Sitcom Writing Idea!

So I had this idea last night. It's poorly thought out and it's going to be poorly presented to you, but just stick with it.

Thanks! Anyway, the idea was to gather a team of writers, from this very forum. And have them create a sitcom, wait it gets better, trust me. So I was thinking about six-eight(6-8) people in this "team".

We together, decide on the plot, the characters and choose their world.

Now here's the twist! Each writer gets to "control" one character. They decide who they are, what they do, how they do it.

So lets say I create a character called Bob. I will get to decide how he speaks, what he says and his whole back story.

It would be like an improvisation. And we would write the dialog through, MSN or any other messenger service or we could just use the private message feature on here. You would be able to take your time to reply with a witty line, but it would have to be funny and carry the story along.

We would have to write a tight plot, plan out scenes, deciding what characters are in what scenes and you wouldn't be able to go off the plot too much!

So if you're interested or have any ideas or suggestions, sign up, but quick, like I said I think we only need about 6-8 writers, although we could use more for err "non main characters".

Thanks for sticking with me or at least skimming.

Sounds like an interesting idea.

I've been presented with ideas such as this before and I've even joined one but it went down hill pretty quick so forgive my pessimism.

But Leevil, you always seem to come up with ideas etc. if you feel you can lead a small team of people and arrange everything, I would be happy to join your little team, controlling a character would be great as you can concentrate more of yourself into that one man/women. Let's just hope the characters we make don't clash.

I am up for it, pretty good idea

The problem I can see with this is that in general when a team of writers write they work towards a common goal they know they have to set up for a joke etc if everyone writes one character it might decend into madness with characters randomly acting out of the flow of the story. Just my 2cence

I agree Gavin, but I hope to work with a tight plot and it would not be total freedom, as each scene should be scrutinized by the other writers, before making the page.

The idea, as like Paul points out, would be to give each character great depth, the would speak with a different beat. Different styles and ideas would appear.

I think we would make a character and then present it to the other writers, to make sure we don't clash.

This will take a lot of planning. Which I'm not to great at, but what the hell! I'll give it ago.

We could just try a short or one episode for practice.

Thanks everyone for the interest. More people sign up, come on!

It's kind of like Improv for writers. I did this once on a writing course in pairs as an exercise. It was interesting/fun but I wouldn't want to write like that on a big project. Plus we had the added advantage of being in the same room as each other for quick feedback and general name-calling.

I would try writing a single scene with two writers first to see if it even works. Before spending a lot of time on planning.

I'd be interested if you need any more writers. We'd have to be fairly disciplined though. All write around the same time I guess.

I'm up for it, it'll take a lot of effort though to get it to work. But I'm always up for more writing it helps me improve.

Did you have any ideas for what its about yet?

Yeah - give us a clue so we know how to start thinking.

Well I was hoping once we/I choose a team, we will then decide whats going to happen, I know it's my idea, but I can't decide everything myself, I want this to be a total team effort. Everything has to be cleared by the other writers.

I suppose you could all start thinking up plots. That's the next stage I was thinking about, us all pitching ideas and then choosing one, for example...

"Six 20-somethings hang out in a coffee shop"

^ We're not doing Friends.

How about a group of gamblers? Allows for different personalites and gives reason for the group of people to be together.

I like that idea. There could be some interesting characters in that.

What about 6 losers in a pub after a few discussing the news of the day/week? Should flow naturally.

T'was an example Martin.

I like the idea of a self help group. It could be a mix of addictions though.

Current Writers;
Leevil, earman2009, paul watson, Chris Moffatt, David Chapman, Martin Holmes.

Right I think that's enough. Can you all give me an idea how much time you're willing to spend on this project. I don't expect 100%, but it would be nice to know if you're thinking of dropping out or going on holiday.

There's no rush to do this, we'll take our time, but let's not be too relaxed or it'll slowly slip away.

Sign ups are still open, if you're interested but it may go to a vote if we get too many.