Episode 75 - Words For Window

Hello and welcome to sitcom gigs. I'm James Carey. I'm Dave Cohen and we are doing a special episode this time about the writers room window Which is closing very soon and the BBC are looking for new writers and you're scripted away of getting the BBC's attention But the window is closing soon. They're already leaning towards the handles and they're starting to close it That's right.

But wonderfully, yeah, that's right But wonderfully Dave has been giving lots and lots of advice to our faithful listeners and readers on our Patreon page It's sort of talking us through it from as the Americans call it soup to nuts, which always sounds quite rude to me I think it's just the nuts thing that does it for me And so that's what we're going to think about today is just getting your script as good as it can be That so that when you send it off you've done all you can to make it as good as you can be But we're going to go back to the soup and Dave Why don't you kick us off with how you've been starting these posts and what advice that you're giving? Okay, well if you're still looking at a blank page now, then obviously it's a little bit scary But still salvageable I would say at this stage if you've been thinking about stuff and mulling for the last of three or four weeks I've been trying to do something that's kind of chronological But as I keep saying everything is connected to everything else But we will start by going right back to the beginning and even if you've written your first draft now and you're going back and looking at it These are all relevant questions. So the starting points for your idea is it is an original idea? But is there familiarity there?

So you're not just necessarily looking to be the most original person around but you're looking for something that people recognize But you have this twist on it So yes, also you could do you could do a comedy about a female vicar who's arrived in a village But it would have to be a very different kind of village and a very different kind of female vicar to Geraldine from the Vicar of Dibley And it would be now anyway, wouldn't it if you think about what would that show be in 2018 compared to what it was 20, 25 years ago? Yes, exactly What a thing about what a village would be now and I suppose in a sense you get this country really So you know the vicar is one of the main characters in this country Yes, indeed if I watch one last night and it was encouraging to see a vicar that actually resembles a vicar in real life Oh, I'm glad you said that Going back to our last episode where we said I said you know Christianity is often represent on TV It looks nothing like how I experienced it but this vicar he wasn't wearing a dog collar for example Which is quite common for vicars, but yeah, so although obviously he's a comedy vicar It was I just thought oh yeah, I totally believe that that's a vicar. So that's that's good. Yes Actually, you could look at this country and say well, it's that it's an update of last of the summer wine to some extent So everything you know, even though it's probably one of the more original shows that has come on TV in the last So five or ten years you can see the DNA that is in it and that leads to the thing that we've talked about we both talked about a lot You know, why why are you writing this and why are you writing it now?

Yeah, and that's very important Yeah, and if you've got unique insight You really should make the most of it and show the fact that you know how this how this world works and how these characters taken all that kind of stuff So yeah, and so yeah, this is all sort of deeply philosophical stuff But it really does make your scripts down now if it feels like there's a new voice here Because that is what the BBC are looking for the writers are not looking for a show to develop They're looking for writers to develop they're looking for voices to develop So you really want to a script that's going to show off your voice as well as your technical ability So so yeah, just think about the insights that you have and how a script can make that really clear And it is a complex thing. I have I think it's in on the day six of the blogs I've written about what what is your voice and it's it's a very Hard thing to put your finger on but you know, it is you really need to try and have a read of that and think about And I basically wrote about what I thought my voice was But if you try what I've done and try for yourself and hopefully you will see what your voice is So that's that's before really before you even write a word of your script so that area so so the next thing as I say Everything is connected of course, but we'll try and separate things out And obviously the first thing we need to talk about with the actual script is the characters are the characters And I think the same rule applies to characters as the idea is the character familiar, but is there a bit with a twist? So, you know, we recognize something if you know, it's In some ways, you know, okay if your character is an alien from Mars, then obviously it's a completely new thing Although actually they might that's Mr. Bean now that I think about it, but Yeah, you know your character is somebody We need we need something to measure what our new character is like and the best way to do that is saying Oh, well, he's this but he's got that as well.

Yeah, so that that's that's I think the first thing you have to think of With your character. Yeah, yeah And stereotypes as well you want to make sure that they're not a stereotype even if they may feel like a type That's okay, and they could almost be a stereotype But they do actually need to feel like they exist in real life rather than you know just someone who you know rather than someone who who feels like Who feels like a foil in a sketch? Feels like a you know a traffic warden in a sketch who's just gonna give somebody a ticket regardless or something Yeah, that's a sort of a two-dimensional character that's being used to make jokes about an idea that won't sustain you even as a sort of a Regular character you do need to give them a little bit more depth than that And I think again one of the blogs had about sort of ten different things that you want your character to be But if I was to take one thing out of the piece I wrote about the character They have to be proactive they they are the ones who instigate The stories and you know it's not so often you see scripts I see scripts where stuff happens to people Which is fine and there are you know There's they're not saying never do that but but it immediately puts your character at the mercy of events Whereas you want your character to cause their problems They are the cause of their own downfall and that's true pretty well of all your characters But obviously you're mainly concentrating on one or possibly two you've got an odd couple or something so I think it's good to try your script will really stand out if you can apply that rule though to all of your characters Because even if somebody is part of a subplot or is on the other end as it were of somebody else's quest They they have hopes dreams fears aspirations and quests as well And so you need to make sure that emotionally what are they getting out of this story as well? Yeah, so I was reading a script yesterday actually for as cbc show That's actually happening and it's really good lot of action But it just felt like one of the characters was trying to do something and I didn't know why they were trying to do it And I sort of knew why but it was good to be clear is exactly why this character wants to do this today And not at some other point and not you know some other way, so it's worth thinking how you can Apply that across the board to all of your characters and just think what are they trying to get out of life?

What are they trying to get out of this story? What are they trying to do who are they trying to be so that everyone is motivated so that what you know if you're seen wherever Produced and an actor said to you what is my character trying to do in this situation? You actually have an answer and that the answer is not you need to convey the information about the scrambled eggs And you also need to set up this joke that we're doing later an actor can't play that And so you need to motivate the character you need to motivate the actor and that needs to start on the page So do think about that for all your characters not just the lead I don't know if you think about just your daily life Well, how you know when you go about your daily life you get up in the morning and you know the first thought in the morning is Oh bloody hell I've got this meeting that I'm not looking forward to so so you know if you were filming your life even that opening 30 seconds of getting up in the Morning and going some splashing water on your face. You are You are motivated you might be negatively motivated, but there is there is motivation there, and you know you've got to go I've got to go to the shops.

I know it's gonna be a bit of a mad dash today And so you've kind of got all this stuff going on in your head and in your own normal life And that's what that's what's happening to your characters and then on top of all that your characters This there's this thing that they want to do or they're trying to do to to make their lives better So which leads if I may do so radio for a second style in into into story and One of the blogs I did in the story was It was about story and it was basically You're using your ideas because I think you know James you are you are Mr. Story generator Really I think I mean you'd like to talk a little bit about the the stories. Yeah, thank you What's an accolade to be the story guy? I'm very happy to have in in general I don't think I have any special skills at thinking of stories All I have really is a willingness to think of loads and loads and loads and loads So what I tend to do with my characters is try to think of 50 or 100 ideas They do just literally one line as they don't even have to be good ideas They just have to be ideas and they can be stuff that's happened to you stuff that you've heard about Stuff that you've written on lists even for other shows and other ideas, you know ranging from Our character goes on a diet to our character decides they want to go into space to our character Has problems cooking breakfast to our problems?

Mother just won't leave them alone or whatever it is and then you sort of take that list of 100 And then the ones that most excite your interest you you just take those out take those and put them on a separate list of say Maybe 1520 30 ideas and turn them into slightly longer ideas And then you take the best say 10 of those and turn them into a half page sort of idea So that because story lining is really hard and it's normal to find it hard Therefore the easiest way to do it is to find stories that you don't find hard that you find Yeah exciting and interesting and original or that just seem perfect for your character So it's not unusual to turn over dozens and dozens of ideas before you get to the one that you want And then sometimes you go back to those ideas and realize you thought of a way of making them work So none of this is wasted at all. Yeah, so that would be my sort of general tip for generating stories It's just to do loads and loads you know spend an hour with a piece of paper and a pencil just writing out as many as you can go through Letters of the alphabet go through a dictionary go through just click around the internet Just for a starting point doesn't matter where or how you start and then just sort of cherry pick the best ideas and develop those and then Cherry pick the best of those ideas and by the end of that You have a delicious cherry brandy that you can serve up as your audience. Hopefully be too drunk to notice the jokes I think I'd like to pick up on one of the one of your bug bears I know is the story where someone says it's one of the characters birthdays now The reason I mention this is because I'm working with another writer at the moment and we're working on a script And he came up with and wrote quite a lot about something that was based around the fact that it was one of the characters birthdays And actually having gone through the plot which could have been like a 10 or 15 minutes of an episode We've kind of honed it down and it's become a very very nice C or D plot where the fact of it being a birthday is just it's just Makes for a nice story and a twist on a story that I've not seen before so I was very pleased about that But but the reason I mention this is specifically in relation to your script But you've probably already written it now and saying oh why are you doing that is that if you can have as if you've got a couple of other Plots going on make sure you've not just got like just just to help the pace if you've got some more characters And they're not doing much or you need something to break the pace of your main story You know have a little story that just takes three scenes and maybe that's three or four minutes five minutes total And that will just bring something else into the to the script that wasn't necessarily there at the time Yeah, that might then give you just a couple of extra jokes here in there where you sort of need a joke And then oh for example again a script and edit a script I'm editing at the moment There's a nice little subplot about two guys who were going around trying to work out where particular noise is coming from and there's a scene Somewhere else that's sort of feeling like it's not quite working But actually a lot of it would be fixed if the two characters looking for the noise walk into the scene Rattle things around a bit and then walk out again And so your subplot your deep lot even see plot deep lot even a running joke is it where you can just come in and give you a nice little Counterpoint to a scene that maybe needs to be quite serious But then you can just burst the bubble with something that doesn't feel like the one of the characters is undermining it By character from a different scene and a different plot comes in and bursts the bubble so so that might be something worth thinking about Another thing to do is we'll check if your script is now written just check through the story beats and Make sure that the things that happen Aren't just kind of coming out of nowhere who were we talking to the other day about the the Germans episode 40 towers? They were saying I don't I don't buy that because you know that the thing that the antlers the Snag falls on dazzles head and that's what causes him to go a bit do lally and actually you know That's like a that's not really a sort of character thing although I was thinking about it thinking Well, it was just that he never got round to fixing it So that that was the sort of that was the character angle to that but yeah, but you do want when things go wrong As I say coming back to the character It's they have caused it's their cause rather than it just being all and wouldn't it be funny now in this story if X happens?

Well, yes, it might be but it will be even funnier and more satisfying if it's a direct result of your character saying Oh, I'm gonna do this now and they were warned that if they don't do X then why will happen and they decide that don't worry That's this won't apply to me, you know, whatever your character's reason if they're optimist and they just don't take precautions Then fine or if they're you know if they go if they're hasty and they go back to the wrong way then they haven't actually Mitigated this thing that might happen so try to work out the character for way of making it your characters fault. Yeah Carry on where are we next though? Well, here we are We've been talking about character and story and of course the one thing that you don't see as much of as you would like to see in a script Is jokes so a quick reminder that again, you've written your script now You're your plots are working your characters. It's all very satisfying the characters of course the things to happen the stories developed Things are complications have ensued and you've got a big twist at the end of act two and it's all it's all working great now Is it funny?

It's very easy and again, it was mentioned that when we when we talk to the guys at the writers room They said this other jokes in there Can you put your hand over the name of the character and say oh, I know who's making that line who's saying that joke? Yeah, have you got half a page where there aren't any jokes in which case, you know, what's what's happening is it Exposition is absolutely necessary to have that get to the joke Any more to answer that James? Yeah, I think sometimes yeah, just going through and make sure for me I know lots of people will say well, I don't how you know lots of tea comedies on TV now don't have jokes And I'd say yes, I think that's a real shame So I like jokes and if you're trying to position yourself as a computer writer I think jokes will be pretty good start really so it would be good just to make sure that you've got three jokes per page Maybe that would actually make someone laugh or at least you know snort in some way and you know quite often One of the reasons that you don't have enough jokes is you just got people waffling people sort of saying stuff You don't need them to say you can have direction you can give people looks to look at certain things again You're script just bear in mind what your script is trying to do your trip your script is trying to get interest in you and your writing And so therefore it may be that if you were shooting the script or you're doing a read through of it that you would Have maybe an actor say a line because quite often the stage direction doesn't quite come across in a read through in those sort of Little tricks, but you want to show that you are a good writer and that you can use physicality and action as well as Dialogues you convey even though sometimes people don't read that as well off the page as they could so So you think about physical jokes as well as verbal jokes and gags and think about maybe making things more subtle by you know deleting a few lines here and there but yeah just making sure that that most of the lines are not far off from an actual proper joke And it's not a character and a joke is not a character saying a funny thing normally characters most 99% of sitcom jokes The character saying them doesn't realize that they're funny so they're not witticisms. They're not retreads of friends lines of Did I say that out loud and actually on that do look I'll put a link in the show notes or something to on the Facebook page as well To my hack joke amnesty Blog post where there are so there are 50 100 lines was just keep appearing in sitcoms and they're all second hand jokes basically And you don't want any of those in your script did I say that out loud kind of too much information and he's behind me Isn't he and all that kind of stuff unless you've got a really good twist on a cliche then I would think of your own way of speaking Yeah, I'm just go back to what you were saying at the start of this this section Yes, it is true that there's a lot of comedy shows now that don't have so many jokes in them We are we have been dealing with this issue and there will be plenty more Podcasts come where we are dealing with this because it is it's a kind of existential issue that all the channels have at the moment What is sitcom what is comedy and we will be dealing with that at a later So but for the purposes of this competition and for this script that you know is who you have been told This is not a script that's going to get made This is a script that you are writing to impress the readers at the writers room and even if at some point your show is more of a dramedy than a comedy Then you still need to be able to illustrate that you can write funny jokes So don't just concentrate on making the script as funny as you possibly can Yeah, that's good advice I'm actually showing that you can do jokes is really important because then there'll be areas in the script where you might not be doing them And that then looks intentional rather than it's like a choice rather than because you know in the 28 minute episodes You can have a very serious couple of minutes because you know We want to believe in these characters We want to go along with them and so you can do that but but that will only really have a proper heartfelt resonance If if and the jokes sort of dry up slightly if you've done jokes in the rest of the episode so It makes it look like you as a writer know what you're doing and that is what this script is trying to do As ever within that situation I direct people to the pilot episode of Frasier, which is 24 minutes I think and it has some of the greatest laughs and some of the you know Most kind of deepest pathos and sadness of and that's just like a pilot episode That's and that's you know twenty twenty four minutes long So, you know, you know, you you can go, you know make them laugh make them cry as the old show this adage goes So that's a Sarah leave them with the song at the end, but yeah The first episode of yes, I'll Peter K would do that and that name in a bad thing First episode of cheers is also pretty good and obviously friends We mentioned continually as the first episode being really good.

So so yes So I've got a few little pointers in terms of polishing your script at the very end is that worth going? Yeah, I was just I've got one more thing to say really When you get to the end of your script has your character your main character learned anything if so then it's not a sitcom script So just make sure they may have learned but they must but they mustn't change and I think we are very happy that they've learned their lesson But it's not actually gonna change in the next week. They're gonna make the same mistake That's how to learn how to lie better. Maybe that's that's what you know.

So yeah, so that's that was the last thing I was gonna say about draft one of your scripts Here's my top I don't know how I got I've got ten of these Some of which we might have already covered before if you look on my blog on sitcom geek blogspot.co.uk There is one called polishing your script and I don't even make one single reference to be polishing a cow pack or a turd So that's pretty good. Um, so because quite often your script feels like that when you're trying to go over it and that's again Completely normal most you know Ernest Hemingway said the first draft of anything is shit. So don't you know, there's good No, anyway, it's good enough for us. Um, so trick one start your story early in almost every single spec sick on my read This is the biggest problem whenever we've done first ten pages on on on this podcast Usually nothing happens to a page nine and it's all introduction introduction and actually you need to set up your characters with the story You can always start your stories sooner than you think and actually when we spoke to the writers room I spoke to Simon and Amanda and could you go back and listen to that episode maybe listen to it again having written your script?

That they do only read the first ten pages initially. So someone will read the first ten page and if it's terrible They they won't read any further. So those first ten pages you should be lighting a touch paper You should be introducing the story and telling your characters personalities through that story It's like I mean when people talk about novels as page turners and some people are a bit sniffy about that They're a bit disparaging, but you know page turn it means you want to know you want to turn page and you know You want to read those ten pages reread your own pages and think all right whoever's reading this now However small the thing is that you've set up in the beginning you really want to know what's going to happen Yes, yeah, and you're not setting up a movie you are I mean you could I suppose you could be writing a movie And that's fine as long as you know that that's what you're doing But I'm good because they are they will take a comedy script of at least 30 minutes in length for TV film radio stage or online So it can but if you're writing a sitcom at least Then make sure you're writing a sitcom and not doing a 15 page setup for a movie That's very important. You can also introduce number two you can introduce your characters faster So a character who wanders into a scene quite often we have opening lines of people say all right Hello, how are you all those sorts of lines and actually they're nothing in lines anyone would say those lines How would your character make their first impression?

And are they walking in with a power tool and are they walking in wearing something extraordinary? Are they walking in holding something useful? And then whatever they say or do well, and whenever we first meet that character We need that first action line to to that first sort of line that they say to be critical To who they are it doesn't have to be super critical But that will be our first impression of that character and once the reader has formed the first impression you will struggle to change that first impression So make sure the first line to go back on your script and check the first line of every character and work out What are they doing? What are they saying?

Can it be better? Can it set up the character faster? Rachel Green turns up in a wedding dress in Friends. That's a great way to start isn't it?

So it's just worth thinking what your character is doing and they're not if they're sitting reading the paper Which is a pretty boring start why you know what what are they reading in the paper? They read in your victories what paper is it is it a year-old paper is it? Are they reading it in a particularly strange way or whatever is they cutting things out of the paper? Yeah, all of these things are significant and I think you need to just attend to the detail on all of those Number three is we got any on that Dave?

Yeah, I just wanted to add that the flip side to that is that once the character has said what they have to say in the scene Then get get them out as quickly as you got them in often again I see scripts where there are four or five people standing around but only two of them are talking so unless there's a reason For your character to be there just get them out And one of the ways that you get them out is having something them say something funny as they leave So that adds to your jokes and adds to your character driven jokes as well and also gives them somewhere to go and therefore requests It gives them a character what where are they going? Why do they have to leave that's that's all good stuff? Don't just make an entrance make an exit Number three is you don't don't introduce all of your characters at once So if you have eight characters don't have them all in the first scene Maybe just have three of them or two of them and then add a third out of fourth and then lose one and just give the reader a chance To work out and also you know give them a variety of names if they're all called Pete Steve Colin Andrew Jeff and Mickey That's that's those those names get a bit same and it seems odd having a having a Caucasian male say all of these names are just the same Because it sounds that's one thing that one might say about Johnny foreigner But actually you could have some slightly odd names that will actually make a character more memorable if you have a character Who's a real character give them a bit of a character name? You know you can have a Mary that's fine, but maybe have a Persephone or a serenity or you know, whatever Again again come back coming back to that first scene in friends They each character introduced one of the time again think of the names that they have in friends Chandler Monica, you know, and they're sort of the theme and they're just slightly slightly off-beam names and then and then you get They're each introduced very much in the form of their character and then as you say Rachel ends is wearing a wedding dress And that's that's a great you know that that separates out You know, you know, there are six of these these six people we can see each character and this is again This all happens in the first three minutes.

Yeah So the next one is just check for each character Then has a unique voice you should be able to tell and this is something that Simon Nelson said from the writers room as a way of Him checking whether the script is any good is covering up the names and he should be able to tell who's speaking from what they're saying and how they're saying it So you want to make sure that all of your, you know, black out at and Baldrick do not talk in the same way Edina and Safi do not talk in the same way, so you want to be really clear and distinct in their speech patterns in the way in the way they talk Number five look very closely at the first couple of pages So please please please avoid spelling mistakes and typing errors and you know formatting issues and all that kind of stuff There's really no reason or needs to get the formatting wrong They won't mark you down because it's formatted badly But you are making it harder for them to mark it up and help is at hand if you go to the BBC writers room There is plenty of stuff on formatting there. I think some of that I've spoken to some people about this recently I mean I think some of the information out formatting is contradictory But I think the main thing I would say is if you if you have dyslexia for instance a lot of people in comedy do Then do you know run your Be afraid to run your script past somebody the sympathetic person who will check for spelling mistakes and Most time it doesn't really matter that occasionally there might be a misspelling that alters the meaning of the joke or the sentence Yeah, print it out and give it to give it to an auntie You know who isn't and you're not asking them what they think it's funny or not You're literally asking them to check the spelling because spell checkers sort of don't don't always catch everything because of proper names and all that kind of thing So number six be brutal about action lines It's really dispiriting to read a script that has half a page of this happens Then this then this then this they do this and you know also They're slightly kind of directing it from the page as well Which I think is can be a bit of an issue even though you sort of are at liberty to write what you want and be as specific as you want Be as in a way be as sparing on your action lines as you are in your dialogue and spend time Just making sure the action is efficient and set up as efficiently as possible So that it does it is dispiriting I always think to turn a page and to have to read a lot of action So and be really sparing in your use of it but be very clear as I said just had a theory It may or may not work at all, but I'm just thinking next time You're looking through your action and there's like two or three lines of somebody doing something just suddenly right he falls down It might work it might not work at all, but it's comedy and it falls down it will get a lot Yeah, just as you assume I think it was Mike Shepherd when we spoke to him from one of the BBC radio contractors and he just said everything can be shorter Didn't he and that's not just applies to scripts. It also applies to lines and dialogue, but it also applies to action So just think how short can it be? And then clarity is really important number seven There's so much to do on those first few pages, but you're making life very difficult for the reader If it's just not crystal clear what's going on where are they?

Who is there? What are they trying to achieve and again people watch Inside number nine or League of gentlemen all those sorts of mystery things or horror type things and they're trying to set up mystery and suspense And that to blend that with comedy is really really really difficult and actually you don't want to confuse Your readers still you want to give them feel free to give them the completely wrong impression and you can pull the rug Under them underneath, but at least give them a rug You know give them give them something to to hang on to even if you then subvert it on page 10 and on page 20 reveal the whole thing Is a dream, you know like the matrix or every ten minutes. It's a hey, you think it's this but it's this hey You think it's this but it's this but the fact is you thought it was something before you were told it was something else But you do read scripts where you think this this isn't anything I don't know these people are where they are what they're trying to do So again, just make sure it's clear and again Maybe that's something you can ask a friend to read and get them to describe the scene back to you and again You're not asking there I'm really whether it's funny or not because I'm always very suspicious about people reading scripts and taking Non-professional advice about whether something's funny or not because people don't really know how to read scripts But maybe as a reading comprehension you can ask a sibling or somebody to just Read the first three pages and get them to tell you what's happening and if they can't you've got a problem Yeah, that's an interesting because that's often what's happened to me I think where I've been sitting in a room with a producer and it was obviously clear to me what was happening to me But hang on I'm not being a bit silly here who said that but didn't he just say this Oh, yeah, but the thing is and as soon as I start to explain it, I really think well I didn't make it clear enough. Yeah, and the other thing and I'm sure we've spoken about this a lot before but at every stage when you're writing Read your script aloud read the dial out loud because and again This is something I know James you you're very keen on is you know, make it sound like how people talk yes And again, that's the thing we see in the script where somebody thinks they've written a beautiful joke And it may have been a beautiful joke, but it it sort of looks a bit weird coming from that person in this Situation yeah, I mean there are two kinds of unbelievable line is one is people laps into sketch speak Which is somebody saying I didn't come here to be insulted and you know No one has said that since a retired colonel in Tumbra dwells about 1931 that that line does not exist It only exists in comedy land and only exists in a way in which somebody will say well Why did you come here then or something like that?

It's it's a truck is now a hack line, but then also yeah, the other things are hack lines Which are just sort of all all lines which are they have to say a certain thing in a certain way so that the next line works And it's a really nice joke when actually again, I read one of those in the script the other day I just thought this punchline is really good But the setup is I don't know what hit this person would not say that there and then and therefore that in sort of invalidates the punchline So be really brutal Number eight tighten up every single line in the script should justify its place delete any line that isn't either character action or a joke and then you know there's no room for me or filler or wit or You know And if possible turn a character line into a joke or turn a joke into something that drives the story along So ideally your line should be fulfilling two or three things rather than just one thing where they shouldn't they should be doing one thing And you know look at each scene and ask whether it can be shorter because it probably could could you come in later? Could you leave it earlier? Could you avoid repeating information unnecessary a little bit of a plot recap isn't bad But you can always make your script shorter tighter leaner and meaner and they would rather have 28 type funny pages than 36 baggy pages So you know for that what I normally do is print the script out and go somewhere where I don't have access to my computer And just get a pen and just go through it and just start trying to cut stuff and be really brutal about cutting And then hopefully I'll pick up number nine typos in that situation and number ten I can check for jokes and make sure that I'm ticking the fact that there are for me I would like a joke every third line so I would like five jokes per page You know every joke should be either a set up to a joke or a joke or a or a breather after a joke So so those would be my top tips really for tightening and tightening and tightening that script And that's one thing that Seinfeld said I posted into you on Facebook with him a while ago where you know Here's the one thing we can say about Seinfeld it was tight. It was tight.

It was tight. It really is absolutely And yeah for a show where they seem to talk about nothing, you know for a show which seems to not be about anything Which seems to me and it is absolutely tight as you like If you want to check out in more detail what we've been talking about there are 15 or 20 blogs or so up on the Patreon page One the daily ones about character plot jokes polishing your script all that it's all their finding your voice I'm anything that you're struggling with at the moment Just just have a quick look through and hopefully they'll be of some use to you and why not become a patron as well while you're at it And we can you get lots of goodies you will get a lot of goodies and there's a lot of fantastic interviews We've already recorded which you will get first access to and they might not be released for weeks and months afterwards to Everybody else so lots and lots of patreon only stuff as well. So I do come and have a look at that Thanks, Dave. You should go and do your thing I will remind this to look at the BBC writers room comedy Website the script's deadline is Monday the 16th of April at 5 p.m.

Of 2018 and You know you need to log in and do stuff before that So don't leave it to the last minute go back and listen to the previous episode We did with the writers room a couple of podcasts ago and find us on Facebook and Twitter and all that stuff and send us an email sit Com Geeks at gmail.com. Thanks very much Dave. Thank you very much. Thanks for listening.

Bye. Bye