Lying and Misdirection in stand-up storytelling

All stand-up storytelling involves exaggerating and editing, merging characters, changing details etc. You can also tell a quick lie as you build up the story and withdraw it again. This approach came up in the session I did with a German comic I coached this week on Zoom. (More info on Zoom coaching here).

She had a gag that I don’t want to give away, but to give you a flavour of the idea let’s say it was about her not saying a word to her mother from the age of 5 to 15.

Her problem was (her actual joke) always gets a good laugh but as she goes on to talk about her family she always felt hamstrung by this huge lie.

The solution is simple. Tell the lie, get the laugh, and then pivot back to reality. In this case, straight after making the claim about her mother, she laughs, acknowledges it’s not true and moves on.

Looked at another way, this is an invitation to insert sudden lies (the more outrageous the better) into your stories, get the laugh, then withdraw it again!

It’s a great way to get laughs as you develop the story and some comics end up doing it a lot. (I still remember years ago seeing Trevor Lock do exactly this over and over again to hilarious effect).

Use Misdirection in Your Stand-up Storytelling

In this week’s stand-up comedy writing Substack I explore stand-up storytelling with a great example from Kevin Hart. In the piece I write about misdirection - which is misleading the audience rather than flat out lying!

It’s in the realm of one-liners that misdirection is most often discussed. But the terrific Kevin Hart tale where, as a schoolboy, he has his mother's permission to swear at his teacher is a great example of it being deployed across the longer form of a story.

I've explored this story before, with a broader focus - here I'm focusing on this one technique of misdirection. Here's my previous broader analysis

In the story, Kevin’s mother is annoyed at his teacher and gives Kevin a message to say to her. He is to tell his teacher that she should, “mind her damn business, before I come down there and I beat her ass”.

Kevin can’t believe what he’s hearing and double checks: “Do you want me to say it like that? Or do you want me to take some stuff out?” His mother confirms, “Tell her to mind her damn business, before I come down there and I beat her ass!”

Checking that he has the wording exactly right and that he has his mother’s permission to say “damn” and “ass” to his teacher is the beginning of the misdirection. Given this concern, we don't expect his joyful, unbridled swearing we get at the end. The build up of the story repeatedly misdirects the audience in this way.

Next he explains how he rehearsed while looking in the mirror. As he acts out doing so, he critiques himself for being “too loud” and “not believable,” once again misdirecting as he aims for a contained delivery, using the words his mother gave him.

This serious focus is reinforced throughout the story (for example when he contains himself when his exuberant friends greet him). Ultimately, with the audience expectation of how he’ll speak to his teacher firmly established, the schoolboy Hart abandons his mother’s script and unleashes a massive string of colourful profanity.

I don’t know how much swearing you like in your posts, but just in case it’s ‘not too much’ I have coyly applied some asterisks. Please see the above video for the swearing in all its glory! His barrage of swearing begins:

“Mind your damn motherfu**ing business, b*tch. Little stupid, b*tch. Teacher, b*tch. Two plus two not knowing what the f**k it is b*tch...”.

If instead he said something like, “Oh my God, I was in bed wriggling with excitement. I can’t believe it. I’m going to swear at the teacher! I was like almost wetting myself with excitement”, he’d probably still get laughs with his volley of swearing at the end, but less so as he wouldn’t have misdirected.

In any story you’re working on - once you know where it’s all building to - hide where it’s going! Even better, make the audience assume it’s going somewhere and totally surprise them.

You do this by building in misdirection.

I write more about his story and how Hart uses what I call big-small in my latest free stand-up comedy writing Substack.