I switched to Mac two months ago, and downloaded Scrivener. I saw how good it was at keeping track of notes, and thought hey this would be good for stand-up comedy. I’d read comedy books in the past but never did it because it was hard to organise my thoughts on bits of paper.
So I set about putting all my funny thoughts into Scrivener. One month later my trial ended so I bought it. One week later I did my open mic. A few weeks later (last night) I did my second open mic. Open mic is where comedians get five minutes on stage in a club to try out their material.
Both times I did pretty well and learned a lot and I’m going to continue. I got lots of good comments from the crowd and other comedians. That’s my boast.
The worst thing about Scrivener is working out how best to use it for your specific task. I hope I can find some other stand-up comedians around who use it so we can trade ideas on how best to organise our stuff, and set lists, and things.
This place is full of sit-down comedians, not to mention a few curl-up-on-the-floor-under-the-table comedians; perhaps one or two of us will manage to stand up now and again, although the effort involved in so doing likely will exhaust what few blobs of O2 remain in the blood/alcohol system, thereby rendering our brains inoperative.
We can stand up, or we can comede, but to do them simultaneously may be out of the question.
Ahhh!! Look at you doin '[i]funny'[/i] !! :laughing: Yavent been sucking at the Jameson bosom again,ave y? :smiling_imp: Welcome aboard, [i]The Good Ship Scrivener[/i], Owl. :wink: Take care [size=50](who y talk to!!)[/size]
Vic
It’s November, Vic. Autumn’s red and gold have turned to black, and Arctic winds glaze my windows. My soul is also turning black, and has an unfortunate glaze upon it. In such circumstances, survival often depends on prompt and generous application of anti-freeze: Jameson, better than which nothing comes to mind.
No snow yet here P. But the frost i getting a bit think. the chickens are not coming out in the morning which has me nervous. Farmer says that they are pretty good at knowing when the snow will hit the windshield.
As far as the black gaze goes, try the following options.
1 oolong tea, hot with one shot apple brandy. The good apple brandy.
1 pineapple juice. 2 shots spiced rum. I use the Captain.
1 glass. 1 bottle Crown. open bottle, toss glass in sink. enjoy.
Great to hear that you’re using Scrivener for comedy. I read on Richard Herring’s blog (he’s a British stand-up, quite well-known and respected) that he was using Scrivener a while ago, so you’re certainly not the first stand-up comedian to use it like this. I’d definitely be interested to hear how you find it for this sort of use though. Hopefully some, ahem, proper comedians will reply rather than the motley crue that have replied so far.
I just feel I have to step in occasionally to ensure new users or new forum members aren’t scared off by the strange pirate, three-legged dog and pigeon references that proliferate like profiteroles. (Not that profiteroles proliferate; I just like the way it sounds.)
And if DoctorOwl is ever able to get a strange pirate, a three-legged dog and a pigeon into a stan-up routine, I want a copy of the audio. I’ll even pay if it also has proliferating profiteroles!
Nothing like a challenge to get the creative juices flowing.
Welcome DrOwl. I truly hope someone with some stand-up cred replies, I’m very curious eaves-drop on the conversation. I also admire your courage. Partly for posting here, but mostly for doing an open mic and then going back and doing it again. I’m impressed.
Please keep us updated on your progress. I’d like to hear more about your journey into the standup world and how you are using Scrivener to prepare your gigs.
You don’t need fellow comics but writers who use Scriv for preparing lectures, talks, or presentations; anything that goes before a live audience.
I suggest creating folders with topical names: Pets, Food, Booze, whatever kinds of material you have. Within the folders, rate your ideas and jokes with a star * system, with **** being top of the line.
Then when you go to work up material, create a folder for that gig. Select material and option-drag it to the gig folder (that makes a copy and leaves the joke folder intact).
Inside the gig folder, select what seems best with Cmd-Click and then click Edit Scrivenings. You will see a sequence of the material to edit and move around as you please. That way, you’ll create a rough draft.
Then try reading it aloud for timing and emphasis: Take my wife. PLEASE. Polish in a word-processor as needed. Break a leg!
Of course the don`t, they, ‘profiterolerate’! Any numpty knows that!!
True, [i]True Story”[/i], quite recently, one of the Crüe contacted a Guardian journalist (whod had prior contact with the group), with a, “Hey Dude! D y wanna do my biography?”
JournalistnCrüe member, spend time together. Crüe member recounting number of times each member had actually, died n been resuscitated (because of their many bizarre forms of substance abuse), said, “ We were actually ‘mainlining’ on Jack Danials! One of us picked up the bottle and shouted, ‘Hey guys! Looka` this! We can actually drink this stuff!
How do you rate your stuff with stars? I couldn’t see where to do that. Also, I couldn’t option-drag to created linked duplicated entries (which is something I’ve been trying to do for ages … I see I can Command-D to duplicate, but option drag just does a normal drag).
Alternative … use the labels facility in the inspector. Edit the labels with asterisks instead of text, and set the colour coding – double-click on the coloured square and choose your colour from the colour-thingie that comes up. By that means you could use different basic colours … yellow, red, green, blue to indicate different types of material … sexy, political, mother-in-law (I know, I know … just using that as an example … don’t get all politically-correct on me!) etc. or some other classification, and use intensity of colour to indicate star-rating.
Turn on “Tint Icons with Label Colour” and once you’ve got the system fully internalised, you’ll be able to see at a glance in the binder what sort of material each document is from the binder without having to look at the document itself.
My earlier posts notwithstanding, I did know what you meant. One of my sons (the upright, responsible one) also does stand-up comedy; I asked how he keeps track of material. His answer, in brief, is that he files each bit separately, in one of a limited number of categories, including “MISC.” When he’s putting together material for a gig, he pulls out items using a key word search, to suit either the audience or his own mood of the moment. He doesn’t bother with a rating system, arguing that what seems funny today may bomb next week, and different audiences laugh at different stuff anyway.
Yes, Jaysen is right: I meant to place the asterisks at the head of the item name:
***dog bites man
****man bites dog
And then manually sort them, but Mark’s suggestion of colored labels is better.
Option-drag is for selecting chunks of text within an item and dragging the chunks into the Binder. That creates a new item, named with the leading words of the chunk, but you may select and revise that name. That’s a quick way to take a large set of jokes and break them into parts, without destroying the original file. You may also duplicate your main file and use Cmd-K to split up its parts.
Sorry that I wasn’t clear. Hope you get more good suggestions from others.
The way I would do it, is have a different file for each joke or skit. That would be great for moving stuff around as you want to preform it.
If you just doing open mic open five minute segments, there might not be much room for transitional material.
I remember seeing a interview with George Carlin were he said when he was younger he was a comedian that wrote his own material, but when he was older that he was a writer that preformed his own material.
Not sure if I helped any, but that would be where I would start. Good luck.
I’m impressed. 
Any numpty knows that!!