Jaycee Woods

The first pass edit of my “Routine Breakup” short story draft included my first major restructuring of a drafted story. It was written as a dialogue, but I have been rewriting it as a standup routine.

My post draft notes recommended editing it into a standup script. In editing, I pivoted to making the audience a character in the story. So far the edited story has been focused on the comic’s efforts to build rapport and trust with a hostile audience.

The problem I was having is that the next bit with the key conflict would be best with two voices telling the story of the breakup instead of simply one perspective.

My new mid-story pivot was to introduce a second voice of a female comic to perform the other side of the dialogue so both perspectives can compete for the audience which has already shown different responses at different points in the story between male and female members. I am thinking about how Kimbra’s voice and perspective made Gotye’s “Someone That I Used to Know” dynamic as if two contradicting breakup songs had been integrated into a single.

While there used to be Allen & Burns or more recently Sonny & Cher, I can’t think of a recent comedic stage duo that was a man and woman to play off each other.