I bombed a joke last weekend. It wasn’t the kind of bomb where the joke doesn’t land though. It was the kind where you’re halfway through a setup and you can feel yourself drowning in your own words. Well, the setup to this particular joke was like 50 words. 50!!!
I knew it was too long before I opened my mouth, but I told it anyway. Perhaps it was because I needed to fill time and I thought all the context was necessary. It wasn’t. The audience didn’t just lose interest, they picked up on something worse: I lost interest…in my own joke. The result? They were finished with the joke before I was!
As a writing professor, I’ve studied the point where readers and listeners start losing focus. The research is clear: at 18 words, comprehension really starts dropping. Beyond 22 words, you’re asking most people to work way too hard whether it’s reading or listening. But18-22 words is the sweet spot! So, I usually try keep my jokes between 18-22 words total, not because I’m obsessed with rules, but because I’m obsessed with jokes and laughs.
When you exceed the 18-22 word threshold, you’re not just risking boredom, you’re actually triggering cognitive failure. And I’m not at all exaggerating. This is a fact! The brain can only juggle a few chunks of information while processing. Every extra word or detail forces the audience to hold more in their working memory. So, when you cross that 22-word retention window, information starts dropping. Take too long, force too much processing and your punchline arrives to an audience that’s already forgotten your premise. That’s exactly what happened to me!
Here’s what I’m getting at: over-explaining doesn’t just bore the audience, it exhausts you, the comedian. And that’s not a good look. But I’m trying to learn from it and help others along the way. So, here’s what I noticed in telling the joke: If I have to fight through a bloated joke, my posture changes and my delivery flattens.
Put differently, I get tired of hearing myself talk. And guess what? The audience knows! They always know!! Confidence or a lack thereof in the material gets picked up instantaneously. The whole dynamic shifts from “watch this” to “just get through it,” and when you’re not interested, neither is the audience.
Comedy is scientific and it works because of a specific brain process: the sudden comprehension that explains a joke triggers the same neural reward as solving a problem. When audiences make the connection themselves, they experience genuine insight and delight. Over-explanation bypasses this entirely. You rob the audience of the pleasure centers that make humor satisfying to them.
When you over-explain, you literally prevent the brain’s reward circuits from fully activating. There’s an old saying in writing that’s also used in stand-up: show, don’t tell. In comedy, if you have to tell them, you’ve already lost. The audience needs to arrive at the punchline with you, not after you’ve already explained it to death.
There are three signs your joke is explaining itself to death. First, you’re using five mediocre words where one perfect word would work. Finding that one word is hard because we’re impatient. We think different things are funny. The joke has to have broad appeal. But extraneous language kills precision. So, as we say in the writing world, “Kill your darlings!” That is, get rid of all those extra words you love.
Second, sometimes you can’t let a joke go. You think it’s funny and want to hold on to it. And if it’s true, you especially want people to hear it. You know there’s something there, so you hold on. This is just another version of the kill-your-darlings problem. The core might be solid, but the execution is bloated and overloaded with words and unneeded details.
Third, when you do this, you’re really gambling with stage time. Maybe, like me, you need to fill time so you see if it works. Here’s the thing: you still have to be able to distinguish between a joke that needs to be cut, maybe even entirely, versus one that needs radical surgery. Yes, the stage is the final test. But before you get there, word count is your first clue. I ignored that fact even though I know better.
The fact is: the quicker you get to a punchline, the sooner you get laughs. Imagine getting 20 laughs in a minute versus 1. Well, that’s the reality with bloated jokes. And there’s a super simple way to think about this: the more time you spend talking, the less time the audience is laughing. This isn’t philosophy, it’s simple math and communication principles.
I knew that 50-word setup was a beast. Stupidly, I told it anyway. Why? Because letting go is hard. I thought the context mattered. I was more focused on what I wanted to say than what the audience needed to hear. And in doing so, I realized that over-explanation is really just an ego problem disguised as a craft problem.
When you remove ego and focus on craft, jokes get way easier to alter. You stop defending every word and start asking: does this serve the laugh? Most of the time, the answer is probably gonna be no. Think of it this way: your joke doesn’t need your protection, it needs your precision. (That’s a good line! lol.)
As I said in THIS POST, confidence comes from knowing how to write good jokes. Understanding that less setup equals more impact isn’t about following trends. Fact: the brain rewards efficiency with comprehension. Another fact: comprehension is the gateway to laughter. Thus, when you respect how the brain processes information, the audience rewards you with their attention. See how that works?!
So, when you’re writing or editing jokes, ask yourself: am I showing or telling? Am I using the right word or five mediocre ones? Can I let this go? Then get on stage and try it. If it works, you’ll know. The audience will laugh, and you won’t be exhausted. If it doesn’t, count the words, and cut until it hurts. I think that’s probably what I should’ve done with this post, in fact. So much for taking my own advice, eh?!
By the way, if you have any interest at all in learning to write some jokes or doing stand-up comedy, check out my online joke writing course, “The Joke Writer’s Lab,” HERE.