CHARACTER

Character is the key to good situation comedy. Once the central characters of the drama are established with all their faults and foibles, their comedy may be extended limitlessly by constantly redefining the situation in which they find themselves.

This is precisely the same principle that governs the ideas-generating technique considered earlier in the course:

• new ideas may always be generated by bringing two existing ideas into a new relationship;
• this works just as well if one of the existing ideas (a character or set of characters) remains constant.

Accordingly, it should come as no surprise that situation comedy writing is fundamentally concerned with characterisation. Writers who are commissioned to contribute episodes of soap operas are invariably required to acquaint themselves with finely detailed profiles and histories of all the characters before putting pen to paper. Such individual profiles can easily extend to the equivalent of a literary biography. Similarly, even before the first episode is completed, the characters must already be equipped with biographies that extend far beyond the boundaries of the episode itself. Experienced situation comedy writers speak in terms of weeks or months spent developing characters before attempting to produce finished episodes.

This is not to say that characterisation and dialogue can or should be rigorously separated in this way. As likely as not, the writer's first inspiration will be a comedy situation, with character sketches to follow. The process of character development may be greatly facilitated by allowing imagined situations to develop, allowing the characters to speak, seeing how they react to other people and events and adding to their biographies accordingly. Arguably, characters are much less likely to be credible unless they are "tested" in this way, in the context of appropriate situations.

But the writer should take care not to become too wedded to experimental text written in the early stages of characterisation, for fear that the character becomes too much constrained by the situation. Much better to keep the experimental dialogues on one side and review them much later, when the character has been allowed to find his/her true breadth.

CHARACTER JOURNEYS

Whereas most extended forms, notably novels, depend on far-reaching and complex character journeys (hapless orphan becomes domineering dowager, etc), the journeys taken by situation comedy characters must be more localised. This is simply to accommodate the commercial realities of situation comedy.

Audiences must be able to enjoy any episode without reference to any other. In other words the whole series audience commitment that is crucial for the enjoyment of, say, a costume drama, is not nearly so binding for situation comedy. This fact becomes increasingly important if further series of the situation comedy are commissioned:

• New audience members must be able to enjoy any episode without prior knowledge of the characters or situation.
• It must be possible to broadcast repeat episodes, even years later without confusing the audience for the current series. Such confusion might easily occur if a character had "travelled too far" since the original series.

This is not to suggest that character journeys are unnecessary or undesirable, but merely more localised. Every episode must be a self-contained drama with its own conflicts, twists of plot and character development. Meanwhile the general situation which is the premise of the piece remains relatively stable, certainly throughout the six or ten or however many episodes in a particular series, and perhaps even throughout the whole lifetime of the show.

PLOT & TIMING

In situation comedy, as in all broadcast writing, timing is everything. Writers must work to precise time slots: 27 minutes, 41 minutes, etc.

The length of the slot obviously has a significant bearing on the amount of comic material required (as distinct from the sheer number of words needed to fill the slot).

The following guidelines may be helpful when assessing putative plots:

• The audience is made to laugh every thirty seconds or so, with particular emphasis on the start (to make them want to stay with the show) and the end (to make them want to come back for more and recommend the show to their friends).
• The episode builds up to a powerful climax/twist which the audience begins to anticipate early on.
• The action is multi-layered, with several sub-plots running through the show; a useful starting point may be to think in terms of two or three layers of plot for a half-hour show, three or four for a 45-minute show, etc.

The task of making the audience laugh about sixty times in the space of a 30-minute show is not as daunting as it may seem at first, for the simple reason that well drawn comic characters will inevitably generate their own jokes. Once the audience becomes familiar with the characters' respective idiosyncrasies, they will always look forward to seeing those idiosyncrasies exposed according to the unique circumstances of the episode.