by Linda Venis
The hard truth is that to be noticed enough to get into the business of TV comedy, you will need to write your spec at a higher level than many of the episodes you’ll see on the air. Making all of the stories in your episode strong and funny is one powerful way to reach that higher level.
Theme: It’s Not an Essay You Write in High School
As you get rolling on creating your episode, it’s very helpful to discern the theme, otherwise known as the message or main idea, underlying it. Your goal should be to make this theme a unifying element among your episode’s comedic stories, which makes for more satisfying storytelling as well as strengthens the emotional core.
In the Modern Family episode “Someone to Watch Over Lily,” Mitch and Cam wonder who should be Lily’s legal guardians if anything happens to them. They secretly evaluate other family members to see who would be best. They observe Jay being overly strict with Manny, Claire secretly taking Luke to a child psychologist because she thinks he’s turning out too much like Phil, and Alex and Haley at odds. No one seems right. But then Jay listens to what’s bothering Manny and changes his approach. Phil and Claire sort out their issues, and Alex and Haley reconcile. Cam and Mitch realize no one’s perfect and that acceptance of the imperfections of others is an ingredient essential to love. Acceptance of human imperfection is the unifying theme.
As you can see, the theme doesn’t have to be anything earthshaking. Usually, it’s pretty simple and common, like “family’s the most important thing in life,” or “lies lead to more lies,” or “be true to yourself.” The same theme may be replayed in different episodes; since comic characters don’t really learn or change, yours need not be unique. But if you have a main message for your stories, you’ll find that jokes come more easily and more organically.
Putting Together Your Outline
A Beat Sheet Helps You Crystallize the Story
In the professional world, a beat sheet is usually written preparatory to writing the outline and consists of a short scene-by-scene list of the essential story beats, or plot points, of the episode. In brief, telegraphic descriptions, you write out the specific events that drive the story forward, listing them in the order they occur, and (since this is comedy) possibly throw in a joke or two. Often these plot points are bullet-pointed and not written in paragraphs, and short phrases are used instead of complete sentences. The beat sheet is a document that gives you an overview of the organization of your story, a structural blueprint of cause and effect that’s the basis for building your outline.
The plot points, or story beats, need to build progressively so that the rising action we discussed earlier is in place. As you continue to watch episodes of the series you’re writing for (and continuing to watch episodes of your series is the first item of homework listed for every class session on the syllabus we give students when we teach “Beginning Writing for the Half-Hour Spec Comedy: Building the Story and the Outline” at UCLA Extension), try to chart what the plot points are in a few episodes. Don’t worry so much about the tangential things, the character tics and the jokes; focus on what events happen that are necessary to drive each story forward.
For instance, if a man asks his wife for help with a crossword puzzle, and she can’t figure out the word either, but their nine-year-old daughter gives him the correct answer, that is not necessarily a plot point. But the plot point would happen when in the ensuing conversation the parents learn their smart daughter is failing English. That information is what’s necessary for the story to move forward. Now the husband and wife need to discover why the daughter is failing and will have to go see her teacher.
So a beat sheet for this scene might say:
Int. Kitchen—Day
—Husband and wife learn their smart daughter is failing English
—They call her teacher, set up an appointment
The crossword puzzle is the means by which you get to the important story beat that pushes the couple into the following scene of seeing the teacher, but there are many ways to get to the revelation of the plot point that the daughter’s failing English. The mother could find a report card the daughter’s hiding, or the teacher could call the house. Some writers may wish to include how to get to those critical plot points on the beat sheet, and that’s okay, too. Those details, like the device of the crossword puzzle, can make the story flow more gracefully and capture the writer’s thoughts about how the scenes should be shaped.
But just make sure as you work out your beat sheet that you can clearly see what information you need in each scene to drive the story forward. When the couple goes to see the teacher, then something else will happen they didn’t expect (the girl suddenly becomes a disciplinary problem, or the teacher’s related to the husband’s boss, or whatever it is), and that will drive the plot to the next level. (By the way, if you have a scene that doesn’t have any true plot points, there’s a high likelihood that you may not need that scene in your story.)
Many students are puzzled about what a beat sheet looks like, so the following is an example of how the Cold Open might have been laid out in a beat sheet for the “Party of Six” episode of Happy Endings. (Incidentally, “INT.” indicates an interior scene that’s shot indoors and “EXT.” indicates an exterior scene shot outdoors.)
Sample Beat Sheet for a Cold Open
COLD OPEN
INT. BRAD AND JANE’S LIVING ROOM—NIGHT
—Penny’s birthday, gang waiting for her
—Discuss Penny’s bad birthday luck
—Alex says last year Dave caused the bad luck by bringing a teenage date
INT. BAR—FLASHBACK
—Graphic: “Penny’s 29th Birthday”
—As the gang toasts Penny, Brad accidentally hits her, knocks her out
INT. A NONDESCRIPT ROOM—FLASHBACK
—Graphic: “Penny’s 26th Birthday”
—Max keeps a dog at bay with a long stick, the gang looks on terrified
—Penny’s gift puppy’s a monster
EXT. PARK—FLASHBACK
—Graphic: “Penny’s 7th Birthday”
—A bunch of seven-year-olds crowd around a Clown lying motionless on the ground
—The Clown’s being shocked back to life by two Paramedics
INT. BRAD AND JANE’S LIVING ROOM—THE PRESENT
—Alex suggests Penny’s birthday is cursed
—Jane says they must reverse the curse
—Penny arrives and they’ve planned her birthday dinner at Big Dom’s
—Penny can’t go there. She and her ex-boyfriend split up the restaurants they used to go to; he got Big Dom’s
—Max and Dave let out that they think Penny’s birthday’s cursed
—Penny denies it—the lights go out. Max is leaning on the light switch
—They’ll go to some other restaurant—but no one can think of one
This is just the Cold Open. The writer would then go through, scene by scene, and lay out the rest of the episode in that beat sheet. Note how short and telegraphic the descriptions of what goes on in each scene are. If you watch the episode, you’ll see that a lot of the jokes and tangential riffs that characterize the series are left out of this beat sheet. But the essence of the story, the necessary plot points to get from point A (the beginning) to point Z (the end), starts to get laid out.
Turning Your Beat Sheet into an Outline
After you’ve constructed your entire beat sheet and identified the specific plot points you need to drive your story from start to finish, it’s time to write your outline. In the professional world, outlines are written in complete paragraphs of smooth prose. For example, the outline of the beginning scene in the Cold Open of the “Party of Six” episode of Happy Endings we just looked at might read like what follows.
Sample Outline of First Scene
Cold Open
INT. BRAD AND JANE’S LIVING ROOM—NIGHT
Jane and Alex wrap presents. Brad wonders where Penny is and who shows up an hour late
to her own birthday party. Jane says Penny’s on time because she told them all to come an hour early. Alex complains that Jane shouldn’t go around “daylight-savings-timing people.”
Dave appears and asks if his solid green shirt makes him look too much like a tree. Max adopts a New Yorker’s accent and jokes that Dave looks like a “tree outta ten at best.” Then Max can’t get rid of his New Yorker accent and says he’s “stuck in a Pacino. Hoo-ah!”
Jane tells them she doesn’t want a repeat of Penny’s birthday last year, the one that was ruined by Dave and Alex. Alex says it’ll be fine if Dave doesn’t bring a date from Degrassi Junior High. Brad points out that Penny’s had a lot of bad birthdays.
At that point, the Cold Open goes into flashbacks of Penny’s previous bad birthdays. But you see how the brief descriptions of the beat sheet are filled in. The main plot points are that it’s Penny’s birthday; she’s had so many bad birthdays they wonder if her birthday is cursed; Alex accuses Dave of ruining last year’s birthday by bringing a teenager as a date (who will happen to show up later in the episode and drive the story forward); and Penny says they can’t go to the restaurant they planned to. Those things are absolutely necessary to the story, and that’s what’s in the beat sheet. But in the outline, the characters are all given attitudes, jokes are inserted, and a fuller sense of how the scene would play out in the script is achieved.
For instance, Jane’s lying to everyone about when to show up is utterly typical of her controlling character. Alex, who plays the most intellectually challenged in the group, is given a “dumb joke,” and some funny and characteristic byplay between Dave and Max is inserted. Elaborating on the characters’ traits, inserting examples of jokes that fit the characters, and lightly filling in the scene is what you need to do as you move from the basic plot points (the beat sheet) to the fuller exposition of the episode (the outline).
Here Comes Your Outline!
Okay, you’ve gone through the process. You got to know your show intimately, then came up with spitball ideas and developed them a bit more into springboards. Next you took on the really hard part, breaking the story, figuring out how your beginning leads through the middle and gets to the end. Now you’ve written your beat sheet, hashing out the important story beats (or plot points) and knowing what will happen scene by scene. You’re ready to write the outline. You will revise whatever you find doesn’t flow quite right in the beat sheet, and you’ll fill in the scenes more fully, adding some of the jokes and details.
And now it’s up to you. We’ve shared with you what you need to know and detailed the process that works for us, for the professional writers we’ve known, and for the many students we’ve taught. It’s your outline, so now write it. May the force (or farce) be with you, have fun with it, and we’ll see you in chapter 6!
CHAPTER 6
Writing the On-Air Half-Hour Comedy Spec: The Script
by Julie Chambers and David Chambers
Congratulations! You have an outline. Seriously, hurray for you. Patting yourself on the back may feel a little awkward, but quick—while no one is looking—do it anyway. Like we told you in the previous chapter, you’ve done the heavy lifting. Now you can go to script. Of course, you’ll always need to make adjustments as you go along, alter story beats, squeeze in jokes, but that’s part of the fun. It’s a puzzle, and since you already have most of the structural pieces in place, it will be a lot easier to put it all together.
Before You Start Writing Your First Draft
So, now you’re ready for that fun part—writing the script—right? Almost.
Before you start, there are a few things to consider. Here’s a checklist of what we discussed in chapter 5 that you might want to review. Use it to make sure you are ready to move ahead to writing the script from your outline.
You’re writing an episode for a show that’s currently on the air.
You’ve watched the show a whole lot.
You’ve investigated the show online.
You’ve found scripts for the show.
Your outline has a similar number of scenes as a typical episode of the show.
You minimize the use of outside sets.
Your main story is about the lead character on the series.
You avoid changes in the dynamics of relationships on the show.
You do not use significant outside characters.
Your episode is self-contained.
You have a clear beginning, middle, and end to your story.
The story is fully motivated. Both the story logic and character logic make sense.
Your episode occurs in a believable time frame that’s typical to the series.
Each scene moves the story forward.
Your use of A, B, and C stories and runners matches how the series works.
Your story has rising action.
You begin the way the series episodes typically start.
You have a theme to your episode.
You’ve spelled the characters’ names correctly.
Start Writing Your First Draft!
Now that you’ve looked over your outline closely and made any adjustments to your story so that you’ve fully dealt with our first checklist, you’re ready to write the script.
Set Yourself Up with the “Write” Schedule
What’s the first thing you do? Make sure you set yourself goals. When you work on a series, it’s easy enough to do. It’s your job and you’re getting paid. Having between us written for over twenty prime-time half-hour comedies, we know and appreciate the structure that offers. On a series, you have deadlines, colleagues who depend on you, and you get it done. The necessity of getting a show written and on the air provides a sense of urgency. When we teach half-hour comedy writing classes at UCLA Extension, we give our students deadlines and assignments, too. They know they have specific goals to reach by certain dates. It is very helpful to students to push themselves and their work forward.
If you’re not getting paid, in a class, or in a writers’ group, then it’s up to you to motivate yourself. Of course, in a sense every writer has to do that, since no one gets into the game without producing really good material before he ever gets paid for it.
Which goal should you establish first? Simply try to put aside a certain amount of time—per day or per week (everyone’s schedule and personal obligations are different)—to write. Tell your spouse, your roommate, your mom, your friends, your kids—anyone in your regular life whom you need to clear out time to write. You’re not being antisocial or turning into a hermit, but you have something you are passionate about and want to do, and they need to understand that. The next goal is to get a specified amount of work done in each writing session. Today you say you’ll finish the third scene. But if you don’t finish the third scene, don’t worry so much about it. Maybe you were being too ambitious, or maybe there was a tricky complication to the end of the scene that you need a little more time to figure out, or maybe your dog got sick and you had to take him to the vet. Don’t beat yourself up. Just try to reach that goal the next time you write.
Think and Write in Screen Time
As you write, always remember to think in screen time. You are writing specific actions in a visual medium. Those actions take place on-screen in less than twenty-two minutes. If you’re writing a novel, you can say, “She came home and opened a bottle of champagne.” That takes two seconds to read. On-screen that takes two minutes, and no one wants to watch it (unless there’s a lot of witty dialogue going on at the same time). Visualize exactly what pictures you want to see on-screen that will accompany your dialogue. If you don’t think in screen time now as you write, when you rewrite you’ll have to rethink a lot of what you put down.
Don’t Novelize
Going hand in hand with thinking in screen time is this: Do not novelize. Remember that all information is conveyed to the audience either visually or through dialogue. No one watching a television show is reading the stage directions. So do no
t write into your stage directions things like this: “Clarice enters. She’s Gretchen’s best friend from high school, and they used to have so much fun together, until they had that bad falling out over a guy. They haven’t seen each other in a few years, lost touch for a while, but both are hoping to repair their old friendship.”
It’s great for you, the writer, to have that in mind about the relationship between the two characters, but there is no pamphlet that comes with the episode for the audience to read. You have to get the information about their relationship into your dialogue and your visuals. If you always remember that those are the only ways you communicate with the audience—through dialogue and visuals—then you won’t have to go back and root out a lot of novelization as you rewrite.
Keep Up the Pace!
With each scene you write, try to remember this mantra: Start late, get out early. You want your script to zip along, have drive and momentum, and pull the reader forward. One of the best ways to do that is to eliminate whatever is unnecessary. You may be in love with a joke and it may be a killer laugh, but if it takes three-quarters of a page to get to that joke before the scene really starts, if it doesn’t drive the story forward, you should probably lose it. If you have a funny run between two characters that really cracks you up, but it takes up a page after the point of the scene is really over, you should seriously consider letting it go.
