Writing the perfect sitcom is the Holy Grail of comedy. Get it right and you will be carried through the city on people’s shoulders. Get it wrong and you might as well go and hide under a stone. Look at the brickbats aimed at Ben Elton’s The Wright Way. Even the co-writer of Blackadder got it wrong. 

James Cary knows what he is doing. Having cut his teeth on various sketch shows he went on to write for the sitcoms My Hero and My Family. He made his name, however, with a comedy that did not have “My” in the title, Bluestone 42, which he co-created with Richard Hurst. He has also contributed to episodes of Miranda. 

Cary has a blog, sitcomgeek.blogspot.com, in which he writes eloquently about the genre. He has now published an ebook, which offers further advice on anyone thinking of dipping their toes into the treacherous waters.  

In this exclusive excerpt Cary points out traps that writers fall into. Follow his pointers and you may still not write the next Blackadder, but you should certainly have much more chance of not writing the next The Wright Way. 

CHAPTER 2.10 SOME PLOTTING PITFALLS

We’ve spent some time merrily plotting our sitcom episode ideas. We have characters doing things that make sense to them and creating problems in their own lives and in the lives of those around them. What are some of the pitfalls of this process?

1. Impatience

As I’ve been trying to emphasise in previous pages, get used to the idea this process takes time. If you manage to plot your way to a funny scene, that’s great. But spend another half an hour seeing if that plot can be improved, be made more natural, more in character, and get you to an even funnier scene. Turn off the internet and do it again.

2. Lack of Confidence

You might have thought of some key jokes in that funny scene and aren’t all that confident you’ll think of new jokes if you change things too much. Jokes are just jokes. Don’t get trapped with the ‘No Joke Left Behind’ policy. The plot has to be right or the jokes won’t matter. The stories have to be faithful to the characters. Jokes are the icing on the cake. You need lots of brilliant icing. But you need cake. Don’t worry. If your characters and plots are working well together, the jokes will come – if you take the time to work at them. (Again, you may need to turn off the internet and concentrate)

3. Meandering

Does your story escalate, or meander? Your hero needs a proper quest with escalating calamity, rather than a series of events. Your hero’s attempts to achieve their quest shouldn’t merely fail but make things worse. The protagonist has to steal something back to achieve their goal – but they don’t just fail to steal it. They are arrested and locked up for the night, making the quest a hundred times harder. Also, who stands to lose if your character succeeds and how do they try to stop your character succeeding? We don’t just want catastrophe but conflict. If you’re struggling for complications and catastrophes, maybe the goal is wrong. Maybe they should succeed fast and face the unintended consequences of that – like in a plot see-saw. (See Chapter 2.8.3)

Click here for more essential sitcom-writing tips from James Cary.