Monday 17^th August 2020

I’m a little restless at the moment. I’m not trying to start any major project right now as it’s possible that I might need to switch to something else in the coming weeks.

So now’s the perfect time to play with things and work on my craft. As much as I hate flitting between things, it’ll both keep me occupied and teach me new skills.

Today I’ve been investigating the idea of a TV sitcom I have. I wouldn’t say I’m particularly funny, but I like to think my work has some humour to it. I’m better when I’ve had time to think and revise.

It’s something a bit alien in terms of writing and as such I’m learning a lot as I watch and read up about comedy and TV scripts. Yet at the core, it’s still story, it’s still character, it’s still plot.

I’ve been taking a lot of notes as I’ve been doing my research. That’s definitely something I’ve been doing more of lately. Even when – as was the case today – it’s about character and things I already know, noting others’ observations on areas of writing I feel I have a good handle on, is an interesting thing to do. It may come in helpful when I dive deeper and need to understand the angle the advice-giver has taken.

It’s been useful as well. I’d been approaching the sitcom from the point of the setup, whereas instead advice seems to be to tackle it from the point of character. The situation isn’t what’s funny, it’s the characters, and whilst I certainly had some ideas for characters that came as a result of coming up with the original idea, it’s made me focus on characters a lot more.

By doing this, I’ve ended up with a solid idea for a first episode. It probably needs a neat end whereas currently I just have a rough idea. I also have a number of rough ideas for a number of other episodes.

Whether I ever write this, let alone whether I ever send it off, remains to be seen. I submitted a sitcom to the BBC a number of years back as part of an open call for scripts and it got pretty far. I’m definitely better at characters and telling stories now, so perhaps I’m better at scripts?

For now, this is simply a little side project utilising other writing skills. I’m happy to keep playing with it until such time as I need to work on a major project or something else takes my interest.