Sitcom Characters 101 What Do They Want?

Characters are not just the most important part of your sitcom. They are your sitcom. The word ‘sitcom’ is misleading. It is short for ‘situation comedy’ – and the situation might seem like the most obvious part of the show.

The situation is the most visually striking aspect. I’ve written a sitcom about soldiers in Afghanistan (Bluestone 42), about codebreakers in Bletchley Park (Hut 33) and about management consultants (Think The Unthinkable). But those shows are actually about Nick, Mary, Bird; Archie, Charles and Gordon; Ryan, Sophie, Daisy and Owen. These sitcoms are about the characters.

The setting of the show might initially be intriguing. But we’re not attracted to ideas and concepts half as much as we’re attracted to people. Any photographer will tell you that you have to get faces. You have to get the eyes. We want to connect.

We form a bond with the characters of the sitcom and we start to feel like we know them. When we watch Only Fools and Horses, we’re going on a journey with the eternal optimist, Del Boy who says ‘This time next year, we’ll be millionaires.’ It’s a show about survival and hope. It’s about a lot of things, but it’s embodied in the characters.

So that’s why I recommend taking a lot of time over your characters. They are fundamental.

And this may sound obvious but it really isn’t judging by the scripts that I read from writers who make some really big mistakes here. Let me just highlight a couple of main ones:

Mistake 1: 100% Banter

This is the mistake of a script which is just people talking and swapping jokes. It’s an easy mistake to make because we want to make the audience laugh – and this is why the first episode is the hardest to write. But you MUST show us who the characters are and why we’re going to enjoy spending time with them – otherwise it’s just going to be a string of jokes. And it’s going to wear a bit thin after a few pages.

We do want jokes. And when we’re starting a show, and we don’t know the characters, we have to work really hard to get laughs. A good example is the opening of Blackadder Goes Forth when we’re wondering what kind of Blackadder we’re going to get in this series. In the first scene we get some real gems like this:

Blackadder: That’s not the only thing around here that’s “very small indeed”.  Your brain for example, is so minute, Baldrick, that if a hungry cannibal cracked your head open there wouldn’t be enough inside to cover a small water-biscuit.

And:

George: (reading King and Country magazine) Come, come, sir, now. You can’t deny that this fine newspaper is good for the morale of the men.

Blackadder: Certainly not, I just think that more could be achieved by giving them some real toilet-paper. 

George: Not with you at all sir, what could any patriotic chap have against this magnificent mag?

Blackadder: Apart from his bottom?

And:

Blackadder: I smell something fishy, and I’m not talking about the contents of Baldrick’s apple crumble.

But the best sitcom jokes aren’t actually funny lines or wisecracks - even though those lines are memorable. They are this character saying these words to that character in that situation. Because we know the characters. That is the vast majority of sitcom jokes. Character jokes. So we need to know the characters. And so you, sitcom writer, need to know your characters.

Action Point: Get your characters to show us what they are like, where they are going and what they want.

Mistake #2 At The Mercy of Events

Quite often a script starts with characters talking, and joking. And then something happens. And the characters react. Then there might be more jokes. And then something else happens. There is more reaction. There are more jokes, if you're lucky. And then it ends.

That might initially sound fine. But it isn’t fine. Your character isn’t making any choices. They’re not active. They’re passive. And you can’t have a series of episodes of sitcoms where the protagonist isn’t doing anything, but having stuff done to them. It has to be compelling and dynamic.

Action point: Make Your Characters Active. Ask the question “What does your character want?”

I know that's basically the same point as the last action point. That's how important it is. It's the big question that will drive them through 100 episodes. What are they trying to achieve in any given day? What is their calling? We can nuance this with future posts, but for now, get them moving, active and doing stuff. What kind of stuff do they like to do?

What does Del Boy want? We hear the refrain throughout the show: "This time next year, we’ll be millionaires". It’s not in the first episode. But that spirit of optimism is there, and a whole lot else, like the integral relationship between two brothers. One is an optimist, the other a pessimist. But very quickly it gets nuanced.

In the first scene, during a disagreement between Rodney and Granddad about Sidney Poitiers, Del walks out and gets a laugh with the name ‘Harry Belfonte’.Then he goes and looks in the mirror and says to himself:

DEL

S’il vous plait, s’il vous plait, what an enigma. I get better looking every day.

He seems to mean it. He clearly believes in himself! Then he says:

DEL

I can’t wait for tomorrow.

Again, he means it. He’s not a down-trodden poor man. He’s a go-getter!

DEL

Oh, do you know, I think I’m suffering from something incurable.

Grandad and Rodney ignore him. Del is clearly a hypochondriac and his family ignore most of what he says. He goes on.

DEL

Still, never mind, eh! Oi, come on Rodney, shake leg, we’ve got a meeting at 12. [Great! Action! A quest!] What are you doing?

RODNEY

Our accounts.

DEL

You keeping accounts now? Well there you are Grandad, a lot of people told me I was a right dipstick to make my brother partner in the business, but this only goes to prove how bloody right they were. You dozy little twonk Rodney, this is prima-facie evidence ain’t it, eh? The tax man gets hold of that he’ll put us away for three years.

RODNEY

Don’t worry, if the tax man comes I’ll eat it. This is the only way I can keep a check on you, Del. I’m sure you’re cheating me in some way – I just can’t figure out how.

DEL

Cheating you! Cheating you! What’s that rumbling noise?

RODNEY

I didn’t hear anything.

DEL

No, it’s alright, it’s Mum turning in her grave.

Del knows how to play his little brother – and then we get a speech on how he essentially brought up his little brother himself. They’ve got a meeting at twelve to get us moving, there’s a chat about the business and Del’s philosophy about staying out of the governments way – both with tax and benefits – and we’re off! Great start.

In that first episode of Blackadder Goes Forth, the arrival of a service revolver means there’s going to be another ‘big push’, which means certain death. When Blackadder sees his chance to get our of the trenches by pretending to have talent as an artist, he grabs it. And when it turns out the George can paint extremely well, he makes the most of that. And then it all backfires.

Looking at Del and Blackadder, it’s not hard to see what they are trying to achieve: survival, in their own way and in their own contexts. We’ll think a bit more about that next time.

There’s a lot to think about so I ran a live Webinar on exactly this. You can watch a recording of that 80min session including Q&A for FREE by signing up to the The Situation Room.

Creating Even Better Sitcom Characters

Recently, I wrote about how a sitcom character isn’t a random bag of attributes and attitudes, rolled up with dice like a characters in Dungeons and Dragons.

It’s easy to think you’ve got a sitcom character when you haven’t really. You only know what they like to do and want they to do. Initially that might sound like enough. But it isn’t.

You need to be creating characters that will run for multiple seasons so the way you set them up is crucial. And that's what producers and readers are looking for in scripts. Not jokes. They're not actually that hard. It's characters who can run and run.

Our Friend Jessica

Last time, we looked at a lady called Jessica. She likes cooking. She’s forever foraging for ingredients and testing recipes on her husband who is a bit dubious them.

Initially it feels like there are a lot of plots and stories around cooking. She offers to cook for her neighbour who is sick. There’s a village fete and she wants to win the baking competition. A particular berry is in season and she needs to be out into the muddy fields to get the pick of the crop.

But why? Why is Jessica doing these things?

We need to know why Jessica is really doing these things because it needs to matter when she fails. And she is going to fail. It needs to hurt.

Wanting to cook isn’t quest. Wanting to be a cook or a chef isn't either. What Jessica needs is a sacred quest or calling that is going to be at heart of everything she does for dozens of episodes.

So how about this for our Jessica?

Jessica actually loves nature. She wants to be in tune with it, and the seasons. And the way she expresses that isn’t through political activism, biological research or pets – but seasonal wholesome home cooking. And she wants that food to taste really good, because she wants them to love nature too, in the same way that she does. Essentially, she doesn’t love cooking. She loves nature.

That’s better than what we had. But it still doesn’t quite feel right yet. We’ll come back to her in a moment.

Self-Awareness

Sitcom characters lack self-awareness. They think they want one thing, but actually they want or need another. They are fools. They think happiness or contentment can be found one way, but quite often that’s the thing that makes them miserable, or frustrated. They end up trying to please the implacable, or achieve the impossible.

The audience and the other characters have different perspectives on that character although the other characters in the sitcom will often misinterpret each other’s actions and motivations, but we’ll get to that in the webinar. (see below)

Such Is Life

This way of approaching sitcom characters sounds like a trick. But it isn’t. Comedy is based on truth. (I talk about that The Sacred Art of Joking) But this lack of self-awareness and state of delusion is life. We convince ourselves of all kinds of lies to get through the day. We run around in ever decreasing circles trying to solve problems that won’t actually help, trying to please people we don’t like or achieve goals that, if we stopped to think about for a while, we have no real desire to achieve.

It often takes people therapy, counselling or a traumatic event to really figure out what they want in life and how they’ve been going about it completely the wrong way. You’re characters probably aren’t in therapy. They're in denial. Like most of us. They’re living their lives, trying and failing and driving each other crazy.

Jessica 2.0

With this in mind, let's get back to Jessica. How about this?

Jessica cooks. But she doesn’t understand why. She thinks it’s because she’s good at it and that it brings her pleasure. She is quite good at it. Actually finds cooking frustrating because she has high standards. But why does she put herself through this?

Jessica does love nature, as we've said. And she loves living in the countryside. But she feels like a fraud. Because she’s a townie. Or thinks she is. She lived in the city for years but moved to the countryside a few years. She’s not the cliched city slicker who’s moved to a farm and found all the locals backward or hostile. (I am so bored of that trope)

In fact, everyone’s been very nice and welcoming to Jessica and she’s part of the community. But she still feels like an outsider. To prove that she fits in, she tries to show that she understands nature, and the ways of the countryside. And so to do that – in her head – is by cooking seasonal recipes, making jam and pickle and giving out jars it and winning the occasional rosette that the village fete. (But not too often or that looks bad).

Jessica is a nature lover, but that’s a passion. But she, like most people, wants to be liked, respected and accepted. We can all relate to that, even if we don't feel it. And cooking is how she expresses that need to be accepted.

So that’s Jessica.

But what about her husband? Her mother? And her brother-in-law? What are they like and how do that relate?

We don’t just need to do apply this process to one character but to a family of characters – but we don’t do that in isolation.

There’s a lot to think about so I ran a live Webinar on exactly this. You can watch a recording of that 80min session including Q&A for FREE by signing up the The Situation Room.