The Einstellungseffekt

What connects the following two scenarios:

Scenario One

If a joke causes only a groan in the audience, I eliminate it from my set immediately. And that’s a hard rule. I never ever break it.
Well… Sometimes a punchline sticks in my set because it links two comedy bits soooo well. And - despite an intensive search - I just can’t think of anything better. What’s the problem?

Scenario Two

Yesterday went so well after all. The new topic was inspiring and the punchlines just flew at me.

Today? The topic is still great, but… somehow the sparks won’t fly. I make another MindMap, read articles on the topic and diligently take notes, speak uncensored streams of thoughts into the recording app of my smartphone, but… the drive is missing.

What’s the problem?

The Einstellungseffekt

One reason for both situations could be the “Einstellungseffekt.” A psychology term that states that a known solution to a problem prevents a different (and possibly better) solution.

Simply put, those who have always opened their beer bottle with their teeth will not invent a bottle opener. There is just no need for it.

In a study published in the journal “Cognition”Source, researchers gave experienced chess players game problems to solve and then tracked their eye movements as they searched for a solution.

Once the chess experts found a possible solution, their eyes kept moving back to it - even when they claimed to be looking for better options.

Translated to the comedy writer’s life: Our brain is lazy and asks: “We already have a punch line. Why do I need another punchline on the same subject?!”

Fortunately, there are ways to trick our thinking apparatus.

In the case of the chess masters, researchers simply eliminated the original and less effective solution. (I don’t know exactly how they eliminated the first solution, but I assume they took the corresponding chess pieces off the board.) When this happened, the players focus immediately shifted to areas of the board that were critical to the better solution.

Or, to put it another way, it is only when the dentist threatens us with failures of both a financial and dental nature that we begin to think about a bottle opener. Or we suddenly see the teeth of strangers in ad new light.

Unfortunately, most of us comedy writers don’t have any researchers in our lives who forbid us to use the already written punchlines.

So… what now?

Solution One: The Incubation Effect

If you have time, you can take advantage of the incubation effect.

“The incubation effect is a mental phenomenon in problem solving that occurs when the problem is set aside for a time after an unsuccessful attempt to solve it, and can be quickly solved when tried again. Inappropriate solution strategies have been forgotten and are no longer used.”Source

So off we go, two weeks vacation on a beach and then our new punchline is waiting at home? You could try that. But it’s even better to work on another topic in the meantime. That way, you stay in the habit of writing and prevent yourself from brooding over the old problem anyway. Ideally, at the end of the week, you’ll not only have new material on a different topic, but you’ll also look at the old topic with new eyes.

Solution Two: Change the Problem

When you’ve already written four of five minutes of comedy, sometimes you run out of steam. One way to avoid that is to change the task. Instead of writing a five minute bit, why not write a ten minute bit? This again creates a sense of urgency that is lost towards the end of the writing process.

Or if that doesn’t work because you can’t fool yourself into thinking that it should now suddenly be ten minutes, then get yourself some honest feedback. It is the best way to bring a breath of fresh air back into the writing process.

Because nothing turns four minutes of supposed comedy gold into just one minute as quickly as the uncomfortable silence after a punchline that didn’t work.

In my case, I was able to banish the unspeakable pun from my set by changing the order of the bits in the set. When I no longer needed a transitional punchline from one topic to the next, the bad joke automatically disappeared from my set as well.

Stop! Hammer Time! Or maybe not? Source

“He who has only a hammer for a tool sees a nail in every problem.”

So get rid of the hammer. Leave it behind you and travel the beaches of your mind searching for a different problem while your subconscious is busy finding a solution for you.
Or put another way: Sometimes ask yourself if you shouldn’t put the problem aside or define it differently.