These were the first versions of the 5 jokes I wrote from the front. As you can see, most are not good.
*****
SETUP: “Juggling 5 balls takes years to learn.”
ASSUMPTION: {I’m going to do it.}
CONNECTOR: {My reason for telling the audience how hard the trick is.}
SHATTER: {I’m not going to do it.}
PUNCH: “Which is why I’m not going to do it.”
*****
SETUP: “Juggling knives is very dangerous.”
ASSUMPTION: {I’m the one who’s going to juggle the knives..}
CONNECTOR: {Who does the trick.}
SHATTER: {An audience member is going to juggle the knives.}
PUNCH: (Hand knives to audience member.) “Good luck!”
*****
SETUP: “Juggling knives is very dangerous.”
ASSUMPTION: {I’m going to juggle the knives..}
CONNECTOR: {What I will juggle.}
SHATTER: {I’m going to juggle something else.}
PUNCH: “And so, I’m going to juggle these instead.” (Bring out fluffy stuffed animals to juggle.)
*****
SETUP: “I hold in my hands an ordinary deck of cards.”
ASSUMPTION: {I’m a magician about to do a card trick.}
CONNECTOR: {The purpose of the deck of cards.}
SHATTER: {I’m a juggler.}
PUNCH: “Which is pretty stupid because I’m a juggler.”
*****
SETUP: “I need everyone here to move in closer.”
ASSUMPTION: {I’m trying to bring the crowd in close to turn them into an audience.}
CONNECTOR: {My reason for asking people to move in.}
SHATTER: {I’m agoraphobic.}
PUNCH: “I’m agoraphobic, and I don’t like being outside.”
*****
In my rewrites I tried several things to improve these jokes:
I asked why specifically my original shatter could be true. I added tags. I tried choosing punches that didn’t simply state my shatter. Instead, I assumed my shatter and then tried to react to it, or state a reason why it would be true, or present its consequences.
Looking around these corners can help you come up with jokes that aren’t as obvious and straight down the middle as my first drafts above. And if nothing else, anything that gets you to try a different version of your joke makes it more likely that you’ll find a better one.
Different isn’t always better, but better is always different!