by Tim Ferguson
Yet, protagonists can usually only resolve their troubles by acting ‘internally’, that is when their actions are based upon a change in outlook. Internal actions might include being honest, facing the music, standing up for themselves, overcoming a fear, doing the right thing, accepting the inevitable or surrendering a prize. Internal actions tend to provide lasting (albeit minimal) change in the protagonist. For example, the husband feels guilty, finds his lies can no longer be sustained and comes clean, revealing his fear of losing his wife to his handsome friend.
Internal action, when it finally comes, doesn’t necessarily mean the protagonist will avoid punishment or that matters will have reached a stage where they’re irreparably worsened. (In this example the husband may be given the chore of cooking dinner in the kitchen while the wife and friend watch his beloved footy match.)
RESOLVING STORIES
The climax and resolution of a story must directly answer the concerns raised early in the story. This may seem obvious, but many a first draft has failed to answer the primary question raised in the first act, e.g. ‘Will Bob get his money back?’With this in mind, it generally pays to have an idea early on how the story will be resolved. That way, the stakes can go sky-high without causing the writer too much anxiety about where it’s all leading. (This is not the same as planning the end before the beginning: the climax must emerge as an answer to the question posed by the first turning point.) For example, choosing a resolution in which the jealous husband decides to neutralise the situation by coming clean offers a general direction for the story. With this resolution in place, the process becomes one of escalating tensions and increasing the complications to a point where the husband finds them unsustainable andconfesses.
Once you have settled on a resolution, the options for escalating events become clearer.
With the proviso that it must relate directly to their concerns, regularly ask yourself, ‘What is the worst thing that can happen to the character now?’ Don’t just put your characters under pressure, squeeze them till they choke. Whether you take your characters around the world, to Hell or to jail, the beacon of your resolution guides you towards the climax.
MULTIPLE STORYLINES
Episodes with several storylines that resolve or complicate each other can be a delight for audiences. Seinfeld made a virtue of this technique and viewers revelled in the introduction of new storylines for Jerry and his friends to negotiate. The show’s unlikely connections between characters and events, and the manner in which each storyline was paid-off by another, were surprising and satisfying. No coincidence seemed too outlandish.
Making multiple storylines resolve each other is a creative process with many difficulties but only one challenge—keep it simple! Ideally, the resolution should come in one story-beat only. This saves episode time, keeps the stories a step ahead of the viewer until the last instant and makes it easy for viewers to grasp.
Despite a reputation for cleverness, what the Seinfeld story resolutions had in common was simplicity. Though each episode appeared to be a complex web of story strands, with the last segment of each episode piling unexpected resolution upon resolution in an almost chaotic way, the impression was misleading. If you examine a Seinfeld episode, you’ll find a delightful simplicity and clarity to each story’s structure. If there is genius in Seinfeld (and there is) it is to be found here.
Given the time constraints, multi-plot episodes allow for only so many story beats per strand. The resolutions must be swift and easy to grasp.
Time is not the only consideration. If your show is designed for prime time then your audience will be of all ages, so your stories must be clear and resolve in a way that is satisfying for both kids and adults. Even if your show is aimed at adults, human beings come in all brains and sizes, so simplicity is crucial. Master screenwriter Simon van der Borgh says, ‘Never be afraid of being understood’.
Simplicity however does not equal stupidity! Surprises, reversals, conflicts and resolutions all demonstrate a comedy writer’s story-building skill, but when they’re neat, clear and punchy he demonstrates his talent.
RAISING THE STAKES
The primary purpose of any scene, except the resolution, is to ‘raise the stakes’ or increase the pressure on the characters. ‘Raising the stakes’ however is a catch-all term for something that can be done in many ways. It is a common mistake to repeatedly raise the stakes at only onelevel.
Generally speaking, characters have something at stake in all the following areas:
Moral stakes are raised when a character makes a decision that by their own standards is immoral, confronts a moral issue or is forced to balance one moral priority against another. The pressure to make a decision can be external (e.g. another character can threaten, beguile, coerce or unknowingly direct them to make the choice) or entirely self-generated (e.g. the character is being compromised by a lie they have told to maintain appearances).
The most common moral problem facing sitcom characters is dishonesty. Though a lie may be told with the best of intentions, it tends to grow in detail, complexity and magnitude, increasing the moral pressure on the liar or liars until they are exposed. Lies create knowledge differentials which in turn create misunderstandings. Chaos and hand wringing are never far behind. In an episode of The Games when an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member dies in his office, Sydney Olympics official John and his cohorts pretend the dead man is still alive. To fool onlookers, they hold fake meetings with what seems to be a very quiet and passive IOC member. John even goes so far as to get the IOC member’s ‘approval’ on some new planning measures. Anticipating the arrival of VIPs Nelson Mandela and Princess Margaret, John and co. resort to ever more desperate tactics to cover their subterfuge. They finally taking the extraordinary step of sending him off in a car while pretending he is alive to the other passengers (‘Dead Man’, John Clarke and Ross Stevenson).
Status stakes are raised when a character’s status is threatened. A character’s status is their position in any hierarchy, including their role in life. The threat may take the form of replacement, demotion or redundancy. Whether they’re a doctor, a mother, a president or a pauper, everyone has a perception of their own status. Any event that forces an alteration of that perception can cause tremendous upheaval in a character’s life.
In Everybody Loves Raymond, Debra finds her status as a mother is repeatedly threatened when her mother-in-law meddles in her family’s affairs.
In All in the Family, Mike’s status as a husband is threatened when Gloria demands an equal partnership in their marriage (‘Gloria Discovers Women’s Lib’ by Norman Lear and Sandy Stern).
Status anxiety can lead characters to behave badly. In Seinfeld Jerry spends an episode worrying that his new girlfriend mistakenly thinks he picks his nose. He can’t let the trivial misunderstanding ride lest he become known as a nose-picker. His dogged insistence that there was ‘no pick’ turns the girlfriend off him (‘The Pick’ by Larry David and Marc Jaffe).
Emotional stakes are raised by any threat to a character’s strongest emotional bonds. The imminent loss of a mother, father, lover, friend, teddy bear or even a prized memento can goad a character into reckless, uncharacteristic action.
In Diff’rent Strokes the two adopted boys, Willis and Arnold, are sent into a spin when their adoptive father, Philip Drummond, falls for a woman who plans to send them away. The more love Mr Drummond feels for the woman, the greater the emotional stakes for the boys. Fear of abandonment, jealousy, disappointment and anger provoke Willis and Arnold to create problems for the interloper (‘The Woman’ by Ron Alexander).
A breach of trust, misplaced jealousy or a lack of consideration regularly raises the emotional stakes in sitcom. The relationships involved, particularly those of major characters, tend to be resistant to permanent breakdown—but the characters don’t know that! Anger, emotional pain or the bruising of pride can place relationships under stress or cause a temporary rift. In The Sim
psons, Marge feels so under-appreciated by her family that she abandons them and goes to the ‘Rancho Relaxo’ health farm to examine her options. Only by recognising and apologising for his shortcomings does her husband, Homer, win her back (‘Homer Alone’ by David M. Stern).
Another risk to comic relationships comes from one or more of the characters labouring under a misapprehension that leads them to be dishonest or unfairly punish others. For example, in So I Married An Axe-Murderer, Charlie is convinced his wife is … well, the title says it all. When he accuses her, she is heartbroken at his lack of trust and dumps him. (Turns out she was innocent of any crime.)
In domestic comedies, the greatest emotional threat is usually the departure of a ‘family’ member or the entire disbandment of the ‘family’.
Temporal stakes are raised when a character is threatened with the loss of money or worldly possessions, or obstructed in acquiring more. Whether it’s inheritance money, the family home or a pack of breadcrumbs, people will fight to gain or keep possessions, particularly if their livelihood or quality of life depend on them, or if they are connected with other stakes such as status anxiety or emotional stakes.
In The Golden Girls Blanche freaks out her housemates by considering an offer to buy the house, imperilling her ‘family’. When her housemates accuse her of selfishness she takes offence. Her inclination to sell increases and her friends’ anguish increases with it. Only when she weighs up the money against the loss of her imperfect but beloved ‘family’ does she refuse the offer. The stakes for her housemates are primarily emotional, but for Blanche they are purely temporal (‘We’re Outta Here Parts 1 and 2’ by Barry Fanaro, Mort Nathan, Terry Grossman and Kathy Speer).
Physical stakes can attach to an actual stake—just ask a vampire. When a character’s life and limb are threatened, or they face the prospect of significant pain, they can react in extreme or uncharacteristic ways. For instance, in Gilligan’s Island, Gilligan and the Skipper discover a head-hunters’ totem pole that bears a resemblance to Gilligan. When the pole is broken and the headhunters invade the Island, Gilligan is forced to pretend that his is the head on the totem pole. The headhunters are hoodwinked, but only because the normally chicken Gilligan overcomes his fears (‘High man on the Totem Pole’by Brad Radnitz).
Stakes in any category can be real or imagined but either way, they’ll have equal weight in a story.
All of the stakes above can be based on absurd foundations. In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, King Arthur is terrified when the Knights of Ni heighten Physical Stakes by threatening to send him mad with their annoying repetition of the word ‘Ni’. Likewise, irrational phobias particular to a given character can be used to heighten the stakes for that character. Seinfeld’s Kramer suffers Psychological Stakes when he experiences Coulrophobia, a fear of clowns.
The main thing is that the stakes are important to the characters and challenge their individual natures.
KNOWLEDGE DIFFERENTIALS
‘Knowledge differentials’ are perhaps the most common story tool in sitcom. A knowledge differential occurs when one or more characters know more than another character or characters. Usually neither character is aware that there is a misunderstanding until it’s too late or until one of the characters clarifies thesituation.
INSPECTOR CLOUSEAU: (indicating the hotel’s dog) Does your dog bite?
HOTELIER: No.
CLOUSEAU bends to pat the dog. It bites him.
INSPECTOR CLOUSEAU: I thought you said your dog did not bite.
HOTELIER: That is not my dog.
—The Pink Panther Strikes Again (by Blake Edwards and Frank Waldman)
In Abbott and Costello’s classic ‘Who’s On First?’ sketch (without which no exploration of comedy is complete), the pair discuss Abbott’s baseball team and which base each of the players are on. The team members have unlikely names such as ‘What’, ‘Because’, ‘Tomorrow’, ‘I Don’t Know’, but Costello doesn’t know that. In the extract below, the name of the player on first base is ‘Who’.
COSTELLO: Well then, who’s on first?
ABBOTT: Yes.
COSTELLO: I mean the fellow’s name.
ABBOTT: Who.
COSTELLO: The guy on first!
… and so on. Throughout the sketch, Abbott has complete knowledge of the team members’ peculiar names and is perfectly calm. He answers Costello’s increasingly hysterical questions honestly and can’t see what the fuss is about. And in fact he could easily resolve the confusion by saying, ‘Listen, the player’s actual name is “Who”’, but instead we are treated to what is rightly regarded as some of the finest comic wordplay in the English language. The simplicity of the misunderstanding exposes a baffling range of linguistic possibilities. Just by bouncing between various applications of the word ‘who’, Abbott and Costello wrote themselves into comedy history.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the sketch is that, at its heart, it’s nonsense. In reality, nobody has a name like ‘I Don’t Know’ or ‘Because’. However, the audience accepts this absurdity because the knowledge differential and wordplay are the focus of the piece. It’s enough that Abbott and Costello both act believably within the confines of their absurd premise—the players’ nonsense names don’t diminish the audience’s enjoyment.
Beyond their usefulness in sketch comedy, knowledge differentials can also generate narrative. When one character gets the wrong end of the stick, the double meanings in another character’s words or actions can drive action and cause complications. Mind you, any misunderstanding should be at least vaguely credible. The person labouring under the misapprehension should be able to justify their warped view to themselves.
Example:
BOB reads a newspaper article detailing a rise in husband murders. BOB has just inherited money from a rich aunt. He notes that BARBARA has been strangely secretive lately. In fact she’s planning a surprise birthday barbeque for him, but BOB wonders if she is plotting his murder.
Later, BOB overhears BARBARA telling her friend DELORES how to soften a steak, BOB’s favourite, with a meat hammer.
BARBARA: I just have to keep bashing with the hammer until the job is done.
DELORES: What about the blood?
BARBARA: I’m not squeamish. I may even enjoy it. Oh my, Bob’s not going to see this coming!
The scenario exploits Bob’s ongoing fear of his wife. Once the idea is in his head Barbara’s most innocent actions take on a dire meaning for Bob. The sight of Barbara sharpening a knife or bringing home rolls of plastic gives him the horrors. Further, Barbara notices that Bob is suspicious and becomes more secretive about her party plans. She tells him white lies about her preparations that, when uncovered, apparently confirm Bob’s fears.
Should Bob decide to follow his wife to the supermarket, he’ll see her purchasing lighter fluid, a can of petrol (for the mower) and super-size garbage bags, all of which have sinister associations. Even if he later sees her buying streamers and champagne he can interpret this as covering her tracks. And so forth.
Sitcoms provide countless examples of this story-building technique. In The Honeymooners, Ralph’s tendency to hypochondria and panic is exploited when he finds a letter from a doctor and believes the doctor has given him six months to live. Ralph is thrown onto an emotional roller-coaster—despair, sudden cherishing of his wife, fragile stoicism—until it’s revealed that the ‘doctor’ is actually a vet. Alice’s mother’s dog is the one with six months to live (‘A Matter of Life and Death’by Marvin Marx and Walter Stone).
Not all knowledge differentials involve death and disaster. Anything of importance to the characters can provide material for a knowledge differential. In Fawlty Towers, (‘The Hotel Inspectors’ by Connie Booth and John Cleese) Basil is warned that hotel inspectors are about. When Mr Hutchison mentions he comes into constant contact with hotels in his ‘professional capacity’, Basil mistakes him for one. Hutchison is actually a cutlery salesman, but Basil goes f
rom his usual sarcastic sniping to sycophantic fawning, going so far as to say that Hutchison himself could do a better job of running the hotel. When Hutchison asks if the hotel has a table tennis table, Basil replies desperately, ‘Indeed it does; it’s not in absolutely mint condition but it could be used in an emergency’. (This is reportedly Cleese’ favourite line in the series.) Finally, when Basil discovers the truth, he turns on Hutchison like a lazy susan, only to have Hutchison punch him on the nose—just in time for the real hotel inspectors to see the whole thing. The misunderstanding plays upon one of Basil’s known qualities: he’s only polite and professional when it serves his purposes.
The power of a simple misunderstanding to drive a story is limitless but there are a couple of essential elements. The first is obsession. Julius Caesar’s assertion that ‘men believe what they want to’ is a regrettable truth. Once a character has an idea in their head and obsession blinds them to other explanations of the facts, they reject any attempt to clear the air as a trivialisation (e.g. if you think you’re dying, a friend trying to convince you otherwise can be dismissed as well-meaning but deluded). Distortion is inevitable once obsession is in play and this allows the misapprehension to continue. So while a simple misreading of the facts can generate a story, the strong emotions that arise from the misunderstanding give the story its punch and make the obsession believable. Fear, jealousy, greed, desire, loathing—any of these can blind a person to the truth.
The second essential element is dishonesty. In the example above, if Bob would only speak openly to Barbara about his fears, she could quickly and easily put them to rest. But there’s never a good time to say, ‘Darling, are you planning to kill me?’ There’s also dishonesty, albeit benign, on Barbara’s side. If she told Bob the truth about her secretive actions, the misunderstanding would be resolved, but that would ruin the surprise party.