5 Mistakes In The First Ten Pages Of Your Sitcom Script: Mistake 4

I remember listening to an episode of Friends from another room. I couldn’t hear the dialogue. All I could hear was the audience laughter, and how frighteningly regular it was. It seemed every other line was getting a laugh. The metronomic frequency of those laughs is an astonishing achievement, given the writers are weaving story and character on top together at the same time.

But it’s easy to think about this the wrong way. I just did at the end of that last paragraph. I set up story and character as enemies of jokes, as if characters just say funny things regardless of situation or context. No, the context and the characters give you the jokes. Static characters that don’t move or have quests are merely spouting jokes. This can sustain for a while but only if the jokes are really funny.

Insert Name Here is a properly funny panel game

Panel games do this. Half a dozen people are rooted to chairs being asked questions or set challenges. There are different rounds to give some variation – and normally there’s a clever one (Stephen Fry or Richard Osman) and a less clever one (Alan Davies, Josh Widdicombe). And even those are artificial personae to some extent. Alan Davies is no fool!

They normally record panel games for two and a half hours, and only very best is selected and broadcast. The show is assembled in the edit.

You can’t do this in a sitcom. You can’t afford to shoot even 50 minutes and put it together in the edit for a number of reasons. Firstly, you don’t have the luxury of paying dozens of people thousands of pounds to produce television that’s going to be cut. There just isn’t that much money in the system, especially when you have a timeslot to fill.

Sure, you can shoot a movie thinking it’s going to be two hours. In the edit, you may discover it’s better at ninety minutes (most movies are). No-one really cares about the final running time because that money has been spent, and the cinema chains aren’t bothered if the movie runs at 87 minutes or 140 minutes. (The movie that is 87 minutes will probably be better, especially if it’s a comedy. Yes, I know, The Godfather blah blah blah.).

In TV, you have a slot to fill and you have to deliver the show to the right length, not just once but six, ten or 24 times over. And you can't afford to over shoot by ten minutes 24 times. That's four hours of television that's going in the bin without seeing the light of day.

Mistake 4: You’re writing a panel game, not a sitcom.

It’s not just about time and money (although there’s never enough of either, especially in a studio sitcom which I write about here, here and here). The other issue is storytelling. If you're writing and shooting long, your episode won’t make sense at 28 minutes. If the show is plotted properly the show should almost be uneditable as stories relate to each other, running jokes are established and the final third pays of the first two acts of set-up. You’re only recording 32 minutes if you’re filming in front of an audience. Maybe 34 if you’re shooting single camera. It has to be tight. Ask Jerry Seinfeld.

Remember, you’re trying to write a sitcom, not a panel game. You need to tell a story with a beginning and a middle and end. Get on with it. Be clear about who the story is about and what their goals are. The jokes then come as a result of that.

The mistake that is often made is that the first ten pages of a script are filled with jokes – essentially banter – and no story or character. This won’t do. Jokes without a context don’t really sustain or build momentum. You only need one joke that misfires and the atmosphere dips and the audience (and cast if you get that far) start to panic. Essentially, we’ve all looked down and seen we’ve run out of bridge and we’re all standing on thin air. We will fall to the ground like Wile E Coyote.

Make sure your characters have quests and attitudes, and trust that the comedy will come from that, rather than a string of one-liners and zingers, that often feel like they’re borrowed from other sitcoms anyway. (Side note, if you see any of the lines from your script on this list, delete and replace at once).

Next time, Mistake 5.

-------

Have you written a sitcom script? Would you like me to have a look and give you some notes? That can be arranged.

Or you might want to think about getting my book, Writing That Sitcom, which is available for the Kindle/Kindle App via Amazon here.

Alternatively, it's available as a bog-standard PDF here.

People seem to like the book, found it useful and have been kind enough to say so:

"A MUST Read for Aspiring Comedy Writers. This book gave me the feedback I needed and the tools to change and greatly improve my script." Dr. Rw Fallon

And listen to the Sitcom Geeks podcast here.

5 Mistakes In The First Ten Pages Of Your Sitcom Script: Mistake 3

This blogpost is now also a YouTube Video:

In a sitcom script, especially the pilot, you’re trying to focus the audience’s attention on your lead characters. We don’t want the audience worrying about who the story is really about. Of course, if you call the show Miranda, and there’s a character called Miranda, then the name of the show and opening titles are doing a lot of heavily lifting for you. Same goes for Veep or My Name is Earl. It’s about the Vice President. Go it. It’s about Earl. Right.

So far, so clear. But even here it’s easy to slip up as you make mistake number 3 where it turns out that:

You’re Basically Writing A CV, Not a Sitcom

The temptation is always to focus on who the main characters are, where they are and where they have come from. Some of that detail is useful. But it’s a lot less important and compelling than who they want to be and where they want to go. The desires and dreams of your characters will probably tell you a lot more about their personality than their past. And their present situation will be obvious to see from their surroundings and their status clear from the way people interact with them.

If your character is a wannabe philosopher-poet, great. Let’s see them trying it out, and let’s see their flat or the work colleagues demonstrate how likely that goal is to be attained. Maybe they already think they are a philosopher-poet and the world is all wrong. Even better. What we don’t need to know is what GCSEs they got and what they’ve been doing for the last ten years, unless it’s strictly relevant to the plot going forward.

What did Captain Blackadder do before he ended up in the trenches of World War 1? We hear one tale of how he saved the future Field Marshall at the Battle of Mboto Gorge, but that’s about it. How did Alan B’Stard come into being? We don’t really care. We just know that he exists, that he rings true and that he is only interested in using the fig leaf of Thatcherism to promote himself.

Why is Edina a grown-up child? What as the Vicar of Dibley doing before she was even allowed to be a vicar? Why is Father Ted on Craggy Island? Who knows? Maybe we find out in Series 4 when writers are casting around for anything to spark a new plot. But what we don’t need is some sort of list of achievements (and failures) of the characters up until the time we're encountering them.

Your character needs a goal. We don’t need to know where they’ve come from, just where they’re going. Or at least, where they’re truly longing to be. Everything they do and say will be subsumed by that uber-goal. All their mini quests are taking steps along that road, even though they always end up back at the beginning.

So we’re not writing a Movie, a Murder Mystery or a CV. You’re writing a sitcom. So here’s something else to bear in mind:

Is it funny? If not, be funny!

But there a pitfalls to that. Welcome to the fourth way of falling off the horse. You’re galloping along, the horse pulls up and over you go. Not quite sure how that fits into this metaphor from the last two posts, but I just wanted to prove there are four sides you can fall off a horse. We’ll look at that in the next post.

Details on my new forthcoming video series are coming soon, but why not get hold of my free handy download called 7 Ways To Improve Your Sitcom Script Right Now?

5 Mistakes In The First Ten Pages Of Your Sitcom Script: Mistake 2

This blogpost is now a YouTube video at The Situation Room:

You’re writing a spec sitcom script. It’s probably the pilot episode. And want to grab the audience’s attention and hook them in.

One way is to trick the audience with gimmicky storytelling which can lead to Mistake 2:

You’re Basically Writing A Murder Mystery, Not a Sitcom

I read quite a few scripts which begin with three apparently unrelated scenes or characters and I’m left wondering how they all connect up. Each scene stands alone, and I’m clearly not meant to know who anyone is.

That’s all fine if you’re watching a murder mystery like those two-hour ITV series like Endeavour or an Agatha Christie adaptation. As with movies, those shows have a much longer running time and will take at least ninety minutes to unravel.

You're writing a sitcom. You don’t have ninety minutes. You’ve got about twenty five. Get on with it.

If you want to see what 'getting on with it' looks like, watch any episode of Modern Family which crunches through story at a ferocious pace. There are usually three stories started and developed within seven minutes. Within seven minutes, nine or ten characters are flapping around, or walking on egg-shells or trying to avoid each other. It’s masterful. And funny.

That last one is so important. Funny. Easy to overlook that one. You're writing a sitcom, remember?

Endeavour and Agatha Christie are not only 90 minutes long. They’re not trying to be funny. This is just as well because murder mysteries struggle to be funny. Why? Because the writer is trying to confuse and misdirect the audience. Confusion, as I often write on this blog, is the enemy of comedy. A confused audience can’t laugh. It won’t laugh. Jokes require the delivery of information in a carefully controlled way to avoid confusion. (See my forthcoming book, The Sacred Art of Joking for plenty on the mechanics of this).

You’re writing a sitcom, remember? Funny is what we want.

So don’t spend ten pages trying to intrigue your audience. You need to make them laugh. Gimmicky tricks with timelines, powerful juxtapositions or artistic references are not your friend here. In the right hands, they can be brilliant (see episodes of Coupling by Steven Moffat, for example). As a rule, these tricks are comedy kryptonite.

Besides, these devices will obscure the one thing that you’re trying to showcase and sell: your cast of characters.

Audience tend to respond to people, rather than ideas or concepts. Advertisers know this. It’s why most adverts have human faces in them. It’s why testimonials are so effective. It’s why just reading the words Del Boy, Victor Meldrew or Edina might raise a smile. So put your characters front and centre. Tell us who they are, what they’re about and what they're trying to do.

But in so doing, don’t fall into another trap. There is a third and fourth way of falling off this horse. The first of those is the making the mistake of giving us backstory. We’ll look at that in the next post or watch me give it to your straight on the The Situation Room on YouTube.

Details on my new forthcoming video series are coming soon, but why not get hold of my free handy download called 7 Ways To Improve Your Sitcom Script Right Now?

5 Mistakes In The First Ten Pages Of Your Sitcom Script: Mistake 1

This post is now also a YouTube video on The Situation Room:

It always seems unfair that new sitcom writers have to do the hardest things first. Creating a new sitcom that feels original, but identifiable, fresh, but somehow familiar, is really difficult. Plotting and writing the pilot script is fraught with pitfalls.

Let's assume that your sitcom idea is not the problem. You have the characters. You have a story. You've written a script. Those first ten pages are crucial in selling that script and, more importantly, selling you as a writer.

On the Sitcom Geeks podcast, Dave Cohen and I encounter quite a few scripts. (If you join the Patreon scheme, we will read the first ten pages of your script and do a podcast about it for subscribers.) In reading such scripts, and numerous others over the last few years, I've noticed five ways in which newer writers tend to fall off the horse in their first ten pages of their sitcom script.

Here's Mistake #1.

Mistake 1: You’re Basically Writing A Movie, Not a Sitcom

Movies have their own way of starting. Or at least they used to. (I only watch half a dozen movies a year, and most of them are family movies which can be a bit crash-bang-wallop at the beginning.) But the general idea is that in grown-up movies, you establish some normality and build the world before dropping a bombshell.

So people drive around listening to the radio, or walk through corridors greeting people, or get home from work, throw keys on tables and go out into the garden to play with their kids. Or they clock on to their dead end job in a video store and mutter and murmur and pour themselves coffee.

That’s all fine in a movie. We are establishing where are we, and who the characters are before the inciting incident which will send at least one of them on a journey of self-discovery and, crucially, change.

In movies people change. In sitcoms, they don't. They mustn't. They cannot. (In that sense, sitcoms are probably more true to life, but we can have that discussion another time). It’s why sitcom movies don’t work.

Movies have a beginning, middle and end. Sitcoms are all middle.

The point here is that in a movie, you’ve got 90-120 pages to play with. So you have at least ten pages to set up your world and your characters. The credits are rolling. The scene is being set. The audience has paid their money and booked a babysitter to watch your movie. They’re not going to walk out after 9 minutes because they’re a bit bored.

In TV, it's all different. There are hundreds of channels, streaming services and remote controls. Your viewer might well turn over after three minutes if they’re bored. More likely, the producer reading your spec script is going to give up and move on to the next one. (They have a pile of fifteen scripts that they are trying to get through) How are you going to grab their attention and keep it?

Remember you've only got 30 pages to introduce your characters, start your story, put in some twists and some jokes and get it all wrapped. Thirty pages. GET ON WITH IT. Tell a story. Lead the viewer through it.

This is most common mistake when Dave and I read the first ten pages of a script. Nothing happens until page ten. It's all set up and scene setting. People are talking - often with decent jokes. But ten minutes of screen time are being wasted.

Start your story on Page 1. Okay, do some set-up and jokes on page 1 if you must. But get the characters moving, not just talking or driving around. By page 10, your character should have established their quest, tried, failed and ideally made it worse. 

You're writing a sitcom. Not a movie. Make sure you don't fall off the horse on this side.

In an attempting to avoid this first mistake you might fall off the horse on the other side, which is the mistake of writing a murder mystery, not a sitcom. And we will look at that next time. Or have me tell it to you straight on the playlist on YouTube here.

Details on my new forthcoming video series are coming soon, but why not get hold of my free handy download called 7 Ways To Improve Your Sitcom Script Right Now?

Where Do Sitcom Characters Come From?

It’s a good question, especially if you’re in the business of writing and creating sitcom. A sitcom isn’t really a situation, but a place where characters interact and generally get on each other's nerves.

Situations are fairly easy to think up, including ones that haven’t really be done before. Here we go:

Oil Rig
Betting Shop
Opticians
17th Century Padua
Garden Centre
Purgatory

That wasn’t hard, was it? But why are we in these situations? Who is there? Why are we watching? Who are the characters? And where do they come from? How do we think them up?

Way back when Dave Cohen and I started the Sitcom Geeks podcast, we talked about characters being ‘Larger than Life’, like Alf Garnett or Edina from Ab Fab. It’s still a good place to start. But the rise of single camera shows and fly-on-the-wall docs may beguile us into thinking that modern sitcom characters should be less cartoonish, more moderate and realistic. Hopefully, a few episodes of Brooklyn 99 or The Goldbergs should dispel that notion.

Here’s the thing: Beverley Goldberg is not even a fictional character. Real people are often ‘larger than life’. See also Brian Clough and Gordon Ramsay. I’ve written more about them here. But what if you’re seeking to create a character, or you don’t have an insanely protective Jewish mother to drop into your sitcom?

No problem. Just think of a comedy character. Make one up. Invent one.

But this is easier said than done. Much as writers like to think these characters can be plucked from the deepest recesses of their imaginations and dropped, fully-formed, into their sitcoms, the reality is that they can take a very long time to develop.

The way to increase your chances is to think of lots of characters.

And the way to do that is to write sketches.

On Twitter the other day, some of us were musing on the number of sitcoms that were based around characters that originally began life as a sketch. Edina from Ab Fab began as a sketch in French and Saunders. This is not an usual situation. We also noted how characters like Alan Partridge, Rab C Nesbitt, Dave Lister (Red Dwarf) began life as sketch characters. See also The Detectives, Still Game, Mr Don & Mr George, Grass and Pixelface. UK Gold's The Rebel was a cartoon strip, as was BBC Radio 4's Clare in the Community.

Let us not forget one of the greatest TV shows of all time, The Simpsons, began life as filler on The Tracey Ullman Show.

But, when one thinks about, all recent BBC1 mainstream sitcom hits have not merely come from a writer’s imagination and spun immediately into comedy gold. They all had a serious head start.

Mrs Brown began life as a radio character, before becoming books and, yes, a movie starring Anjelica Huston (yes. seriously) and then a stage show.

Mr Khan, from Citizen Khan, had appeared in BBC2’s Bellamy’s People and it’s precursor, BBC Radio 4’s Down the Line.

One might also argue that the sitcom personae of both Miranda Hart and Lee Mack had come through years of live performances, Edinburgh shows and radio sketch shows before becoming the characters in Miranda and Not Going Out.

So What Now?
Take action. Write sketches. Create characters with strong voices that will sustain comedy sketches, and are very easy for the audience to get a handle on. Who knows? One of these creations might turn into a TV sitcom in 2-15 years time (after the Hollywood movie or spoof radio show appearance).

Writing sketches is worthwhile anyway. Sketches are not only a great place for writers to learn their craft. They are also like comedy lego bricks that build bigger things like sitcoms and movies.

But here’s the bad news.

You’ll probably have to do it yourself. Make your own audio and video. Put on your own stage shows. Draw your own cartoons. TV channels, for whatever reason, have essentially turned their backs on this form of comedy. (It's usually money - and second guessing audience tastes.)

It’s a triple disaster since writers are losing out on places to learn their craft, but also to make a living to keep them in the game. And the TV landscape is being robbed of places where comedy characters are being incubated before growing into fully fledged sitcom charaters.

Tracey Ullman’s BBC1 shows are the notable exception. But let’s also remember where she got her break? In a sketch show called Three of a Kind.

Maybe the execs are just hoping lightening strikes twice and that some cheap, badly drawn insert in Tracy Ullman's show becomes a multi-billion-dollar juggernaut that runs for 26 years longer than the show it started in. Maybe it will, but that’s still only one show. BBC1 needs three or four. And ITV would like a couple.

Where will these tried and tested sitcom characters come from? I honestly don’t know. Maybe you?

-------

Have you written a sitcom script? Would you like me to have a look and give you some notes? That can be arranged.

Or you might want to think about getting my book, Writing That Sitcom, which is available for the Kindle/Kindle App via Amazon here.

Alternatively, it's available as a bog-standard PDF here.

People seem to like the book, found it useful and have been kind enough to say so:

"A MUST Read for Aspiring Comedy Writers. This book gave me the feedback I needed and the tools to change and greatly improve my script." Dr. Rw Fallon

And listen to the Sitcom Geeks podcast here.

When Is A Scene Not A Scene?

Writing outlines for sitcoms is hard. One might think it’s hard because jokes are hard. If you’re a comedy writer, you probably don’t find jokes all that hard. Finding the right jokes that fit a situation and a character can be harder. Letting go of jokes that don’t fit the situation orcharacter is even harder. 

All of the above can make it difficult to see whether the action and dialogue you have allotted to a scene is adequate. In reading scripts and outlines over the last few years, I’ve noticed a few ways in which a scene appears to be a scene but is not, in fact, a scene.

A Scene With Just Jokes Is Not A Scene

But when plotting a sitcom, jokes can get in the way and lull you into a false sense of security. A really funny bit, or a run of jokes, or physical business can lead you to think that you have a scene, when you don’t. You just have jokes. Not a scene. Go back to the original story. What are the characters trying to do? How does this scene drive that story? What goes wrong? And what are the consequences?

A Scene With Just Conflict Is Not A Scene

We know that comedy is conflict. That’s one of my three C’s (Character, Conflict and Confinement). But two characters arguing in a confined situation doesn’t give you a scene. Although it’s a good start.

Aaron Sorkin is the master of writing scenes in which two people clash – and he gives the appearance of action by having them walk along at the same time. But he also gives the scene an ending which leads to the next scene, and furthers the plot. As your characters go their separate ways at the end of the scene, how has their quest been altered? What is the new problem that has to be overcome?

A Scene With Just Backstory or Revelation Is Not A Scene

Sometimes, a scene can contain some big piece of backstory or revelation. And that reveal could feel like it changes everything. And maybe it does. But exactly how does it change everything, and what are the characters going to do a result of this? We need to hear and see their freshly made plans, before they then go awry.

A Scene Where Someone Just Tries And Fails Is Not A Scene

Okay, maybe that’s not quite true, but it can feels very disappointing plot-wise when our hero has a quest. He tries to achieve his objective, but fails. And he’s back he’s started. In terms of the story, that’s not as dynamic as having the failure create new problems that also have to be dealt with. Or the problem could be fixed, but present a fresher, bigger, harder problem. Does your scene make it worse? It probably should.

It seems obvious to point these things out, but it’s surprising how easy it is to go wrong – and I make that mistake in my own scene breakdowns and outlines too. In fact, in Bluestone 42, it was only in an edit that we realised a scene was entirely redundant and could be cut. But it’s clearly easier to see in the work of other people!

When I’m script editing, sometimes I read scripts, or story outlines, that essentially come to a halt half way through the story. It feels like the plot has been resolved – and even though there’s a second half to come. But the audience don’t know that, and the story feels uninvolving.

I’ve never written for commercial television, but many writers who have can testify to the fact that ad breaks can be your friend. They force you to move the story on, and provide cliff-hanger,  tension and unfolding drama. It’s a really good discipline to get into. (Market forces do have their benefits, even to writers.) It is worth going through your outline and making sure that there’s no scene which could end with the audience saying ‘So what?’ It's hard work, but you'd rather find out your scene is not a scene before it's written, or even shot, before realising that it has to go.

------- 

I'm running a free 90-minute webinar on Plotting Sitcoms on Friday 21st May 2021. Places are limited so sign up to the Situation Room for access to that webinar HERE.

How Long Should My Sitcom Script Be?

The question of script length comes up from time to time. And it's tricky to know how to respond for various reasons. Some measure sitcom scripts in pages. That's probably the industry standard, not least because when you're filming on location, pages get broken down into eighths and shooting time is allotted accordingly.

Scripts filmed in a studio in front of an audience have to be carefully monitored for length too. Most sitcoms I've filmed have started shooting at 7.30pm and you really have to be done by 10pm for two main reasons. Firstly, the cost of overrunning in terms of overtime, studio time and wages can get out of hand quite quickly.

Pic by Emily Tan via Flickr

But secondly, by 10pm, even with a jolly warm-up guy, the audience really has had enough. They probably arrived at 6.30pm and have been herded about. The magic of television has worn off and, to be honest, they're done by 9.30pm, but if you've got a strong ending to film in front of them with a big pay-off, you're probably going to be fine. 

Until 10pm. At which point the audience turn into pumpkins or mice or something that isn't known for laughing much. And you can't really stop them from leaving either. And some do. And it gets embarrassing.

A decent producer has a pretty good running time clock in their heads and your page count on the night should be about right. And if it's not, it's their problem far more than yours.

If you're looking for a rule of thumb for a pilot script that you're sending out, bear in mind you're trying to sell an idea and a set of characters, not a shooting script. I'd urge you to make your TV script as tight as possible. Something between 30 and 35 pages. Cut anything that doesn't belong. Cut jokes that are just there for the sake of it, especially in the second half of the show when you need to crack on. Be ruthless. I've written about that here and here and here and in my book here.

The Glory of Radio

It's tempting to think that in radio, where everything is much easier to record, all bets are off. There's no 'location' stuff to be pre-shot, no big reveals or stage management to work out. No props, no set and know make. Plus the actors don't have to learn lines. They just read them off the script. Which partly explains why actors love doing radio and you can often pull in bigger names than you think. It's all the fun of the show without all the drag of TV production. (But way less money, obviously.)

A typical radio studio sitcom episode might record at 32-34 minutes. Then there a few retakes. Then an interval. And you record another episode. Yes, you can record two shows in one night, and still be done by 9.30pm.

Twice Nightly

In fact, recording two episodes in one night is a blessing because the audience, who might not be very familiar with the show, especially if it's brand new, will be up to speed by the second show and be looking out for their favourite characters and catchphrases. They're not worried about knowing who everyone is. The cast might be more relaxed. As a result, the second episode tends to record better and the audience laugh more. (One day, I expect a note from an exec suggesting we record both episodes second.)

However, there are laws of diminishing returns here too. The plusses can become minuses. In the second episode, the actors might start to get tired, the studio can get a hot making the audience flag and dry up. You'll want to stick to a 32-34 minute recording. Any less, you've got little room for manoeuvre in the edit. Page formats vary in radio where there are fewer script standards and protocols (every single radio script I've done has been in Word, not Final Draft) so a page count isn't helpful. But in words, for me, that's usually around the 5500 mark.

It might be tempting to get away with a script of 6500 words. Or longer but if you listen to the Sitcom Geeks podcast with Graham Linehan, you'll hear why it's not a good idea.

Don't Forget Paris

In their first show, Paris, Linehan and Mathews learnt a few lessons the hard way. One is that if you write a script that's too long, and film all of it, it makes editing almost impossible.

The only way to produce a coherent 24-28 minutes is to cut jokes. Disaster. The story has to make sense. There has to be continuity. There's a lot you can't cut or the entire programme disintegrates and seems random, disjointed and unprofessional.

That's not an option.

What your producer and director and editor will cut are funny routines, gags and throwaway lines (which are literally thrown away).

It's always tempting to write long - and I've done so and regretted it for other reasons (when I wrote a 9000 word draft) - but writer beware. And if there's one thing you shouldn't do, it's Forget Paris.

--------------------

For more of this sort of thing, you might want to think about getting my book, Writing That Sitcom, which is available for the Kindle/Kindle App via Amazon here.

Alternatively, it's available as a bog-standard PDF here.

People seem to like the book, found it useful and have been kind enough to say so:

"A MUST Read for Aspiring Comedy Writers. This book gave me the feedback I needed and the tools to change and greatly improve my script." Dr. Rw Fallon

And listen to the Sitcom Geeks podcast here.