by Linda Venis
And don’t just sit on your rewrite; give it to a couple of people to read. People who didn’t read your first draft, so they can come to it fresh. See what they have to say. You may decide you want to do another rewrite.
I know it’s hard—you’re probably kind of sick of your script at this point—but hang in there and take one more pass at it. After all, you don’t want your script to be “okay.” You don’t want it to be “pretty good.” You want it to be…
Freaking great!
CHAPTER 5
Writing the On-Air Half-Hour Comedy Spec:
The Story and Outline
by Julie Chambers and David Chambers
Writing a great spec script for a show that is currently on the air is an absolutely necessary component for getting into the world of television comedy. It’s the way you say, “I’m interested in writing television for a living, I’m good at it, and here’s the proof.” It’s your calling card.
What exactly is a spec script? It’s a script that no one is paying you to write, but you’re writing it on your own to prove you’re good enough to be paid to write. It is written not for money, but on speculation, hence the term spec script. And the key to a successful spec is first to put together a strong, well-worked-out story, and then to lay it out, in outline form, scene by scene and event by event before you start writing.
Lining up your story is, in the opinion of everyone we know who has ever written for television, called the “heavy lifting.” Network and studio executives have actually told us that with a well-plotted outline, the script practically writes itself. While in our combined over forty years of writing for half-hour comedy shows like The Wonder Years, Frank’s Place, Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper, Becker, and The Simpsons, we have never once had a script write itself, there is a nugget of truth in this statement. The fact is that we’ve never known a single writer, no matter how talented or how experienced, who wrote a good script without at least a rough outline. Everyone needs a road map to get to the destination.
In this chapter, we’ll take you step by step through the process of creating a story and outline that we’ve taught hundreds of half-hour comedy writing students in UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. We’ll start with the “who, what, and whys” of writing a show that’s currently on the air and the importance of knowing your show. You’ll learn how to brainstorm general ideas, develop those into jumping-off points to a story, create complications that arise in the middle of the episode, and figure out what happens from beginning to end. Finally, you’ll learn the basics of creating a beat sheet and expanding it into an outline, which sets you up to write your script more easily, faster, and more successfully.
Getting Started: Five Questions
You Must Know the Answers To
1. Who Are You Writing For?
You’re writing for yourself, obviously, to prove you can do it, and maybe for your friends and family, who might enjoy reading your work. But the real audience for your spec script is the people who can help you become a professional: other writers who are already there, as well as agents, managers, producers, and executives. Each of them is what we call a “Savvy Reader.” They know what it takes to write solid and funny half-hour comedy. They know what they’re looking for and what tells them a writer does or doesn’t really get it. As we discuss putting together your story and outline, the Savvy Reader will continue to make occasional appearances.
2. Do You Have to Write a Show That’s on the Air Now?
Savvy Readers are not going to read a script written by someone outside of the business if it’s not a current show. They want to know you have a contemporary sensibility and that you’re up to speed with what’s going on right now. They read lots of scripts and will be able to gauge your abilities as a writer, comparing and contrasting your script with the many others they’ve read. As great as Seinfeld and Friends were, no one is going to want to read a spec script for a show that’s no longer made.
3. Why Is a Spec Script Such a Peculiar Type of Writing?
Almost all forms of creative writing—novels, films, short stories, stage plays—are original to the writer, who creates the world and the characters inhabiting it. A brilliant novelist may not, and probably will not, have a ghost of an idea of how to write a really funny episode of New Girl. But in a spec script for an on-air show, this world and its characters already exist. You must devise and write a story inside that world. A network or a cable channel orders a given number of episodes, and each story fills that order. Ultimately, you are trying to demonstrate that you can be an effective order filler.
4. What Are You Trying to Prove with Your Spec?
Prove You Know Your Show
You’re proving that you can devise and write a story full of funny situations and jokes that feel exactly like a typical episode of the series. You are parking it in the middle of the space of what they normally do on the show, not on or outside the lines. If they usually have one main story (the A story) and a lesser story (the B story), you do too, and you weave them together the way they do on the series. If they have three equally weighted stories, so should you. If they generally have some kind of running joke throughout an episode, you should think of one, too. If they most often start each episode in the apartment or the office…well, you get the idea.
Don’t test the limits of the show, even if you have a funny idea for it. And conclude the show back where you left it. You end with a return to normalcy, not a new situation that isn’t where the show on the air is this week. Your job is to write a typical episode, not a so-called special episode, and absolutely no two-part episodes.
Prove You Know the Characters
You’re proving you can write in the voices of the regular characters and that you understand their relationships; they’re not your characters to do with as you wish. The characters should sound, behave, and relate to one another in your script just as they do on the series—don’t give them new backstories or significant traits. You may have a funny idea about two of the regular characters starting a romance, but as hilarious as your notion may be, there’s one problem—it’s a terrible idea for a spec. Okay, you may be watching the series on television six months from now and see those two characters get romantically involved. So, you did have a good idea. But the writers on the show can do that idea; you cannot.
Prove You Know the Lead Character
You’re proving you can write a funny story about the show’s lead character, which is who most episodes, and certainly typical episodes of the series, revolve around. Definitely do not write a spec script about the second banana, giving her the driving action and all the good jokes. That may happen occasionally on the series, but it’s a bad strategy for a spec. Frankie is the star of The Middle, and Peter Griffin is the star of Family Guy. Even if it’s hilarious dialogue, the Savvy Reader will not think much of your spec.
Of course, there are a few “buddy” shows that have dual leads, like 2 Broke Girls or Mike & Molly, and if you’re writing for one of those shows you need to make sure the two leads are equally weighted in your episode. (The occasional exception to writing for the lead character is a true ensemble show like Modern Family, which deals with a story for each of its three family units every episode. In that case, you’ll need to make sure that every couple—Phil and Claire, Cam and Mitch, Jay and Gloria—is significantly involved in the story.)
Prove You Know the Format and Limitations
You’re proving you get the format and flavor of the series—how many acts there are, how many scenes they normally have, what kind of pacing they employ, what storytelling devices they typically use.
You’re also proving that you understand the limitations of shooting a show in production. Your episode should take place mostly, if not entirely, in the show’s regular sets and locations, like a living room, bar, or workplace, and shouldn’t include a raft of outside sets (i.e., sets that are not always up and standing on the soundstage). For example, if you’re writing a multiple-camera s
how, which is shot in one day on a studio soundstage in front of a live audience (like The Big Bang Theory or Hot in Cleveland), you should limit yourself to no more than one or two outside sets. If you’re writing a single-camera show (like Girls or Suburgatory) shot over five or six days, you have some more flexibility, because even though most of the scenes will be shot on their regular sets, they do not have live audiences and often use outside locations.
Why is minimizing the number of sets important? The budget. If you write a multiple-camera episode where the characters go to the top of the Empire State Building, a crowded nightclub, and a tractor pull, that show will never get made. Why? They can’t fit that many sets on a soundstage, not to mention it’s way too expensive to build three massive sets that would never get used again. This prohibition against too many outside sets applies, to some degree, even to animated shows, since it’s costly to pay animators to create too many new background locations from scratch. The Savvy Reader will know whether your episode can be made within a reasonable budget.
What you are ultimately proving is that you can take the show out for a fun ride, bring it back where you got it, and park it in the middle of the spot.
5. Which Show Should You Pick to Write?
You need to write a show that you like a lot, that you feel comfortable with, and that is currently on the air. The best candidates are successful shows that haven’t been on the air for too many seasons. For one thing, they have done fewer episodes, so it’s easier to come up with an original story. But more importantly, sooner or later, all shows go away, usually through cancellation (though sometimes because the creators or the actors are just ready to move on). The longer a show runs, the more likely the current season will be its last. After a show is gone, the Savvy Reader may continue reading specs from that show for six months—maybe even up to a year. But then, that’s it. Your script will be past its expiration date.
At the other end of the spectrum, it’s a bit dangerous to try to write a spec for a show that’s just premiered. As much as you may like the show, most series take a few episodes to find their storytelling rhythm, have their characters fully mesh, and reveal their backstories. The other reason is that a brand-new series is on a short leash with the network. If it doesn’t perform well enough with the viewers, it may get canceled before you finish writing your spec, and no Savvy Reader will ever look at it.
A reality check: The writers and producers on the series you choose will almost certainly not read your spec. The legal departments at the studios don’t want you, two years down the road, to sue if the series winds up doing an episode that has elements that could have come out of your script. The only exception to this “no reading” rule is if you’re close to someone working on a show who might be willing to look at your episode.
Knowing Your Show
Discover Your Show’s DNA
Once you’ve chosen the series you want to spec, you need to stop being a fan and start being an analyst and scientist. You are trying to clone the DNA of the show, so you have to look past the entertaining surface and see into the underlying structure: its skeleton, musculature, and pulse. How do you do that? You watch the show—a lot! Watch it until the funny fades into the background of your mind and the architecture of the show starts to reveal itself fully. Even after you’ve started putting your story and outline together, keep watching episodes of your show. You never know what subtleties you might learn that will inform your own writing.
What’s also helpful is to watch one of your favorite episodes multiple times. The underlying scaffolding of the storytelling will more clearly reveal itself, and the nuances of the show’s comic tone and the specific flavor of each character’s humor will become obvious to you. Another helpful exercise is to listen to an episode without watching it. When you concentrate simply on hearing what the characters say, it helps make individual speech patterns clearer in your head.
Count how many scenes there are in each episode you view. You want to get an average of how many scenes are in a typical episode. Your outline should be constructed so that the number of scenes is within the show’s normal range. (In case you’re wondering what exactly constitutes a scene in a television show, any change of location or change of time within the same location is a new scene. When the story goes from the office to the kitchen, it’s a new scene. If the characters walk into a bar after work, and then you dissolve to hours later and they’re closing the place down, that’s a new scene.)
Time the scenes. This will give you a better sense of the pace of the show. Are there a lot of short scenes, a few longer scenes, or a mix of shorter and longer scenes? You want to devise a story that flows the way typical episodes do on the series. If the show uses almost all short scenes, you don’t want to have a big, long scene—no matter how funny it is—in the middle of your episode. It won’t feel like the series.
Closely Observe How Stories Are Told on Your Series
Pay strict attention to what types of storytelling devices the show uses. If there are fantasy sequences, voice-overs, flashbacks, documentary-style interviews, graphics, signage, cutaways to tangential jokes, and/or a lot of contemporary music, then you can put those in your story, too. By the same token, stay away from any devices not commonly employed.
Observe the time frame in which the series tells its stories. You’ll need to have the events in your episode happen in a believable time frame; don’t cram more events into a day than would be realistic. And make sure the events in your episode occur in a time frame appropriate to the series; each series has its own kind of temporal rhythm. The episodes of some series take place over a single day, or perhaps two. Other shows will run a graphic saying “Six Months Later” and then come up on the characters after a lengthy period of time.
Of course, the series you want to write may have an episode or two that departs from the normal pattern of the show. But just as in the case of writing for the lead versus secondary characters, the writers on the show can do that because they have the gig.
Beyond Watching the Show: Do Your Research
Investigate your show online. Each series has an official website and often multiple fan websites. You can learn a lot from those. For one thing, you need to look at synopses of episodes they have already produced and aired. This is important! When we went in to pitch for The Simpsons, the show had already made hundreds of episodes, and we didn’t want to pitch a story that was too close to something they’d already done. It took a long time to plow through all those synopses, but when we went to our meeting, we were confident everything we pitched was in a reasonably fresh area. (Reviewing each episode can have the additional benefit of teaching you about your main character. Perhaps you missed the episode where it was established that she is scared of parrots, so maybe now you find a funny use for a parrot in your story.)
You want to make absolutely sure your story does not repeat one they have already made. The Savvy Reader may well know if your story is too close to one that’s been produced and presume you’re a plagiarist, even if you have no idea that your show idea has already been done. (The good news is that if you came up with the exact story, you clearly have a great feel for the kinds of episodes they do! The bad news is that now you have to think of another story.)
What if the story idea kicking around in your head is uncomfortably close to one that’s been produced? You may be able to salvage it, but you’ll need to make adjustments. Change the emphasis; transform your main story (the A story) into a secondary story (the B story), but alter it enough so that it’s not the same story.
For example, we pitched to The Simpsons the idea that Bart encounters a homeless man and coaches him on how to look more pathetic and play better on people’s sympathies to improve his income as a beggar. Bart’s suggestions work so well that the man gives Bart a cut of his proceeds. Other homeless people ask Bart for advice, and he winds up becoming a beggar pimp. But the show wanted us to explore a different idea for Bart, so our Bart story was given
to Homer, who wound up working part-time as a beggar to supplement his income. Our A story was given new life as a B story on the episode “Milhouse Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.”
Find scripts for the show. Numerous websites have them, and even if they charge you, it’s money well spent. You want your story to match the format that they use on the series. So, if you’re writing a show that has three acts, don’t write an episode that has only two acts. If your show starts with act 1, breaks for titles, then finishes act 1, don’t write a Cold Opening (the brief scene at the beginning of many shows) and then go to a commercial break. Copy the show’s format exactly in your outline.
Finally, and as silly as this may sound, it’s important to spell the characters’ names correctly. Is it Hayley or Hailey? Is it Jerry or Gerry? Is it John or Jon? Few things will make you look like you’re an amateur more than spelling a regular character’s name incorrectly.
Creating Your Story
Where Does Your Story Come From?
Stories come from anywhere and everywhere. Ultimately, the story you’re going to write has to be shaped inside your own head, so start by brainstorming ideas: What would be funny for your show? What kinds of stories would you like to see on it? Also, bouncing ideas off of someone who knows the series can be helpful. (Professional television comedy writing is almost always done via a group process, i.e., the writers’ room.) Your ideas don’t need to be fully formed when you first start; a complete episode is unlikely to spring out of your head like Athena from the brow of Zeus. The little ideas that are germs of story making are what we call spitballs: suggestions of possible funny areas for a scene, a character’s attitude, or a story.