Writing Sitcom Summary

1.       Premise

·         3 Comic tales: The individual (larger than life, monster or lone warrior), or a mismatched couple forced together through circumstance, or the ensemble.

·         Worth investing 4-5 seasons in? Audience and/or producers.

·         Popular sitcoms are relatable and speak to an important part of people’s lives. If it’s really about something, people can withstand lousy jokes. Create a convincing and relatable world.

·         Important to combine genres and break norms. “Doing something familiar with a twist.” 

·         The premise is the show itself, a person in a place with a goal. (Lee’s Not yet Going Out with Lucy)

2.       Plot

·         The plot is what characters do in that premise (impress her or thwart her guys).

·         Characters must drive plot. They need depth, wants, needs, particular ways of handling problems.

·         Plot is not an event or situation. Or series of events. There can however be an inciting incident. Plot is quest, escalation and destination.

·         Layers of Quest: You’ve got the quest of the premise of the show, then the quest of that particular episode, then all the mini quests to achieve that episodes quest. You want another character being antagonist to main quest like Tim being Lucy’s brother.

·         The plot escalates because they don’t handle it like a normal person and make things worse. They get in and out of trouble with their strengths/weaknesses. They could also escalate because another charc is trying to hinder or help.

·         6-10 beats. Think about how they will react, think about your options and trace them all out and go with the funniest and most humiliating/uncomfortable. One way to think about the stakes being raised is can it defeat the entire premise of the show and make it seem like it could end by the end of the episode. Now that is high stakes. Think about all the different ways your premise of show could be achieved or broken.

·         Common Form

Ø  State goal. Overconfidence. No plan and then first fail.

Ø  Goal now harder and bigger plan needed. Plan attempted didn’t address real issue and second fail.

Ø  Other characters enraged and need to be pacified while achieving a goal that is even harder now. Unmitigated total failure number 3.

Ø  Goal is miles away and status quo ruined. Character wishes things went back to normal. Lifeline, choice to make, truth acknowledged, maybe goal partially achieved but no longer relevant.

Ø  They cannot have an easy escape route.

·         Endings:

Ø  True plot is emotional/moral resolution. Physical endings don’t matter because its fiction. You can change it whenever.

Ø  Build to peak moment. As embarrassing as it can be. Keep asking how it could be worse. (Why so many episodes/movies end in crowded places).

Ø  Stories don’t even have to include the actual consequences of all the shananigans just the indicate that they are coming.

·         Brainstorm plots and filter based on whether characters can be brought into conflict, and if it’s fresh and never been seen on tv, and if it relies on outside characters, if it causes characters to act out of character. Your life is the starting point for plots. Larry David quit his job and pretended it didn’t happen and made that a story for George Kostanza. Don’t be afraid to fictionalize, the emotional truth is more important than historical accuracy.

3.       Messsage/Theme

·         Sending Zap to a sensitivtiy training comes off as preachy when they should have sent him to a planet to experience the what he was doing. There’s emotional lesson with inward realization rather than an externally forced awakening.

·         You find your theme by think about what your passionate about and what makes you angry and what you feel guilty about. Wha do you want to say about the human condition? How are you using protag/antag to convey this? How are these present in scenes?

·         Sitcoms can touch on dark themes with parody and replacement. For example, the Golden Girls episode has a little girl representing a mafia gangster and a teddy bear as a kidnapped loved one.

4.       Pilot

·         Don’t do backstory until later in series when audience actually cares about them. Whatever the premise or setup for show is, let it have already happened. Some don’t stick to this but just do it.

·         First 3 mins should hook exec. Capture interest fast. But introduce everything at digestible pace.  

·         Leave you wanting more, perhaps with unanswered questions. And having shown the trajectory of relationship dynamics.

·         Why are we going to enjoy spending time with them? Jokes will wear thin after a while because audience will be waiting for something to happen.

·         Start in the middle. Don’t waste time introducing the world with the tour of the routine and workplace. It leaves your character passive and less interesting. And it’s cliché. Let your characters start charactering asap.

·         The first third should be set up and the rest should be a typical story the viewer can expect to see again. Nothing wrong with there being a newcomer in the show that isn’t main character and using them to do exposition.

5.       Characters

·         When you know everything about them, you can make them do whatever you want with plausible carrot and stick. You can make them act out of charc for your purposes. You can pit their own traits against themselves and other charcs. Loves vs other loves. Loves vs fears. Loves vs weaknesses. Fears vs weaknesses, etc it is almost limitless. 

·         They Should Be: proactive, discontent, distinct, relatable/believable, unteachable, lack self-awareness, original but recognisable, multidimensional but easily understood, imbalanced in some way.

·         They Need: wants/needs, strengths/weaknesses, fears, hopes/comforts, perspective, perception, traits.

·         Need a reason to be desperately determined.

·         You can only know a character by the decisions they make.

6.       Scenes

·         Step 1: Plot story (300-400 words). Activate, escalate, resolve. Clear ‘all is lost’ moment.

·         Step 2: Outline all scenes and what happens and how it leads to the next. This is you writing the instruction manual on how to write your script. Purposes, goals, change of situation, character qualities being challenged. Every scene needs to know why its there and be achieving something.

Ø  What is the character’s status quo? It should always change whether its slightly or profoundly.

Ø  Whose scene is it? (who has the biggest want that is influencing the events)

Ø  What does the character want?

Ø  What is the question of the scene? (what will emit hope or fear in audience)

Ø  How do they go about getting it?

Ø  What is the conflict?

Ø  What do we learn about character and plot?

Ø  How does main character change?

Ø  What is being revealed that’s not overt in the dialogue?

Ø  What dialogue can you replace with action or images?

Ø  What 6 beats are present?

Ø  What new piece of info sends everything into the next scene?

Ø  Would this scene work better as 2 scenes with different dramatic questions?

·         Try to give all characters in a scene an agenda so theyre not just reactive.

·         Each scene should be ramping up to something/getting more interesting. Not just series of events. 

·         Why does this scene need to be captured? Don’t waste time on moments that can be implied/assumed if you don’t need to for humor or plot.

·         End scenes on throwback jokes. Makes the whole thing seem carefully constructed to lead to that point. Or end scenes in a way that clearly sends you into the next one.

·         Should end much differently to how it starts. Slow or fast, calm or angry, should shift. Status shifts too. Goals have changed.

·         Tension is the built up fears and hopes you create in audience. You have to know every single possible question you are posing in every single moment of story. Where possible refine the question to better illuminate the theme, plot or character. Or rewrite scene to better reflect question. Every thought or question that can come up in the mind of audience has to already have come up in yours. There should be a cycle of this tension and release.

·         Every scene should have 3 acts (Setup, complication, consequences) and 6 beats. This is a distilled excerpt. See how this also applies to sketch writing:

Ø  “long time no see” (Intro of conflict/inciting incident)

Ø  “can I see him” (want/objective)

Ø  “why are you really here” (midpoint/furthest from goal)

Ø  “Ive booked a table for lunch” (reversal/change of strategy)

Ø  “please jenny” (culmination)

Ø  “he’s my dad I miss him” (twist)

Ø  “she agrees” (resolution)

·         As well as being aware of what questions you are posing, be aware at what you are already conveying. Look at how much exposition you can get out of just that: hasn’t visited for ages, not liked or trusted by nurse, wants to go for lunch, etc.

·         Scenewriting by Simon van der Bourgh has a comprehensive checklist for editing and rewriting I need to go back through Pages 250-259. Its also probably worth going back through the exercises and havinga crack at some point.

·         Gather all questions like this and attempt to analyze a NGO scene

7.       Dialogue

·         Think about what you can convey without dialogue

·         Dialogue is the illusion of a conversation. It is easier when you’re focused on characters, situation and storylines.

·         Step 1 is doing all your plotting for the ep. Step 2 is writing every scene with just the motivations and subtexts. Step 3 is decorating it with jokes.

·         If struggling for dialogue may need to listen to characters. If that doesn’t work, tweak your characters or your plot.  

·         Make sure they sound original, like Dwight, “he doesn’t have a girlfriend or land!”

·         Every line should be revealing character or progressing story or a gag. Ideally at least 2 of these.  

8.       Rewriting

·         The art of writing is rewriting. He says it a lot in this book.

·         Action: Can the escalation be sped up? Do attempts to solve make things worse? Are the stakes high enough? Are chracters driving plot? Does it start and end in a way that grips you and leaves you wanting more? Was status quo challenged and reset?

·         Brevity: Can you employ more show don’t tell? Communicate information with an image or a look? Are there lines and scenes that don’t accomplish anything?

·         Clarity: Is it clear? The jokes? The wants? The motivations? The quest? The obstacles? The result?

·         Draft: There’s always going to be a second draft! Just put this here to keep the alphabetical list going. Does the whole plot fit nicely into the plot of the show?

·         Ends: Does every scene end with a joke and if not why? It’s fine if you have a good enough reason.

·         Flaws: Are you utilizing character traits and flaws to be the problem and solution?

·         Humor: Are the jokes very high quality?

·         Is there a good opportunity to play one of your favorite songs? Or include any other easter egg?   

·         Are the characters/situations relatable?

·         Common Mistakes:

Ø  Writing an exchange of jokes and not a story.

Ø  Or a series of funny incidents not a sitcom.

Ø  Writing fan fiction not sitcom. A tribute or loveletter to a sitcom rather than sitcom. An example of a dud would be writing something that could be inserted into any sitcom because its not based in characters.

Ø  Don’t write what you think people want.

Ø  Introducing people or ideas and themes too late into it.

Ø  Backstory is the enemy of comedy. Save it for an episode that can be a flashback when people actually care about the characters.