MemeMachineGo!

Sumana tells how to write a stand-up routine and gives examples.

Think of something you are cranky about, or one of those anecdotes you always pull out at parties. Look at its causes or predict likely outcomes of this incongruity. Extrapolate into absurdity, preferably retaining a kernel of the original truth-in-paradox. Make multiple jokes about each premise for a cascade of punchlines at the climax of each bit. Repeat for each topic.

Construct shortest-path segues, turning your group of unrelated bits into a set. Practice saying your set in a little speech to yourself or to friends who have a sense of humor, testing rhythm and diction, iterating through better and better versions of the set. Preferably you’ll have at least three punchlines per minute. Once it reliably makes people laugh, it might not make you laugh anymore, but it’s ready for the stage.

This AskMe question offers more ways to break it down.

It’s kind or true in that you can indeed divide jokes (or stories, or haikus, or ice cream flavors) into 7 categories, or 5 categories, or 36 categories. And sometimes those divisions are very helpful. It’s useful for me to be able to recognize the common skeleton of a bunch of other jokes, and then to just drape the skin of a new joke over it. The most common form is probably “the rule of three,” where you have two examples of something to establish a pattern, and then a third example to break the pattern in a humorous way. For example: “President Bush’s primary policy focuses are getting his Supreme Court nominee through Congress, avoiding a rebellion from disaffected elements within his own party, and sucking.”