed part may not sound applicable to comedy, but I’d argue it is. It’s important for the audience to believe that whatever you’re saying could have conceivably happened to you. Or could conceivably happen. If the audience is too busy trying to figure out if what you’re saying is even real, they’re not going to be laughing. For example, it’s unlikely that I would be dating given that I’m married, but it technically is possible, so the audience isn’t wondering how it could realistically work. But if I started saying “Dating is hard, because I’m an alien,” that changes things. Now they’re thinking “what the hell is this guy talking about?” The joke doesn’t need to be credentialed, necessarily, just believable.

Emotion
Emotion isn’t absolutely necessary for a good bit, but I think a lot of the good ones have them. I think the more emotional stakes a bit has, the funnier it is, the richer it is. A friend of mine had a bit about hopping in a cab in Puerto Rico, asking the driver to take him where all the locals, and ending up back in the Bronx. The last time I heard the bit he’d changed it. Now the bit starts with him and his wife arguing about where to go on vacation. She wants to go to Miami; he wants to go Cuba and “puts his foot down.” So they go to Cuba, hop in a cab, ask to go where the locals go, and they wind up in Miami. Same joke, just emotionally richer. Now it’s a story—which we’ll get to next—about him versus his wife. He raises the stakes by putting his foot down, which makes him out to be an asshole, and creates tension in their marriage (and, more importantly, in the bit). They go where he wants to go, but, lo and behold, they end up where she wanted to go all along.

Stories
Not absolutely necessary, but I think helpful, is the storification of a bit. Humans are hardwired to think of their environment and communities in terms of stories, which make them a powerful way to convey information. There’s a reason most of the Bible is comprised of stories, and why Jesus spoke in parables. Morals are suuuuuper boring to learn, but hide them in a story and we are riveted.

Same with a good bit. I can say Dating is hard, especially when you’re married. Or I can start with that and continue with a story about my wife and my date night and the trials and tribulations of planning it, getting there, ordering food, and then consummating it at the end of the night, with sleep.

Anyway, that’s my two cents on applying Made to Stick' to comedy.