Specificity

The five moves

Same rhythm, every week.

1. 1 — Study

   Any comic who names brands, streets, prices and years.

   Watch on purpose. Specific comedians, specific reason.

2. 2 — Deconstruct

   Find 20 specific details in other people's material and generalise them. Watch the joke die.

   Isolate one mechanism. Name it before you use it.

3. 3 — Write

   Rewrite 20 of your own lines, replacing every vague noun with a proper noun.

   10–25 premises minimum. Quantity buys quality.

4. 4 — Perform

   Run the specific version and the vague version at the same audience.

   Somewhere live. The classroom is useful; the audience is the laboratory.

5. 5 — Review

   Log the gap in laugh size. That gap is the whole lesson.

   Watch the tape. Log what the room did, not what you felt.