Insight - Adventures of an Aspiring Sitcom Writer

An aspiring writer, who is now well on the way to his first commission, has kindly provided us with this article in which he tells his story so far and offers useful tips and advice to other writers in a similar position. As he is currently waiting to hear from a production company re. a script submission, he has asked us not to reveal his name at this moment in time.

The story starts in October 2004. After years of suffering countless mind numbingly bad sitcoms and telling anyone who would listen that “I could do better than that”, I finally decide to sit down and have a bash at my own script. I have visions of this taking up several months of my life, but I'm pleasantly surprised to find that I produce a first draft in three weeks. At this point, I should stress that this has more to do with the years of preparation I've put in than with me being a genius who can turn out scripts with little or no effort.

A month or so of rewrites and I've got what I believe is a strong script with funny situations and likeable characters, so next stop the TV production companies. I'm dismayed to find that many of these companies won't even look at unsolicited scripts unless they are sent via an agent (and some won't even lower themselves to do that). Thankfully, however, there are forward thinking people in the business who are on the hunt for the 'next big thing'. It's the beginning of 2005... I send the script to two companies and wait to hear back. In the meantime, I start work on a second sitcom.

At this point, I'll take a detour and mention some resources etc that were of use to me whilst writing my first script. In terms of 'How to write a sitcom' type books, there are plenty of these floating around... some good, some giving weight to the old adage that those who can do, those who can't teach. IMHO, the best two are 'Writing Sitcoms' by John Byrne and Marcus Powell and 'How to be a Sitcom Writer' by Marc Blake.

Whilst these books are certainly worth a read, nothing beats obsessively watching and re-watching sitcoms and drawing your own conclusions about what does and doesn't work. At the end of this article is a list of my top 20 sitcoms. Do you agree with my choices? Which shows do you particularly like and why? Are there any that you dislike and again, if so, why? When it comes to scouring the sitcom back catalogue, I should stress that it pays to watch the good, the bad and the ugly, as sometimes you can learn more from a bad show than a good one. This needn't put a dent in your wallet as you'll find a wealth of programmes filling up the schedules of such channels as Paramount, E4, ITV 2, Sky One and UK TV Gold. Devour everything that's on offer, analyse the programmes to death.

In my case, I religiously watched and studied Seinfeld. I know that a lot of people in this country don't get America's finest sitcom, which has always struck me as odd as much of the show's 'glass half empty rather than half full' brand of humour is very British in my view, but that's for another article. There is so much that the aspiring writer can take from it, such as how to create 'real' characters.

Like all memorable inhabitants of the sitcom world, Jerry, Kramer, George and Elaine are stereotypes, primarily created to move the storylines along at a rapid pace - the wise-cracking leader of the gang, the 'hipster doofus' who lives in a world of his own, the neurotic dogged by his eccentric parents, the 30-something career girl with a spectacularly unsuccessful love life... Hardly groundbreaking stuff. As unconventional as Seinfeld's set ups and pay offs could be, at its core were believable characters whose actions, no matter how outlandish, always seemed to be within the realms of possibility. America took these self obsessed misfits to its heart to the extent that the final episode is one of the highest rated US programmes of all time and, even though it ended in 1998, Seinfeld still generates more revenue, through syndication, than many of the current crop of shows. This owes a lot to the fact that we've all met a George or an Elaine somewhere along the road - again, another article in itself.

The point being - when you're writing, continually ask yourself - are my characters bigger than the recognisable stereotypes that gave life to them? If not, put them out of their misery before they sabotage your script. It sounds obvious, but you see so many lifeless sitcoms where the writer(s) appear to have ignored this basic rule, where the characters' only purpose in life is to operate as the butt of their creator's (mostly bad) jokes.

As the old saying goes, 'write what you know'. Base your characters on quirks, mannerisms etc displayed by friends, family, work colleagues. The absurdities of everyday life throw up more than their fair share of amusing characters and situations. Draw inspiration from these. People watching is very useful, be it on the journey in to work or in the pub after a hard day at the office.

As tiny Tom Cruise remarks in Vanilla Sky... "the little things, there's nothing bigger". I read a script recently which featured a record company executive. All the clichés were in evidence – i.e. he was a mobile phone-wielding, vain, pretentious arse. In short, it was obvious that the writer had never actually crossed paths with a record company executive. As a result, he had created a one dimensional character who failed to sustain the reader's interest and, even worse, was really rather annoying.

Back to my attempts to take the sitcom world by, ahem, storm... It's March 2005. After a couple of months of waiting, I open my mailbox to find replies from both of the companies that I've sent my script to – you wait months for a reply and then two of them come along at once – life, eh? The first tells me that they enjoyed reading my script and my writing shows promise (they also, very kindly, give me a few tips on how to improve the script) but that the set up was not quite original enough to make a broadcaster really sit up and bite. The second also says that the script was good but a bit too familiar. It goes on, however, to inform me that my writing has a lot of potential and ends with a request to see another sample of my work. Fortunately, as previously mentioned, I've been working on a second script, which has just been completed. It's soon winging its way to the production company.

And so the waiting continues... The 'How to...' books warn you about the waiting game, but you only really get a sense of the frustration involved when it happens to you. Deal with it by putting it to the back of your mind (difficult, I'll admit) and pressing ahead with another project. You can't control the production company's decision making process – the one thing you can control is your writing and the more you chain yourself to your computer and bash out those pages, the better you'll become.

If you are about to embark on your first sitcom script, I wish you all the best. Like all forms of creative writing, it's a frustrating, long winded, but ultimately rewarding process. Even if you don't eventually get a commission, it's still a great feeling to write a line that works or to give life to characters that draw a response from people. Good luck and, in the meantime, if you have any comments about this article, feel free to email me at: sitcomwriter@btconnect.com