Nothing is written in one go

A finished five minutes usually represents forty attempts, most of which were worse than the one before.

Record everything

Memory of a set is unreliable and flattering. A recording shows where the laugh actually came, which is frequently three words earlier or later than remembered, and that difference is the whole edit.

Trust the second room

A bit that works once may have worked because of that crowd, that night, that order. The honest test is the second and third room, with the same delivery, and whether it survives being moved to a different position in the set.

Cut the setup, not the punchline

Most overlong material is overlong at the front. Audiences will follow an abrupt start much further than performers expect, and the premise usually needs half the words it was written with.

Keep the failures

A bit that dies is not necessarily a bad bit; it may be badly placed, badly phrased or simply ahead of the audience's patience. A discarded idea file is worth keeping, because material that failed in March sometimes works in October next to something that did not exist yet.

Write for the room you have

Material built in a quiet seated room often needs restructuring for a loud one, because the pauses that carry it will be filled by the audience. Many performers maintain two versions of the same bit for exactly this reason, and switch depending on the first thirty seconds.