Why? Why? Why?

The hit TV show 24 revolutionised television, in my opinion. Here was a show that demanded you watch every last second of it. In order. Drifting in an out wasn't an option. And if you watched the first TV show, you were hooked. I remember seeing bleary-eyed friends of mine and asking how many episodes they had watched the night before. The answer was often 4 episodes or more. It was the TV equivalent of crack cocaine. The trick, of course, was to stop watching an episode half-way through before they built to the next cliffhanger.

After 24, there were a number of shows that were dense, full of plot and ideally watched on DVD which is why it changed TV in my view. Writers didn't want to write show where viewers could 'just dip in and out'. The boxed set and TiVo/Sky+ series link helped that. (In fact, in a recent interview with the guy who ran FX, the reason they stopped commissioning Damages was because it was a show that was best watched on DVD, not their network.)

There were only a couple of annoyances in 24. One was the totally unbelievable wireless communications enjoyed by Jack Bauer and his 3G wi-fi phone several years before 3G wi-fi existed. We could forgive this trope because maybe CTU had access to cool stuff and it moved the plot along.

The single most annoying thing in 24 was Jack's infuriating daughter, Kim, who kept putting herself in danger for baffling or non-sensical reasons. She was a poorly drawn character anyway and very much a concept or foil rather than a person. But she was also pushed around the story like a pawn in a game of speed chess. It made for very unsatisfactory viewing and caused much shouting at the television in my house.

What's My Motivation?
Motivation is just as important in comedy as drama. In 21-28 minutes of comedy, everything happens for a reason. And people do things for good reasons, or at least reasons that make perfect sense to that character in that situation.

I'm thinking about this at the moment because I had to fix a script I've been writing this morning in which a lower-status underling is briefly sassy with a higher-status boss character. The underling is a try-hard and eager to please his boss. But for various reasons, we need him to stand up to his boss who is asking too much of him on this occasion. If I'd left it as it was, it would have looked very strange and, worse, the audience would assume there was a good reason for the underling taking a stand, and they would have been disappointed and confused. And a confused audience is not happy and doesn't laugh.

How To Fix It
In this case, I tried to find a way around it, so that this underling did not need to stand up to his boss. But we needed it to happen this way. In the end, I found a neat way through it (if I do say so myself). The underling stands up to his boss by mistake, through a misunderstanding. And to make the misunderstanding believable, I made it part of a running joke which features in the very first scene of the episode. It's a pain to have to thread things like this through the script, but it's better than a character doing something for no good reason.

Your characters need a motivation for every action in every scene. Every action they perform, every line they say - and the way they say it - is part of an overpowering, overarching desire or need that drives them. This is why planning an episode takes a really long time. I don't start writing a draft of a script until I have a 3-4 outline of the episode with at least one paragraph for every scene. Even then, I often get halfway through a scene and realise at least one of my characters is adrift and 'just doing stuff' or 'saying stuff' for no good reason.

If you read your script back and it's just not hanging together, this might well be the problem. Do you know what your character wants out of life, consciously and/or subconsciously? What is their quest in this episode - and how does this action fit into that? You need to do this for every character in the script, not just your star or hero. Otherwise, you have a Kim Bauer on your hands. And let's face it. Nobody wants that.

The God Particle Returns

There's a lot of talk about the God Particle at the moment. They've found it. Or at least they think they might have found evidence that suggests they may have found it and it turns out they were right about Physics generally all along. Which isn't bad.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "If only there was some kind of theatrical comedy called the God Particle that I could see in London towards the end of August." Good news. I've written such a play. The God Particle is a romantic comedy about a vicar and a quantum physicist who are brought together by circumstances, and they bicker and argue about life and religion like Maddie and David from Moonlighting. It's takes place in the village of Threepiggs and is based around a quotation by one of my favourite writers, GK Chesterton who said "The point of having an open mind is the same as having a open mouth: to close it on something solid." This sounds witty but is it true? The scientist would argue not. What is it to have an open mind? Does that mean never believing anything? The play looks at all that. With jokes. And lasts about 75 minutes. Do come.


It's on at St James's Church, Clerkenwell, EC1R 0EA (here) on Tuesday 21st & 22nd August 2012. You can book tickets for 21st here and for 22nd here. Flyer below.

The Larbey - Summer 2012 Edition

Voices In Your Head

In the last post, I wrote about the importance of story and structure and character in sitcom - and the dangers of rushing to write a script. Character development and storylining take ages, especially if you're doing it right, and cutting corners normally backfires. Winging it or joking your way of out trouble is tempting but hardly ever works.

But that is not to say that you shouldn't write any dialogue until you're done your fourth draft of a detailed scene by scene breakdown of the episode. If you can hear the characters talking, write it down.  Fast. Grab a napkin and a lipstick if you have to. But get it down. It's worth having.

I've been working on a new idea and will be writing a script very soon. I have the characters in place - although I've just merged two characters into one - and a rough idea for a story. But then, based on one line in my head, the main character had a conversation with her daughter in my mind and it sounded funny. So I frantically started getting it down before the voices in my head stopped. They were arguing about something and it escalated and it was funny. I wrote about three pages before it felt like I was ready to stop. That script fragment then helped me as I formulated the story.

A few days after that, I was swimming and thinking about the show. Another conversation started to take shape in my head. It was between the same two characters but felt like a conversation they'd have at the end of the show. It seemed like very useful dialogue and, rather than risk forgetting, I got out of the pool and typed out the conversation on my smartphone. It was about two pages of dialogue in note form. And when I got home, I typed it up.

I'm still working on the story. It's still not quite there, but it's coming. The third act B-Plot doesn't work yet, but the emotional beats of the story are in place and I've got some dialogue and characterful jokes for it. I may well end up ditching it, but it helps to have it, for morale if nothing else, and the characters are now talking to each other. Yes, I have voices in my head. And I'm very glad about that.

Pearls From Pixar

A link to some pearls of wisdom from Pixar has been doing the rounds on Twitter recently and we ignore these pearls at our peril. And yet, the ambitious young comedy writer might turn their snout up at these pearls. And I can understand why. After all, there’s nothing about comedy on that list – and it’s all about character, focus, story, feelings, yadda yadda yadda. So far, so Woody.

The frustration is the novice comedy writer often feels they want to get on with the jokes. Cut to the funny. It’s partly borne out of passion for comedy, which is admirable. It can also come from lack of confidence. Young writers, especially blokes, often shy away from character and story because they are more attracted to ideas and jokes. And so their characters can merely be vehicles for concepts and/or mouthpieces for clever wordplay. I remember this stage in my own career as a writer – and a very happy stage it was as I was writing sketches for stage (Infinite Number of Monkeys), radio (Concrete Cow) and TV (Smack the Pony). We've seen and loved sketch shows that revel in ideas and jokes, rather than characters. (eg. Big Train, Mr Show)

A Blend of Skills

The art of writing sitcoms requires all of the above skills – you need ideas and jokes - but also a bunch of other skills. It’s why it’s so hard. You need to be able to establish characters, tell a story that suits those characters and make it funny. All within 20-28 minutes. Ideally, it needs to be funny because it’s those characters in that story. The best jokes are often very small ones, but they mean so much because of the character and the situation.

Sketches are like pop songs. Three minute nuggets of catchy, carefully honed perfection. What’s not to like? The sitcom is the half-hour symphony with high and lows, repeating themes and a crescendo. It requires careful planning, hard work and, above all, confidence, to pull it off.

Scripts that lack confidence are easy to spot. They’re full of jokes, sometimes good ones, occasionally highly original ones, but you don’t really care. There’s not enough to keep you turning the pages. It’s what-I-call “people talking”. People with names trading lines, wise-cracks and insults.

Why People Watched Friends

The problem is that highly successful shows can look like they’re just people talking. Let’s take Friends. It was such an exciting show when it came out. But it remained exciting through its long run. How?

And at the start, everyone liked it straight off because of the jokes. Everyone’s favourite character was Chandler, because Chandler just was funny. He said funny things. The kind of things that comedy writers would say. That was his thing. Being funny. Nice trick. Phoebe too. She was crazy and said funny things. And Joey. He liked the ladies and was dumb as nuts. But the show wasn’t a huge multi-billion dollar long-running smash hit because of Chandler, Phoebe and Joey. It was because of Ross and Rachel. Their carefully paced and calibrated story kept people coming back for more and more.

Writing sitcoms is more than just joining up jokes. Yes, Graham Linehan is open about how he writes sitcom scripts, seeing funny set-piece scenes in his mind’s eye and working how to get from one to the next. But don’t do it his way even though he makes it work. Carla Lane, I’m told, didn’t used to plan her episodes of, say, Bread, in advance. Don’t do it her way either. She made it work. (In front of nearly 20 million people, let's not forget) It is unlikely any of us have the exact same skill set as Mr Linehan or Ms Lane. We need to do it like Pixar.

All of this is a long way of saying that sitcoms need characters and stories. You need to get those in place or your jokes just won’t count. A young comedy writer might think he can gag his way out of trouble. A more experienced hand my think the same. After all, who cares about the plot if it’s really funny. But thinking of better jokes won’t help any more than spending a week buffing up a Ford Cortina. At the end of the day, it’s just a Ford Cortina.

So, if you’ve got a good idea for a sitcom, or an episode, go through that Pixar list and ask yourself those difficult questions. Or get some help. Ask someone else who's strong on story and character to help you. In the long-run, it’ll make writing your show much easier.

And then when you're got your brilliant characters and carefully crafted plot, promise me one thing. That you'll write some jokes? Thank you.

Failure is Not Just An Option - It's The Norm

It's all in the title, really. And yet most of us can never get used to this. I think British comedy writers feel this pain especially acutely. Allow me to explain my self-pitying assertion.

Let's back up briefly. I've been listening to lots of Nerdist Writers Podcasts, which are brilliant, by the way. They talk about failure as much as any writer does - which is a lot, even though the writers on these podcasts are broadly speaking quite successful. Some insanely so. Most of us listening are less successful. But there was something else that was bugging me as I was listening in the UK that made me wonder what the difference was. In USA there are plenty of comedy writers who make a really good living working as a staff writer on one of the dozen or so shows in production and the hundreds of pilots to make a pretty decent living. Then there are the comedy-dramas, the thrillers, the medical programmes and the 'procedurals'. In short, there's loads of work out there and essentially it's possible to 'get a job'.

Not Like The USA
Over here in Britain things aren't like they are in America. There are a few long-running shows that are team written but they're all medical (Holby, Casualty and Doctors) and I'm pretty sure they're not run along the lines of those American shows. Other shows, once established, are opened out to others writers but the teams is small and they're not making 26 episodes in a season.

In short, if you want to be a comedy writer, you have to create, pitch and write your own show, which takes ages, while fending off the producer's suggestions about bringing in 'other writers' because this, frankly, may be it. The writer may be living off the script fees and decreasing residuals for some years to come. The writer has to gorge himself because the next feeding frenzy might be years away. Or may never come.

And so writing comedy in Britain is very personal. Which means that failure is all the more painful. But the problem is that failure is so common. The main reason for this is that hundreds of writers, stand-up comedians and writer-performers are churning out scripts trying to get shows on small number of channels with relatively few comedy slots - even though right now things have probably never been better with Sky's spending contest in full flow, Channel 4 spending money on original comedy they previously had to pour into Big Brother, and ITV are supposedly back in the game (even though ITV have said they're serious about making comedy every 18 months since they stopped making Hardware). And Comedy Central and Dave are making original comedy too. And, of course, BBC Radio broadcasts more comedy that all above combined.

Failure
And yet despite a buoyant market, failure is still a borderline certainty. I can vouch for that. All of my modest success have ended in indignant failure. I was very happy writing Think the Unthinkable for Radio 4, which won a Sony Silver, when I was told to stop. I was equally happy writing Hut 33 for Radio 4 when I was also asked to cease and desist. TV versions of both of these were proposed and rejected. I've since proposed two new sitcoms for BBC Radio 4 that have been turned down like bedspreads, as Bertie Wooster would say. I've probably written over half a dozen TV pilot scripts that have come to nothing. One recent one was especially painful since it was a failure that over three years in the non-making.

Part of the Job
Failure is part of the job. The only useful question is how to deal with it and get used to it. And comedy writers, if they're not careful, will apply sitcom logic to their own lives. In sitcoms, everyone gets their just deserts. Our hero triumphs. Kind of. Our villain fails. Sort of. Justice is done. In a way. The point is that in sitcoms, things don't happen for inexplicable reasons. That's bad plotting. But they do in life - and especially in the life of comedy writer. The producer says, "They don't want another series of your show, Mr Cary." You say, "But, the award? And the universally positive reviews? And aren't the cast really popular now..." At least you say that if you're Mr Cary responding to a deus ex machina. So how are we meant to react when we experience failure?

Coping Strategies
Everyone has their own way of coping, but it's always worth bearing a few things in mind: you don't know the real reason for your rejection and you'll probably never. The commissioner and/or controller has totally different concerns from you - and your show is very low down on their list of 'Things to Give a Toss About'. It may be they have a similar show, or think they do. Or are pretending they might. Or they just don't like your show and are using low ratings as an excuse. Or they love it but their boss hates it. Or they never liked it, and they didn't commission it and they're not going to recommission it. Or their sister's boyfriend son said your show sucked. The point is: it doesn't matter. It's not about you or your show. It never was. It was only about you to you.

On this Nerdist podcast, someone explains it well. Either Lawrence, Levine or Hatem. They say the whole business is like a crap shoot - and you only get one of the dice. So you ultimately have no overall control. It's a compelling and, in my opinion, accurate picture.

There's no point getting all worked and stressed about this. Or start scoring points. It doesn't get you anywhere. It's like barking at the moon. This is easier said than done, of course. Not long ago, I was expecting to co-write another series of Another Case of Milton Jones after previous shows were largely well-liked. Radio 4 said something along the lines of 'We feel this format has run it's course.' Who knows what that really means? But anyway, a few weeks later, we won a Sony Silver for the now-cancelled show. There is a temptation to crow and blow raspberries and shout 'daaaah! Told you!' but it doesn't get you anywhere. Radio 4 make their decisions based on criteria that only they truly understand. Even if they knew about the Sony award, it probably wouldn't have made any difference. So, much better to expend that crowing energy on thinking of a new show.

So Now What?
We're writers. We're not in control. And neither should we be in control. But what we do control are the words on the pages of our scripts. All we can do is make them as good as they can be. And try and enjoy that process. And if a TV channel doesn't want to spend £250k per episode shooting my sitcom, then that's not the end of the world, surely? Nobody died. Okay, maybe I didn't get paid, and that's annoying, but if we start looking for cosmic reasons for everything, we're going to get confused, angry and disappointed. Writing's hard enough - without extra confusion, anger and disappointment.

The Larbey