Often as comedians we stop short in the humor writing process. We find the funny and move on. We walk away not realizing the gem that lies waiting just a breath away - that element that will take the joke from funny to genius. I can speak from experience because I've been stuck in a pattern of quitting too soon.

How do I know when I've stopped too soon? Usually my gut is telling me that I found the funny but missed the nugget - an intuition that I have wrapped it up before really cultivating it to the fullest potential. Another way I know is because I see the other comedians who have found their nuggets. I can see their jokes being on a higher level than mine. Sure, I may have found the funny. But they found the funnier.

Think you may have this problem too? Here are some signs that you are stopping too soon:

 You just know it. You have this feeling that you settled for whatever came to you first.

 The joke gets a weak laugh from your audience and you know the concept is funnier than that. You also know that it's too funny to throw it away.

 When you compare your jokes to other comedians' jokes, they fall short.

 Your joke topics fall into that common area shared by other comedians. There is nothing really unique about your joke.

 When you wrote it and came back three days later it wasn't so funny anymore.

 You hear three other people tell pretty much the same joke.

These are just a few signs and I'm thinking if you need any more signs than that I'm not going to be able to convince you in this article.

Okay, so we have a problem? How do we fix it? How do we keep going with our joke? How do we take a joke to the next level? Here is what I've come up with based on my written research, advice from colleagues, and a little soul searching.

 Let your audiences help you. If your jokes are funny enough to use, go ahead and start using them. Then let your audiences tell you what needs to be fixed. This takes time but it works. If I take the time to mingle with my audience after a show, quite often they will come up and tell me ways to improve my jokes, or things that they thought of to add to the joke. I don't take it personally. I've gotten some of my best jokes that way. Let your audiences work for you.

 Walk around it like a crab. Carry the joke idea in your mind for a while. Chew on it, as my uncle Skeeter would say. I usually carry a story idea around in my head for several weeks. Without even being intentional about it, new ideas will come to me until the story idea is much better than if I'd written it when it first came to me.

 Brain Map it. You probably already know what this is, but in case you don't, it's the process of picking your topic apart and finding all related topics. You let your mind go and as you come up with each tangent turn around and find a related topic to that. For example, if your topic is parenting, you would come up with things like childbirth, discipline, toys, potty training, etc. Now you can take those topics and find topics to spin off of them. For example, childbirth could result in: the epidural, what if men had babies, the pictures, who has the worst birthing story, etc. And you can keep going and going and going. You can turn who has the worst birthing story into a competition at a cookout. I have used this process to turn a handful of jokes into a twenty-minute show or a short story. The key here is to let your mind go. Don't look for the funny. Just write.

 Play What-If. Take your topic and ask yourself, What if ….happened? Or what if ….happened? Or what about if …. happened? The key here is to think of unusual things that could happen in your topic. Let's say parenting is your topic. You brain map it and get on the subject of how easy it is to become a parent. What if you had to have a license to be a parent? What if parents could get their licenses revoked? What if you could get your license revoked for doing stupid stuff to embarrass your kids - like wearing black socks and sandals to the beach. What if kids could divorce their parents? Wasn't there a movie about that?

 Insert a Conflict. Things get so much more interesting when a conflict is added to the picture. And how about a second one? And another one? This is the fuel for a good sitcom episode. One mishap is funny. Two is funnier. Three is hilarious.

 What led up to this? Think of what led up to your conflict - the motivations that led to that chain of events.

 Apply other characters and perspectives to your scenarios. What if this happened to someone else? Like the football coach? Or your Sunday school teacher? How would other people see it - people of different ages or cultural backgrounds? You will reach a whole new level of funny if you start running your comedy through the filter of different personalities - especially quirky personalities.

 What and who is going to fix the problem? How could our problem be fixed? Who would do it? What would it look like?

 If it's like this now, what will it be like in the future? Here's a good trigger to get your mind into the process of exaggerating your concept and suspending disbelief.

 What if this happened to me? How would I react?

 Can I relate this to something that is otherwise totally unrelated? Like a lizard with a British accent who sells insurance on commercials.

 Pick up your comedy bit and drop it into another setting. Like kindergarten, a nursing home, Russia, the ghetto, Sunday school, a zoo, etc.

 Swap out animals instead of people.

 Compare out-of-this world to of-this world. Comparing the supernatural to the super normal. Angels and Wal-Mart.

 Group Story. This only works with a group, duh. Start with one person who starts a story. Each person adds on to the story - word by word - or sentence by sentence - until you get to the last person. Good exercise in just seeing what comes out. I heard this is how the GEICO gecko came about.

 Look at the flip side / opposite.

 Can you add dialogue? Act out some conversations as they apply to your topic.

 Weird, Hard, Scary, Stupid. Just in case you've been living in a cave and haven't heard them, these are the four attitude words you apply to your joke. What's weird, hard, scary, or stupid about your topic? Have you tested each word with your topic?

 How are your act outs? Have you looked at how facial gestures and expressions could add to the humor? Sometimes you can get an extra laugh without saying a word.

 Could you write a song about your topic? How would it go?

 How would reporters report about it?

 What would the liberals say about it? The Republicans? Other Movie Stars?

 Have you cut out every unnecessary word?

There you have it. Surely something in here will trigger you to take your joke to the next level. Remember that it takes a lot of writing to come up with something good. And maybe your joke is already as good as it can be. Great. Move on to something else.

I understand that some of these tips will not apply to the joke you are currently working on. But some will. And understand that these are not formulas for writing jokes, they are exercises to get your creative juices kicked up to the next level. By the way, if you have more helpful tips on how to take your joke to the next level, please let me know.

Happy writing!

Humor - Taking the Joke to the Next Level How to cross over from funny to genius Part Four in a Four Part Series on Humor By Kelly Swanson