Unless you’re a natural comedian, it’s hard to come up with your own comedic material. This three-step formula helps anyone come up with an easily-scripted joke.
Photo by Upsilon Andromedae
Inc interviewed David Nihill and asked him how inexperienced presenters can add humour to a speech. He says it’s easy to find a personal story that relates to the topic you’re presenting and use it to connect to the audience. Once you find that story, you’ll need to:
1. Set up the story in a relatable way. “You ideally want everyone in the room to be like, ‘yeah, that happened to me,’” Nihill said.
2. Get specific and make it about it you. Start telling them about your own crazy experience.
3. Deliver the unexpected. At this point, the audience assumes that they know where you’re going with this. But you’re most likely to get a laugh if you can surprise them.
If you’ve watched Seinfeld, you’ll see that the often follows this formula in some way. You may not get your own TV show by using this approach, but you’ll be able to use humour to get the audience to chuckle a few times and ensure they stay engaged.
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