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Hey Reader,

You should try stand-up comedy. No, you should.

I know what you’re saying right now:

Fuck no, Vicky. What’s wrong with you?

Ha. The eternal question. To which the answer is many, many things, but none of them are important right now.

Right now, I want to convince you of something you’re absolutely adamant you’re never going to do.

Stand up in front of people and try to make them laugh.

You’ve done it before, I bet. Almost everyone has at some point, even if it wasn’t labelled “stand up comedy.” If you’ve ever been out with a group of mates and you’ve had a funny story to tell or a joke to share, you’ve done it.

But having a go at stand-up comedy for real is magical. So is improv. And if I were the Queen of the World, everyone would have a go at some point because it will improve absolutely everything about every form of communication you use ever.

Why?

Because in a room, live, you find out what works right away.

I often test out ideas in front of an audience that I later write about and I’ll have a good idea of whether it’ll work ahead of time. I can adjust my story every time I tell it: cut the bits that didn’t land, develop the parts that did.

In my stand up set, I had a bit about zoning out during a conversation, then crashing back in and silencing an entire restaurant with the words “why don’t you just open up your legs and shove it all in?” It was — and is — a funny story, but the first time I told it, I went on a story safari about camels and cactuses and it was too far. The camels stayed, but the cactuses did not, and the story was stronger for it.

I could see when I lost people and it was half-way through a cactus.

That’s the version that made it into my newsletter.

People think heckling is a comedian’s worst nightmare; it’s not. It can be annoying, even aggressive. Often, it’s a springboard to a new joke. At the very least, they’re paying attention to you. The worst thing that can happen on stage, the thing that means you’re really dying out there, is when people start talking amongst themselves. That means you’ve lost them somewhere. Maybe you’re not making sense. Maybe they can’t understand you or hear you. Maybe your humour isn’t their style. Maybe you’re simply boring them.

I’ve been there; it’s awful.

It’s also really good data. I can watch myself back and find the moment when the audience switches off. Sometimes it’s not me, it’s them (the pack of flag shaggers in the room one time did not like my comedy because my comedy isn’t mean and it’s not for thick people). But sometimes it’s me.

That’s USEFUL. I can tweak it.

I mean, after I’ve slunk offstage and cried myself to sleep, naturally.

Instant feedback is incredibly valuable. It’s hard to know what works and what doesn’t when you’re writing, especially if you’re just starting out and you’ve not done much writing in public before.

Instant feedback is also REALLY good at windmilling into perfectionism and pushing it off a rooftop. You cannot do stand-up comedy if you’re obsessed with being perfect right out of the box.

Which, I suspect, is part of the reason why you’re never gonna get up on stage and do stand-up comedy. Look, fair enough, stand-up isn’t for everyone. But we have to be honest about the stuff that’s keeping us quiet.

This obsession with getting it right first time, with never screwing up, with looking the part — it’s why so many people don’t write the things they want to write or do the things they want to do. They get so bogged down with writing a perfect first sentence, their ideas never see the eyeballs they need to be in front of.

When you’re live, on a stage, it teaches you to try stuff and fail and learn that failing won’t kill you and that nobody notices most of your mistakes. It also teaches you to get to the point fast because if you don’t, you’re gonna lose your audience.

Even if you’re not going to give stand-up a try (and that’s fair enough) practise speaking in public. Whether that’s in a group of friends, a workshop, a talk… whatever. Speak in public and pay attention to how it lands. Then change what needs to be changed.

Because a page can’t heckle. And when a reader loses interest in what you’re writing, they close the book and move on and you never know about it, unless they take the time to explain why they DNF’d your book on Goodreads. So you get none of the data a comedian gets in real time.

Find a substitute for the room: speak your ideas in public or put them in front of someone who’ll read it like an audience would hear it.

BUT. I understand that getting onto a stage and speaking our ideas out loud in front of people with ears and eyeballs is terr-i-fy-ing so why not have the room without the heckling, cold shoulder, and crying?

Tell me — your book coach — your ideas. And I’ll show you how to make them work on paper.

We’re heading into October now and I’ve got one Book Breakthrough Lab spot available. Does one of them have your name on it?

The Book Breakthrough Lab is my 3-month book coaching programme. Wherever you are in your writing journey, we’ll get you to a finished first draft you can be proud of. I’ll be the live room and I’ll never, ever heckle you. Instead, I’ll be your guide for showing you what works, what doesn’t work, and how you can turn your ideas and your message into a movement that could change everything for you and your readers.

TTFN,

Vicky 🫡

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