by Linda Venis
As the noted funnyman William Faulkner reputedly said, “In writing you must kill your darlings.” It’s true. One of the signs of mature comedy writing is being willing to cut great jokes and funny material if it gets in the way of the most streamlined way to tell your story.
Motivate Your Characters’ Movements
As you enter and exit characters, make sure they have a motive for coming or going. They cannot just flit in and out of a scene for the convenience of the writer. They need a reason to enter or to exit a scene. They also need a reason for being in the scene if they’re present when the scene starts. Why characters are where they are, and why they come and go, has to be true to character logic and story logic, not just your desire to get them where you, the writer, need them to be for your story to work.
Don’t Try to Be the Director
Minimize your stage directions. The truth is that stage directions are not read very carefully, occasionally not even by Savvy Readers (i.e., agents, executives, working writers). What people do read is the dialogue, so don’t clog up your episode with lots of stage directions. And if you keep your stage directions sparse, many might even get read.
Avoid camera directions. You’re the writer, not the director. There are very few exceptions to this. One is if you need to see something important to your story that the camera is not going to be able to read in a normal shot (like the title of a book, a picture in someone’s wallet, etc.). In that case, call for a close-up in a separate paragraph of your stage directions. Another exception is if you have an important joke that requires a particular camera shot. Again, if so, then call for it (like a tilt-down to his unzipped fly). Another is…well, we can’t think of any others. So, avoid camera directions.
Adjust as You Go Along
Don’t be afraid to make a few departures from your outline as you write. Your outline, as good as it is, was not brought down from a mountaintop inscribed on a stone tablet. If you find you’ve discovered a better and funnier take on a scene, or a different and cleverer way to work one of the story lines, go ahead and pursue that.
Before you jump ahead with a lot of alteration to the story, though, you may want to chart out how the revised story line would play out. You don’t want to write yourself into a funny situation that you can’t find a way out of. So, think it through. It’s not necessary to go back and do a whole new outline, but a little effort spent figuring out if your brilliant new idea will carry through to the end is time well spent.
Don’t Obsess over Jokes Right Now
Don’t overworry about jokes right now. We know you’re writing comedy, but don’t obsess about jokes as you work your way through your first draft. In fact, feel free to write your scenes dramatically. That helps you write naturalistic dialogue, without concerning yourself about cramming in jokes. Once you have written that baseline of realistic conversation, where the characters are speaking with genuine emotion, then on subsequent passes through the script, the jokes will flow much more naturally out of your dialogue.
If you start writing by thinking only of setup, joke, setup, joke, then it may be difficult as you rewrite to get your script to read smoothly. The Savvy Reader may find your finished product “too jokey,” meaning there are plenty of jokes in the script, but the dialogue does not flow naturally.
Jokes are great and absolutely necessary, but the story is what really pulls the reader through the script. To paraphrase the mantra in Field of Dreams, “If you build the story, the jokes will come.” When your story is working, and you know the show and the characters you’re writing, the jokes will not be that difficult to discover. Of course, if you have jokes you want to put in along the way, by all means go ahead and do that. But on your first draft, do not worry so much about jokes. Does that take a load off your mind? (We’ll have more to say about jokes later.)
Write to “The End”!
Keep moving forward. You want to write “The End.” One of the classic ways of not getting a script finished is to start on page one every day and rewrite from there. The problem with that method is that you usually don’t go too far. A lot of people who follow this pattern will never get to the end. Remember, this is your first draft, not perfection. You may approach perfection, but it won’t be until you’ve rewritten your script a few times.
Legend has it that another well-known funnyman, Ernest Hemingway, claimed that, “The first draft of anything is shit.” You first must write badly to write well in the end. A great script does not spring out of your mind and directly onto the page. You have to get something less than perfect on the page, something that can be worked, massaged, and improved into a script that’s good enough to ask another person to take the time and effort to read.
That being said, it’s okay to start each new writing session by going over the work that you did in your previous writing session. That can help get the juices flowing and ease you into the flow of where you are in the script. But just make a few adjustments to what you did the last time and use that momentum to push you forward. If you’re in the second act and have a brilliant idea about something that should go in the first act, by all means go back and make a note of it; perhaps even write in the dialogue so you don’t lose it. That sort of story tweak may affect what you’re going to do later in the second act, so it can be a good idea to get it in there in its proper place.
But do not make a practice of backtracking to put in everything you think of that will fit in earlier than where you’re scripting right now. Make a note of your new idea, and then trudge back to the coalface, which in your case is the blank page ahead.
Sit Down and Do It
Okay, now sit down with your preferred writing mode—legal pad, computer, stone tablet, whatever. As the noted wit Dorothy Parker once said, “Writing is the art of applying the ass to the seat.” So, start writing!
The Chambers “Start Writing Your First Draft” Checklist
Set goals for yourself.
Think in screen time.
Do not novelize.
Start scenes late, get out of scenes early.
Motivate each entrance and exit with character logic, not authorial desire.
Minimize stage directions and avoid camera directions.
Don’t be afraid to make a few departures from your outline.
Don’t obsess about jokes now.
Keep moving forward.
Apply your ass to the seat and write.
After You’ve Written Your First Draft…
Write the Second
Congratulations again! You finished your first draft and typed “The End” (which may be the only words you don’t change when you rewrite). Getting to the end is very important. Johnny, tell us what prize you get for finishing your first draft… The chance to improve it greatly by writing a second draft!
Problems Can Be Opportunities
As you go back over what you’ve written, look for problems and opportunities. Problems must be fixed, and comic opportunities should be exploited. Many times, a problem is an opportunity, not only to fix that particular problem, but also to make you think and ruminate, finding better ways to tell your story, ways that will elevate your script to a higher level.
Keep Following the Footprint of the Show
What’s your page count? After you get your second draft finished, you’re going to want that number to be consistent with the average for an episode of your series. Each series is different, but generally, a single-camera show will be around thirty to thirty-two pages and a multiple-camera show will be around forty to forty-five pages. The series you are writing may vary from those numbers, but just be sure you are in tune with the page count of your series. Under no circumstances should your single-camera show exceed thirty-five pages or your multiple-camera show exceed forty-nine pages.
The very first thing every Savvy Reader does when looking at anyone’s script is to turn to the last page and check the page count. If you’re a little long now, that’s good. We’re sure there’s some stu
ff you can cut or compress. If your page count is short after your first draft, then your story probably needs a further complication and you’ll have to think hard about adding another difficulty or two along the way that your characters will have to deal with.
Sprint off the Starting Line
Does your story get off to a fast start? You don’t have to establish the “normal world” like you do if you’re writing a screenplay. The audience knows the “normal world”—they’ve seen the show, so don’t tread water in the normal world of the series for very long at all. You need to get your inciting incident in early and kick off your story.
Do you have at least one really good joke on the first page? We told you earlier not to worry too much about jokes as you write your first draft. Okay, now you need to think about jokes, and that first joke on page 1 is very important. If you don’t have something funny right away, the Savvy Reader may not even bother to turn to page 2. Now, if you don’t have a solid joke there just yet, don’t worry. But you definitely must try to think of a good joke, or two or three, to start off the first page of your show.
You can’t let up after that either. The old rule of thumb in a multiple-camera show was three jokes per page, and while that may not be exactly how the series you’re writing works (especially if it’s a single-camera show with more subtle smiles than big belly laughs), it’s not a bad thing to shoot for.
Smooth in the Exposition
Writers have a name for putting in the story exposition; they call it “laying pipe.” In a house the pipe’s behind the finished drywall. It’s working, but it’s not visible. Have you laid your “pipe” skillfully? It’s fine if the exposition is pretty baldly stated in your first draft, but as you go back through it, think of how you can reveal it as naturally as possible. (For instance, a character shouldn’t blurt out, “Now I have to go to my mom’s to feed her dog that always bites my leg.” Instead he might be walking funny and his friend asks if he’s okay. He explains he’s fine but is wearing three pairs of jeans, then has to explain why—so when his mom’s dog bites his leg it won’t break the skin.)
Be True to the Characters
Have you done what writers call “servicing” all the regular characters on the series? Those actors get paid to show up each week and all have their comic functions on the show. Make sure each one has something to do, and a good joke or two. (The only exception to this is the rare show that has a huge roster of characters, like The Office, or The Simpsons, which over twenty seasons on the air has populated an entire town of people. So, if you’re writing a show like that, you don’t have to have a line for Meredith or a story involving Flanders.)
Do the characters sound like themselves? If you listen carefully to the speeches of the regular characters, you’ll find that each has particular quirks and modes of expression. Some speak with proper grammar, some use double negatives, some speak in monosyllables, some use complex sentence structure, some use large words, some misuse words, some are proper, some are vulgar. Some characters have catchphrases, like Jay on Modern Family saying, “Of course you did,” or Michael on The Office saying, “That’s what she said.” (Beware of overusing catchphrases, however, since it can sound like you couldn’t come up with your own joke.) As you rewrite, shape the characters’ dialogue so that it sounds the same way they speak on the show.
Check Your Act Breaks
Are your act breaks spaced as evenly as possible? If your show is in a two-act format, is the act break near the middle? If it’s a three-act format, are the acts of approximately equal length? There’s a fair amount of wiggle room in this, depending on how best to tell your story, but a twenty-three-page first act and a seven-page second act would definitely be out of balance and a red flag to the Savvy Reader.
Does your act break pop? Ideally, each act break is a cliffhanger and a big joke. But act breaks really do need to be at least one or the other of those. Why? Because the show goes to a string of commercials out of an act break. Viewers can change the channel, and often do, or they may go get a soda and snack. You want them to be sure to change the channel back, or hurry away from the kitchen, because they want to see what happens next on your show. A cliffhanger—what’s going to happen now?—or a big joke is the surest way to hold your audience through the commercial break.
For example, in the Modern Family episode “Starry Night,” Mitch and Jay drive out in the country to go stargazing. Mitch takes a walk in the woods to have some time all alone but comes back shouting that he was sprayed by a skunk. That’s the act break. The joke is in his being sprayed and his hysteria, but we also are curious about what happens next. Will an army of skunks show up? How will Mitch get rid of the smell?
The Savvy Reader will be looking closely to see that your act breaks are compelling. Now, you may notice that series on the air occasionally have a lame act break. That doesn’t give you the freedom to have a mediocre act break in your script. Those writers already have the gig, but you’re trying to get a gig. The writers probably had a good act break but had to cut it for time or because it didn’t drive the story. You’re trying to prove you can do the job at a high level, so you don’t have the luxury of an act break that sighs instead of sings.
Endings Matter
Do you have a solid ending to each scene, preferably a joke ending? Writers call the last line of a scene the blow, or the blackout, or the button. Your scenes should not trail off without a joke or end abruptly without a joke. You may not need a joke to end absolutely every scene, but you should end every scene with some kind of clever and driving finish. And, most of the time, that should be a joke.
You Have to Earn Your Resolutions
Do you resolve things too easily? The characters need to have goals, obstacles to those goals, and unanticipated complications as a result of dealing with those obstacles. It is not satisfying storytelling if the characters solve their problems with ease. If a mom has to pick up two kids in two different locations at the same time, and she simply calls her sister and asks her to pick up one of the kids, then you have a small obstacle that’s easily overcome, with no complications. That’s boring. If the sister says she’ll do it but misunderstands which kid she’s supposed to pick up, and she and the mom wind up picking up the same kid, then you have what looked like an easy solution get complicated.
Rationing the Information
Have you overexplained or underexplained things? Sometimes, as a writer, you want to lay something in so clearly that you overdo it. And sometimes, you have something so deep in your own head that you think it must be clear on the page, but it isn’t really. So, as you work through your script again, check to make sure that the information that needs to be out there is clear but that you haven’t gone overboard in explaining things.
One of the most common ways of overexplaining is to repeat information the audience already knows. If someone tells John that Mary is coming over this afternoon in one scene, don’t have someone else tell him again in the next scene (unless, of course, you’re doing it for comic effect, to heighten John’s anxiety, annoyance, or whatever emotion you’re milking for comedy with John’s attitude toward Mary). Telling the audience something they already know is not only boring but also a waste of precious screen time, and you have less than twenty-two minutes to tell your story. Even if you’re writing a sitcom that’s on a pay cable channel like HBO, in which case you have twenty-seven to twenty-eight minutes, you still don’t want to tell the audience things they already know.
Now It’s About the Jokes
Now you need to start to think funny. The Brits call this “tickling the script,” and it’s the most fun part of the process. How do you do this? The most important thing is simple—think like the characters. The best laughs always come out of character.
Situation is important, but the character who’s terribly cheap and is in a situation where he has to spend money is much funnier than the generous guy in the same spot. So, lean on the character’s attitude. If a character i
s sarcastic, instead of her saying, “I don’t know,” maybe she says, “I don’t know why you think I care.” If a character isn’t too smart, let him be as dumb as he can believably be. Think about each character on the series, since each has his or her own comic flaws—she’s pompous, he’s oversensitive, she’s naïve, he’s bitter, she’s a pushover, he’s a glutton, and on and on. You know the characters on your show, so use their weaknesses to strengthen your comedy. Exaggerate their character traits, and remember that it’s not always about overplaying a reaction; sometimes the exaggeration is in underplaying, which can work surprisingly well, depending on character and situation.
A secret every comedy writer knows is that the setup is more important than the punch line. If you have a good setup, either in a situation or in a verbal joke, the punch line is easy. So pay close attention to your setups, and know that the jokes will readily follow.
Look for comic turns. If a character says he’d never interfere in someone’s business (the setup), then show him turning around and interfering in that business (the punch). The audience expects that and is gratified to see it.
Another trick is to look for callbacks, something you have established earlier in the script, perhaps something that wasn’t even a joke, that can be mined later for humor. If a character in the first act says her unlucky number is three (the setup), in the second act have three IRS inspectors show up to her audit (the punch). An example from a series is in the “Andy’s Play” episode of The Office. It’s established that Michael auditioned for a community theater production but wasn’t cast. When he goes to see Andy in the play, an usher asks Michael, “Are you the guy that did an entire Law and Order episode for his audition?” Michael denies it, but in the Tag, which is the very short segment prior to the end of the show and after the last commercial, Michael is onstage at the community theater auditioning and he starts reciting, by heart, the boilerplate opening lines of Law and Order.
