Preview
  • Hitting Your Funny Bone

  • Writing Stand-Up Comedy, and Other Things That Make You Swear
  • By: Geoffrey Neill
  • Narrated by: Geoffrey Neill
  • Length: 2 hrs and 20 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (78 ratings)

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Hitting Your Funny Bone

By: Geoffrey Neill
Narrated by: Geoffrey Neill
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Publisher's summary

This step-by-step comedy writer's guide is for the budding stand-up comedian to develop fresh original material and craft it into great performance. Become clear on what your comedy special powers are. Edit and secretly test your material. Craft your set into a streamlined performance, and become a better comic out of the gate! Now you can get rid of your writer's block!

How can your elbow's anatomy can help you grow your funny?

Learn to write to your own sense of humor, perform, and assess yourself. Now you have an edge in entering the comedy world! Hitting Your Funny Bone was created to get you over mimicking others and lead you to hilarity. It's about finding your own unique humor, and making it a whole lot bigger! If you don't have a lot of time, that's okay! This book gives you exercises at the end of each chapter that are easy and you can accomplish at your own pace. A novice will get over seven minutes of edited, vetted, hilarious material in six weeks.

©2015 Geoffrey Neill (P)2015 Geoffrey Neill
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What listeners say about Hitting Your Funny Bone

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outstanding

I have been looking for this book for years. I did not know it existed but I knew someone had encapsulated the wisdom that I was searching for. thanks for all the hard work Geoffrey Neill I don't know why you spell your name like an 18th century psychopath but you've been great!

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One of the best of the 6 books on stand up

I have recently listened to 6 books on stand up. while this book may not be as detailed as some of the others it gets straight to what matters and doesn't waste your time. All of the books have been good in their own way. This one may be the best to listen to first. If you want to go further then consider some of the other books. non of them are completely redundant.

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Don't crap yourself on stage, read on the toilet!

What at a thoufhful, and helpful guide; particularly if you've been afraid to use a public toilet. Get prepared, bring a sanitized wipe or two, invest in wet one's and fabreeze. After you've read this book people will have no idea your poo stinks like the rest of us. Enjoy!

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5 people found this helpful

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Audio levels

The only problem is technical. The audio level dips and raises. This isn’t to say it ruined the experience, but just so that it’s on the radar for the next book! :-)

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Good 2 Kmow

I found this book informative, easy to follow and full of good ideas. I am a story teller who would like to do more stand up and have taken a couple courses and read considerably and although there was not a lot of new secret information his advice was solid and memorable. Thanks.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

The information is good. But the reading... meh.

I am studying to become a stand up comedian and have listened to 4 or 5 books on comedy so far. This book, though it has good info, is rather difficult to listen to. The author/narrator struggles through reading the text clearly and has edited his reading together very tightly in an unnatural way that makes it feel almost robotic or auto-tuned at times. As a radio DJ with dyslexia, I can completely understand the challenge of reading for tape, and I recognize this style of editing in new djs that I teach that are just starting in the craft. But in this case it does dampen the experience and usually can be fixed properly with time invested and editing experience. Secondly, the premise of the book revolves around the humorous. AKA, the nerve in your elbow. The story and main concept used through the majority of the book continually comes back to using that analogy, much like an over used joke, and continues to tie in parts of the learning to the anatomy of the nerve. For some that may assist in the memorization of the book, for me unfortunately, it felt very repetitive. There is a lot of great information in this book on the other hand and I walk away with additional knowledge that will help me on stage.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Decent information on stand up comedy

I thought that the information given here, by Geoffrey Neill was decent and well expressed. The exercises were ones I hadn't thought of before and are ones I will certainly use in my writing. And for less than five dollars, I thought it was a good purchase.

There were only a couple of things that took me out of the audiobook though. And I might be nitpicky, but you can tell that this wasn't a professionally produced audiobook. I don't want to give you the wrong impression. There isn't any audio hiss or anything. But while wearing headphones I could hear, what sounded like, him playing with the mic chord while narrating. And there were times when the levels don't exactly match up; where it will sound like he's not close to the microphone for a moment. And I'm not sure if it was because they were trying to trim the time down, but there are some cuts that seem too close to the previous sentence. Or on the exercise, he says, "Now pause the audiobook to such-and-such". And not a beat goes by before he says, "Alright, how'd you do?"

Like I said, the information given is well done. And even though the production of the audio had its flaws, my overall takeaway was good.

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  • Overall
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very beginner stuff

this is like, the basics, like, real basics, i.e. why its important to memorize, edit. have punchlines. etc.
get this if you dont know how to physically write out your material

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5 people found this helpful

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Find what's funny about YOU

I really enjoyed this audiobook. I'm on my second listen and I'm picking up a lot. It's super long, but full of 100% real world tips and practices that will help you get out there. I have done 2 open mics since reading this book and have found stage confidence I didn't know I had. I recommend this to anyone starting out in comedy. It's the best audiobook on stand-up out there right now.

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Great Tips!!!

Geoffrey Neill shared priceless information for anyone who wants or needs to learn more about the craft of writing and performing stand-up comedy. Thank You Geoffrey!!!

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