Welcome to sitcom geeks, I'm Dave Cohen and I'm James Carey and we are joined today. We have a special guest We have the co-founder of the female pilots club writer, comedy writer and performer many parts Please get you for Tracy Olmour and Mitchell and web and also written for East Enders But it's also written for lots of children's TV as well, so I've got my head Paddington in fact so excellent so we're very pleased to welcome and the main reason we've got her here She's got a book out. She's got a novel coming out very say her name I'm gonna say the novel plus mose date and it's written by our guest Abigail Boudess Friends of the show you've been with us. I have for years.
I've been bothering you guys. It's so brilliant that you can come back But yeah, we'll get to the book in a moment But we were just talking before we hit record about the fact that sitcom is still your first love. It is yeah Yeah, of course, I just can't get any made so it's really hard. Yeah very good company Yeah, absolutely I mean as often say on this podcast success is the outlier Yeah, so but just we wind because we are we asked all of our guests that when you were sitting cross-legged on the floor looking up at the magic screen Yes, sit on wise.
What were you watching to make you think I want to do that? Do you know what I haven't I've been trying to remember this and I none of my cultural references are in any way Well anyway translate because I wasn't brought up in this country Oh, and so what I was trying to think what is the first thing I ever saw that was really like funny that I remember being really funny And it was probably this is so cheesy But I don't know if you ever heard of it is a thing called same procedure as last year Wow, which is a very famous thing in like Germany and Scandinavia Which is a sort of silent comedy, right? Where it's about a guy at Christmas Yeah, he goes around he's like falls over and he gets drunk and drunk Everyone in like Germany Every Christmas it's like a thing. Yeah, so I used to watch the great escape.
Yeah, exactly. That's not a big movie in Germany. Is it? I would imagine maybe not Yeah, maybe not Yeah, they just not off the ending when they shoot people That's terrible But actually we had a Fergus Craig on this podcast not too long ago and actually he said that his favorite was Mr.
Bean Oh, which is again very similar in terms of this this kind of international language of comedy physical comedy Yeah, and in fact my brother has become a clue if there's a cool comedian He does that's what he does Yeah, so it obviously went deeper into him than it did into me because I was like I like the jokes, okay But but also I like the falling over. Yeah. Yeah, I went to do falling off there for with the with the half hour comedy genre I think probably Frazier. Okay, okay.
I was like drink if anyone's listening And it wasn't Dave who said it sorry sorry Is that you all everyone talks about Frazier? A little bit sorry step tone son is you got to finish the point at that point? Okay, so my daughter is 13 is now totally obsessed with it My it's my kitchen working through Frazier We called so many off-review that we nearly smashed the box and we had to stop recording them and they couldn't quite keep up That's right. It's amazing.
Isn't it? Yeah, I want I want advice from both of you I cannot get my kids to watch anything that's got an audience live Bank theory even big bang. I'm actually one exception is Miranda So Frazier is just it's amazing and it's all doesn't it means been knocking around for ages? Yeah, I mean I was four or five when I first saw that.
That's just yeah Really trying to not 20 years of That was it was that sort of golden era of the American sitcom that was at Seinfeld Frazier friends the Simpsons were completely dominated the whole comedy landscape and again studio Yeah, yeah with audiences lovely lovely audience is happy audiences all joining together laughing at the same thing at the same time Yeah, it's so important I think as a nation We will be a happier nation if we had more mainstream, you know And only falls and horses where we all come together and and watch watch enjoy, you know It's quite it's now called co-viewing because obviously people are so embarrassed about the word family for some reason It's now called co-viewing you can now watch it with your kids or your or your parents or whatever So TV speak co-viewing is like oh so family doing that. No, no Okay, I think more important now when we're also isolated on our phones and we're all getting completely different streams and Finding out, you know, I get fed different stuff to what my kids get there. Yeah, it sounds like COVID Which isn't very good COVID comedy that's what we want comedy is about people struggling with terrible You're just asking about your adventures in screenwriting Yeah, the sitcom scripts sitcoms sitcom scripts you've loved and lost. Yeah, I'm gonna say a bit about how do you go about it?
What do you find hard and what do you find the easy bit? I've actually been thinking a lot about this recently because I recently taught sitcom writing and with the lovely Robin French who wrote Cuckoo, and yeah I mean he's very interesting on the subject and it was I went to all his classes and he went to work And I just and it sort of made me go my god. There's loads of stuff I just don't think about and and also that you get kind of lazy about that you like you write sick You get a bit like oh, I'm gonna work that Yeah, yeah, but in a way you can you trust yourself that you will fix it later. It's like, you know, you're working muscles aren't you rather than yes?
Yeah, that is true But I do think there is a use of kind of going actually if I were gonna do this the best I could possibly do it How would I do it? I think that's a useful question to ask yourself because otherwise you can get a bit I don't know certainly I can get very lazy I'm a very lazy person and I want to do as little work as possible and I want to sell the thing I'm like why are they buying it and I'm like maybe it's because you haven't done the work Okay on like making it ready to be seen okay, and often you write something you go like okay I've got a script now. It's a good script is good enough. It's good enough Yeah, and I think now I'm much more of the show I think I should put that away for a month think about it and read it again and then make it better and then send it out Yeah, yeah, anyway, but yes I've written lots and lots of sitcoms most of which I'm now repurposing in my new career as a thriller writer and just sticking in a crime Element and Like no joke left behind yeah Policy to have yeah, well you could just sort of flip for a year a bit and make the retired cop the main character Take and eat it yeah five percent Yes, I mean as we are still still talking about to sit come up this point I'll be just just thinking about how the female pilots club, okay, which is Very well now they've got a deal up there with UK.
Yes. I I step back from female But they have gone I did I started with a K, but they've gone on to this amazing Yeah, I mean I prefer their early works. Yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, so they've just done this thing with UK TV where they had four scripts by female writers So funded for a read through a big public read through which I went to and it was great very exciting some very funny stuff there But yeah, the female pilot club was kind of founded because we were trying to find a way to have I think it's really difficult if you aren't a performer Or if your friends are performers to know whether or not it's gonna work in the room Yeah, and so we thought there was a gap essentially in the process Which is to read your thing in front of an audience and see if they laugh at it And so we set up this club where we do we read out of a sitcom including the stage direction So it's like a sit down read to a public to an audience But it's an audience of people who could be producers and actually might make it don't laugh obviously because they're producing Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, that's good.
Yeah, that's good. Yeah, that was good. Yeah One of the all-time great wonderful human beings is Paul Thank you Archer friend of the show who's very much a mentor to me Simon his son is doing very well, you know under his own steam and Paul is brilliant. Oh my goodness.
He just throws his head back and Yeah, so we had we have some industry and some real people. Yeah, and of course the real people really not What's this? They're hearing to be experiencing it's caring and enjoying things. Yeah, so yeah, so it's yeah That was the sort of plan and it's specifically for female writers because we felt at the time that we set up the club But it was a bit just been a piece of research that came out that said that only one in ten scripts that are Produced on TV had a woman even credited even as a co-writer So we're like It seems a bit odd it was right bit of writer skill research So that was a bit odd so so we thought we put on this thing We had quite amazing like a real combination of very new writers some it was their first script and sometimes it was very very successful Yeah, Georgia, Prichit.
Yeah, I went to one that Georgia did. I went to another one as well But I mean the thing that amazed me as well was the cast that you got I mean you've got to the most incredible You know media bollym all was and one of them. Yeah, Greg McKee was in was in another one. Yeah with Loubri Lee How do you manage to get these sort of you know absolute sort of star-studied cast?
I very I pulled in every favor. Yeah, I'll never get half. Yeah, and then until they all drained and now I have nothing left to it Okay, I know that's what I just wanted to do it because they wanted to support the cause it was like a they all all the actors work for free And they were like yeah, I think it's because it's a very specific ask. Yeah, it's like come along at 5 p.m You're free by 8 30.
Yeah, you get to be funny. Yeah, there's gonna be industry people there, but it's gonna be fun People will look at you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's really easy to forget that Yeah, that's not that's an outline. Most people don't want that.
Yeah, but actors love it They don't have their whole thing. Yeah, and act as their time not acting. Yeah, give them opportunity to act Well, I can give them a good script. Yeah, essentially I could be funny in this they think I could be funny in this and also it's only an afternoon Yeah, then quite a bit incredibly and they were supporting a feminist cause they were incredibly generous with their time and also also It's so interesting how they would you because we just did one read through beforehand and then And they just you could just see that you know it you can really see how good yeah, because they just like that leap up from the bumbling Read through I was like I don't know and then I'll do a thing like that.
I'll do a funny thing now I'll do a thing we had to one the last one I did actually was actually a JW three But we've moved from the museum and comedy and we had one actress June Watson Do you wear a but she's 90? Okay, and she is she she can't she has to learn the script now because our eyes aren't so good And she learned the script and then she just thought she had one scene and she got six massive laughs out of her ones It was that thing we just go you are so good I remember at George's one was and I can't remember who the actor was annoyingly, but it was just there was The line was something like you have to say yes, sort of like that But the way that he did it yeah, and he did it a couple of times you had a couple of lines way just right Yes, and the room just you know it just lifted up in a way that and again this very you know It's quite frustrating you know when you have a script. It's just the words on the page You know who's gonna look at character saying yeah, oh right, you know, that's gonna work It doesn't really I'm that carefully crafted joke that you spent hours The restaurant on the corner as I was remembering that phrase of it's a joke It's a brilliant joke. It's a restaurant on the corner gets a custom from both sides How could it possibly fail the restaurant on the corner is always the first business to go bust?
And that's an American writers thing for the joke that is so brilliant. It can't fail. Okay Is that a reference is that why the Seinfeld cafe is on a corner? Thing when they show that I know they always go it's on the corner Isn't it yeah, yeah, I mean it's boy did it not fail yeah, my kids aren't quite old enough for Seinfeld yet But I've been showing them clips and as you watch it And also it keeps coming up on my Instagram feed now as well as little bits are clipped out and it's just the rhythm of the jokes is just Incredible isn't it I can really look forward to watching Seinfeld again.
That's gonna be really fun. We've been watching Shits Creek Okay, it's obviously quite grown up, but the kids find it utterly hilarious. So yeah, my no much a dream on family Yeah, yeah Yeah, we're on the second watch of Gilmore Girls at this Drake David said Gilmore Girl. Well, it's the so much of it.
It takes months and months to watch through the whole yeah The whole so a lot of talking a lot of talking But then just go back to the live performance thing It is really something that we probably don't talk about enough is reading through a script with actual actors and of course It's brilliant that you can get fantastic Yeah, I'm really not friends to do it But just that discipline of putting a script on its feet and actually hearing it and wow you learn so much so fast I mean the sheer terror of doing that in the first place makes you write the script to drafts funnier than it might otherwise be and Then actually having actors come in you hear that lines now don't work. Oh my goodness Scene three will just never end yeah, it's like what I cut that and so anyone listening who if you have an opportunity to just get Some half decent actors together friends of yours. Yeah, and I would say that like I made a show about leading on favors But in fact like we very quickly we just started asking whoever we thought would be the best casting yeah and quite often they just said yes Yeah, so you know a cheeky ask is lots of people I didn't know at all and they were like yeah sure Yeah, we Did great see you there yes, so yes, it is possible to recognize those things I think yeah, so you've written lots of sitcoms and That's cool so it's sort of answers the next question which I was gonna ask you Why write a book oh well because I had no money No, it was good right out of work and it was the pandemic okay, and so it was a second lockdown So I didn't actually have any scripts I had to write okay, and so and I had this couple of months Stretching in front of me so I thought yeah, I'll all write that I'm gonna write that book that I it was actually a film that I'd written originally So I got the idea I got the idea from I saw this woman on Facebook Do you remember like ten years ago there was a real craze on Facebook for holding up this like Bob Dylan style cards Yeah, I find your family and everyone just found their family like instantly Yeah, and it was and I saw this woman interviewed who'd found her birth mother and she said oh I really hope I'm the daughter She's been dreaming of all these years okay, and I was like oh that's a really Dangerous So I wrote this film I don't feel my dear about this woman Anna who finds her birth mother very suddenly yeah and Discover she's pregnant the same day, and then there's a whole like she gets welcome to this family She knew she didn't have any she had and are they okay? Yeah, is this all right so I wrote that as a sort of thriller film and again I never sell films I mean I've written so many treatments you know had lots of meetings very exciting meetings with films where they go Well, this is amazing.
I'm calling her later tomorrow, and I go right no one's ever kept in touch See you later so yes, I had this film idea and then I was speaking for friend of mine And she said you should write a you should write a book about your relationship with your mother Yeah, and I was like that the horror story Obviously it's not a horror story. It's a thriller and it hasn't ended up being about my mother It's it's about really Relationship so yeah, it's not a memoir very clearly as you when you eat it you will go this is not a memoir Well, there's no way this woman would be sitting in front of me if it were okay It's all the time you know when you read a book and you kind of you sort of You half know or you know a little bit the person who's written it and I was reading it You know I was thinking you know obviously this isn't I know but you know how much of her is in the reminds me when we spoke to Jack Dockety Yeah, who's a comedy hero mine because Hunter and Dockety Mr. George is my favorite TV show. He's very funny.
Yeah, but he wrote I remember him saying he wrote a movie script or something Which was sort of about his life and the feedback on it was we can't make this because no one would do this This is a terrible person. Oh, it's me. I am very used to getting that note Okay, so who would even say that even think this yeah, so I had a lot of that writing sitcoms with the characters I go these characters are repellent. This woman is disgusting Why she's so lustful at appalling and nobody would ever behave this badly and I go I had a bit of that with a thriller where they're like these characters are larger than I've never seen a character so crazy At the atrical thank you Sister but it's not a never we cannot emphasize that enough Yeah, it's not you the bat the mum character is not my my master make that very clear in case she's listening I did give her a lot of my mother's charm.
Yeah, that's all I'll put so I gave my my mother character a lot of my own mum's Charms okay, so all the plus idea I mean everyone wrote a novel in lockdown. Yeah, even I started but actually I then stopped and wrote it is a screen I'm a TV guy. I'm gonna write it as a TV script. Yeah, and Nobody wants it so I begun to turn it back into a novel again and And I've sort of stopped because I've got other stuff to do and that's great So I'm not complaining But in general yeah, and I may have said this on this podcast before despite what Dave is trying to do with his life and career in general It's just like don't I novel I really I really recommend you don't write a novel your chances excessive very low and there's no money in it So do you really want to do that obviously experience has been different?
Yeah? I've had a different experience. Yeah, so but again, so I've now I've sold the novel to the telly yeah Yeah, we don't know it's gonna get made it's just been optioned sure But you know I feel like I wouldn't have sold yeah, I know I wouldn't have sold it as a TV thing without having the novel first But I think partly that is because it's tonally quite complex Right and I think with telly you tend to have to be able to define the tone very clearly or they they tend to be have to Recognize the tone. Yeah, do you know what I mean?
So if you write something that's slightly in between genres Yeah, so this is like a thriller but funny So there are comic elements and that's quite a delicate thing to try and explain in a pitch and to explain in a script Whereas I think if you've got a book and it's like a little box of tone yeah sitting there then TV people can read it And they go oh, I see yeah, yeah, it's like yeah That's what that was my reasoning simply was that the number of meetings that I was getting from my ideas for scripts and things was You know kind of diminishing as my age was increasing, you know, I have had more I haven't sold it But I've had more interest from TV companies as a result of it being a book because TV companies make And filmed yeah, and so I Preached it from that point of view was that this is something that There is interest in nothing has happened. Yeah, but I'd also add to that I think the thing is this goes back to how have you actually done your best on this script? Okay, which is that that book I have solved all the problems because I've had to write it as a book Yeah, and so I had to finish it to manage script is the finished article exactly where as a script is always a working process Yeah, you gotta shoot it and that's yeah And it's so hard not to feel provisional about a script as well because you know that the producers are always gonna change it Yeah, it's really hard to go no no that's the definitive I've really sorted out every last problem because you know someone's the producers always gonna say change this change that And also it's not going to be mediated by a set designer and the director a shooting style a casting choice Yeah, what you are writing is the product Yes, as opposed to an architect's doing the blueprints of a building that you yourself are not building yes Nobody actually goes to a shop and buys a script to read apart from maybe the Harry Potter movies or something Yeah, I believe I want to know the scriptures. I don't quite know really yeah I mean nobody be outside of the nerdy world of comedy writers.
Yeah, I mean yeah, we read them and we know how to read them But you know, I would not for instance show a script to my wife Oh, yeah, but she could pick up certain things from it that she wouldn't know Necessarily that oh well, that's that's how these things are you know, it's not yeah the language isn't the language of the finished Pro it's like we've been talking about you know make a radio should make your own stuff make a podcast make a YouTube video That's the thing you're putting out there and yes a novel is like a phenomenal amount of work compared to a two minute YouTube video But I have written I am writing a second novel and it is better. Yeah, I'm not enjoying it actually I'm hating it but the reason I'm hating it is because I'm having to really change quite a lot of it But I'm aware that in the changing it's the skills I've learned from writing the first novel mean that I know more how to change it I think and so it's actually quite it's a much harder work, but I feels like it's gonna be a much better purpose Have you you probably answered this question on this podcast before but why did you write? You're the same thing. Well, I said to James, you know, I had the idea in for the novel in 1981 Sorry, that's not me I feel like a single mob was yeah, this is yeah, I think I always wanted to be a novelist in my teens and then you know Alternative comedy came along so I was distracted for 10 years doing stand up and then I was distracted Yeah, and then again while this is writing something over history.
Yeah, oh, yeah another drag Oh, no, I mean, yeah, I like us You know a stand up is 20 minutes, you know You write a number of jokes and you go out and you perform them and you go out and perform them again again again And you know earn enough money to Again stand up is so I've done stand up. It's so it's so ideas intensive. Yeah, like it takes a lot of it's not like sketch writing young Man's game sketch writing takes a lot of ideas doesn't it like you learn through ideas? Well, actually I was very lucky to be a part of the whole sort of stand up world that was just kind of happening and so I You know, we would sort of making it up as we went along It wasn't like a sort of career.
Yeah, yeah, so You know that it's a lot easier to just do that and go for like an hour's work a week I was earning enough to you know be able to kind of hang out and yes No, that's not Yeah, yeah, on the way here I was thinking about a project of mine that has been recently turned down by one particular broadcaster But it's still in contention for other ones I was thinking what would I do with it? It's an idea that I really passionately genuinely totally believe in and I did think to myself I could write it as a novel and then I just just checked myself and just okay 80,000 words Yeah, yeah, it's a lot you have to really care I mean, I really cared about the story But also you have to be like so invested I really really care about this story, but I don't have an 80,000 word brain I've got a 28 minute brain Well, I've got six times 28 minute brain And so therefore what I was thinking was because for my point of view There's not that much money in it anyway one way or the other If I wanted to develop this as an idea, I do know how to turn it into six half hours for audio Because you know, I'm an audio guy. I'm making podcasts. I've done BBC radio downloads.
We've worked on BBC radio As well, so so I was just thinking I know how to do that because it wouldn't take me a year to turn into a novel So it was taking a year to turn into a novel writing, you know X hundred words a day and like kind of stuff, but actually I know how to do radio So for me the way of giving my ideas some life would be to basically write it as an audio script and get some people I know one or two people that one or two people may have vaguely heard of or not I don't know if there people I work with before who don't have big names, but I think it really good Additionally It's a very bitter owner of a second hand bookshop come on get it Okay, yeah, it's a lot less work than writing a novel as well. Yeah, so what we're not necessarily saying is if they don't like your idea Stuff it right it is a novel. Yeah, I mean, it's a lot of work It's a lot of work, but also your idea I mean sitcoms aren't novels even though some novels have been turned into sitcoms although in the case of Reggie Perrin that was an unusual episodic sitcom. Yes, and I mean the only yeah, I remember having badly also Jeeves and Worcester is almost yes, but I would say that is it.
I would say that is it. I would have almost invented the sitcom But so we need more to be fair we need more comic novels. No, I take Because I am you know I do like writing novels and I have learned the thing that I've learned that I'm not a good at is writing to genre And you know like I say people buy crime books people buy Romance they buy science fiction they buy young adult, you know, they don't buy comic fiction such a buy There's no bit there's no bit in the bookshop which is complex and Osman's books are really funny But they are cozy murder and I read a writer who I never in a million years would have thought of that I would read Sophie Kinsella and I read a book by her and I just thought this is as funny as PG Woodhouse. This is actually really really funny book Wow, but it's a comment.
It's a no You know, you know just by looking at the cover, you know, this is oh this is sort of like this isn't for me It's a sort of you know, a nice pastly colored cartoon and woman with a class woman with shopping bags, you know Every cover is the same and there's a reason for that which is that the algorithms if you like romantic comedy your algorithms Take your straight, so that's but that's just scheduling sitcoms. Yeah, it's the same every other modern family's the same You know, it's like what's wrong with that so you're saying that comedy novels are being hidden under the rock banner and I think I think I think you know, you have you do have to write a genre That's why I think they're parallels though if you are a sitcom writer in how you structure sitcom plot and in detective Fiction, yeah, specifically because I don't know you read John York's book into the woods I can mean you to and I haven't yet and I should so he talks brilliant in it So he talks about if you've gone on about this before stop me he talks about what he calls two-dimensional fiction She doesn't mean pejoratively. He just means it the change is not in the the changes in knowledge rather than in a character arc Okay, so that's quite an interesting definition Particularly with like series and serials on TV and creating you know that change in knowledge That's really helpful. Yeah, a lot of murder mystery is me even I've been reading quite a lot Even though I say it's which is kind of much more readable and quite good fun But ultimately they're trying to figure out what happened yes, and they're not changed by this experience It's a very slow art love story between Law Peter wins it.
Yeah, but incremental change in the same way you get in a sitcom Yeah, but it's a slow revelation of what actually happened of knowledge rather than character development Yeah, and that's a story that says great example that but like I think that's quite similar in sitcom I often describe it you you're giving your character an opportunity to change the plot which the character does not take advantage of yeah So you're structuring a plot which would arc your character yeah if your character wasn't such a numpty and will inevitably stay themselves Yeah, yeah, do you see what I mean? So and it's that's that's quite a similar thing to plotting detective fiction certainly yeah Yeah, yeah, that's really helpful. Yeah. Yeah, I was interested actually reading your book I think there's you know there's a lot of I thought there were some parallels with you know with sitcom The character you mentioned for instance is a sort of classic sitcom monster character Yep, but also the relationship that's at the start of the book which is very much Yeah Visual Portrait Yeah, I think that inevitably you do create you know there are tropes which you're gonna use in your writing which will surface I think but also those are it's I do think it's very important to make characters instantly recognizable Yeah, and to do that's a great piece of advice actually was given to me by Gareth Edwards He said always introduce your character at their most typical okay, which I think is great advice And something that a lot of new writers don't do yeah, because they're like no This is a weird day for her because normally I'm like no We have to know you know so yes This is before least I said it is you know you only get a one chance to make a first impression So what when your character enters the scene what are they doing?
What are they wearing what's their first line or so they holding yeah? It's emblematic of who they are and what they say yeah and the same wall applies in a novel and I guess in an awful You've got 80,000 words and you can fall in love with your own pros and all that kind of stuff No, no get on with it grab them because other books are available. Yes I mean it's very important that you want to keep reading isn't it? Yeah, but also I always think of it when writing sitcom is that when you Introduce a character you're making a promise to the audience and that you have to keep your promise So if you if you have a character turn up and they're hungry or whatever it is they're greedy Yeah, they should carry on being the joke for friends.
Yeah, you know carried on going where's my dinner? Yeah, however many episodes no one minded that joke was repeated because that what what you know what the audience likes is that They know who it is they get to go. Yeah, I recognize this guy Yeah, I mean I'm quite interested to know sure you said that before million No, no, no, it's a very good way putting it there And also, you know, we say a lot of things lots of times and they because they need to be repeated and we forget them as well When we're writing and it doesn't make any difference when people send us for our first ten pages challenge for our patreons And they haven't started the story within the first ten pages and characters first lines often not very interesting and But and then we write those very scripts ourselves I suppose it's that thing of making a pro like I I think you don't keep the promise you made to the audience They will feel betrayed and they will be angry with you. Yeah, they'll go.
No You said this guy was gonna be even if you have a character so the Molina my mother character is unpredictable that is so characteristic She is unpredictable, but she is predictably unpredictable. She will always be unpredictable She comes in and is just straight. Let's just yeah, it's consistent So I'm interested to hear from both of you really I suppose because in the sense you James I guess you're you know your death in paradise script has this You know we always talk about the characters who never learn from their mistakes and they come back every week and make the same mistakes But this is a story that's how's the beginning of middle-end and you you have that situation as well with death in paradise It's not writing comedy. Yeah, and so I'm just interested to know what if you're kind of conscious of ways that you have to do it differently Compared to when you're writing a sick comment.
So oh well for me. I mean, I have no idea what I'm doing I'm aware that a genre which looks relatively easy when as a viewer I'm sort of feel I feel like a murder mystery script for TV at least is like I feel like I'm having to write the same script three Times over because I'm trying to write down. I'm trying to work out What is the story of the episode in terms of why has this person been murdered? What happened before?
Why are they being murdered now by these by this person in this way and then once the murder is out there? What does the what do the accused people do in order to exonerate themselves? Okay, and you only see little fragments of that story and then you've got the detective and every show slightly different every Detective side of them. How were they investigating it in a way in which they investigate things and it's different for Shakespeare and Hathaway because they were private detectives They weren't investigators.
They were all peace. Yeah, exactly and they had to have this sort of policeman They were constantly in raging and running rings around and stuff and then so there's their quest and then also How does that relate to what you are revealing to the audience? So are you revealing to the audience things that the detectives have seen or haven't seen and again? Depending on the show the rules are different and also depending on what you're writing What are the rules of your mystery?
What are the rules of your thing? You know, and I guess you had to kind of work out writing the book. What are the rules of this book? Yeah, because you're creating those very well.
I mean, did you had to slightly find that as you go and then once you Distabrized the rules go back and just make sure everything obeys the rules Yeah, I mean the biggest note I got from my editor I think I wrote it like a TV show so I kind of pictured it pretty But biggest note I got was you know, you are allowed to sometimes just tell us stuff because I'm so used to writing like show Don't tell and yeah, and then you know you can say what a character thinks. Yeah, sometimes which of course is a great opportunity in a novel Is that you can go? Oh, this is what I think but this is what I'm doing. That's the delightful Yeah, the enjoyable guy is like the subtext and subtext is You know, it's fun.
I think what you were saying about structuring a Structuring a story a detective story quite interesting in terms of Robin French was talking about and not you should come on But I'm sure you'll say that about it's really important to know what your character's self images Yeah, and that's that's like a lot of time in death and paradise. You're looking at like character the gap between characters self image Yeah, reality on you How do I see myself? Yeah, how do other people yeah? Yeah, so like the you know that Frasier sees himself as terribly insightful and you know all of that and in fact he has no insight at all into Self or his own romance.
You know, he's a more on yeah He can't solve his own problems. There's a role exactly so he's you know, he's I'm listening I Think I use more of my sketch writing skills in writing the novel yeah, but it's specific when you're writing a thriller because what you're doing is you're controlling tension, yeah, so if you're if you're going oh I'm building up tension. I'm building up tension and then you're choosing how to Release that tension. Yeah with it.
Do you release it with violence or do you release it with comedy comedy and sometimes I would say I want to say I want to punch you know, exactly like what is it? It was just a really so like controlling that and going oh, I can't always be funny because if I'm if I'm making a joke Yeah, sometimes I I you lose yeah, but it's scary When can I be scary when can I make a joke? Pick you up on that because that's interesting what you're saying about using your sketch Sketch is most usually it's about 500 words. Yeah, the novel is you know, 800,000 words and A song like a horrible history song is less even less is 200 words Yeah, but I think that I used my horrible histories skill for the novel writing as well in that you know even though it's 80,000 words versus 200 words within within the Thousand word lump of a story you're not telling you know, you get sort of dig into those sort of little moments and just change a word here Or a rhythm of a sentence there.
Yeah, and it and that that that's what I'm really I think that's what hooks me on to the sort of the novel writing Yeah, I'm really on the drug was the excitement that I got realizing that actually I'm using I'm using the things I do really well, so going back to what you were saying about well, I'm not gonna write a novel because I'm not I'm not an 80,000 word guy, but you are a kind of you know, you are a story. Yeah, yeah, you have really good way You've really good coming up with stories and resolving them. Yeah, that's that's what you bring Well, what it turns out though is I'm no good at is I'm no good exposition and what would be called action line So this this novel I read very recently I actually showed it to my wife and she said dialogue's really good And it's like okay, and she said basically what I've now learned is and I'm not gonna continue with that novel particularly in that way unless But what I've discovered is the kind of novels that I like reading that are funny the narrator is funny Yeah, that's interesting I've been reading Terry Pratchett aloud to my kids and Terry Pratchett is funny the characters are funny in their own particular way Yeah, but the narrator is voice has wit has wit and a character and I think and actually I'm just reading the Thursday murder club We're half of it at least is in the voice of Joyce who is sort of writing this stuff And I just thought if I started again on a novel I would make the narrator witty a character Yeah, maybe an unreliable or a traitor or whatever. Yeah, so I've I found that in that I was like I really have to make Anna Who's the pro tag?
Yeah have a sort of dry wit? Yeah, because otherwise you just don't have like I love plotting You know, you don't know what's gonna happen next and and very standard. See you know do do do no I literally plot out seven doof doof doof's okay per chapter, okay three chapters per act big doof doof at the end of the act So it's always like I've literally got it going. Okay, these are the Yeah, I'm kind of obsessed with it But I still felt that it really helps to give at least one of your characters But then that's true in sitcom it helps to give one character with yeah But like if you give all the characters with then you just got a lot of people going here the funny joke John Leslie what's what's charmed as comedy boys?
Here's the comedy voice of the aggregated six ex-harvard script writers After a week long of thinking what's the funniest possible version of this? Yeah, yeah, yeah But at the same time as a character, yeah, I've never been done before it's this person jokes all the time to hide their insecure Yeah, I'm free gift of comedy right? Yeah Yeah, again the go to the self-image and whatever is it yeah that he sort of what does he see himself as John? Like I don't know is there a split there.
He's got a great opening of him. Yeah. Yeah, he's very less People will think I'm a loser so I better be funny. Yeah, and I'm just funny enough to get away with it Yeah, I'm gonna get my you know, you think you can Slag me off well, I'm gonna always be funnier.
It's like myself off the new yeah I'll get in there first yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah Yeah, I think there's also like when you whenever I'm writing a sitcom I try to have a character who is kind of an agent of chaos Yeah, so that's always a good thing It's always a good flavor to be able to throw in and also if you get to you know, I heard a plot Oh, let's get the agent of chaos into Chuck Obama and whatever's happy and so and that again I found that writing the novel as like oh who's my I was definitely doing that I was definitely going who's the agent of chaos Who's the you know who performs these functions? Who's the Capricious Authority? Who's the yeah, I think I know the agent of chaos is in Mother's Day. I think that's fairly clearly clear It's pretty chaos We should we should write something because you've had to write another one of these down things I have I've got to deal that I honestly say I'm not remotely jealous at all Next one's about stand up comedy You're not gonna.
Yeah, it's about another bloody book about stand up. Yeah, it's written to them No, no, you're establishing you genre and then they can Interloper Yes, stand up comedy thriller. Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay Yeah, yeah, so I went down now.
That'll be probably I don't know yet probably the year. Okay, I just had to hand it in So it's coming out It's out on March the 2nd 2023 close to Mother's Day Your mum and as a good relationship with your mum But if you have a terrible relationship Yeah, I would say so Thanks very much. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we can go from gets Mother's Day.
You can have some jokes in it There may be jokes. Yeah, they're all jokes. Morning jokes funny scenes. Thanks very much.
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