Sitcom v sketches

As it's been a quiet in the writer's bit, thought I'd start a discussion!

In the Critique section there's loads of sketches, compared to barely any sitcoms. It must be 30-40 sketches for every one sitcom. Why's that?

Do other writers prefer sketch writing, or do you like to keep you sitcom under wraps?

Are you starting smaller and building up to a sitcom? Or is it the periods of inactivity and the lengthy time required when writing and planning a sitcom that makes you do sketches as it's more fun(?)

I never have enough ideas for sketches either. But guys like Winterlight have sketch ideas coming out of their ears. Do you (and others) consider yourself a 'sketch writer' and you'd rather have the instant hit and move onto the next little idea?

Anyway, just a few thoughts.

Quote: Seefacts @ June 23 2008, 11:17 PM BST

As it's been a quiet in the writer's bit, thought I'd start a discussion!

In the Critique section there's loads of sketches, compared to barely any sitcoms. It must be 30-40 sketches for every one sitcom. Why's that?

Do other writers prefer sketch writing, or do you like to keep you sitcom under wraps?

Are you starting smaller and building up to a sitcom? Or is it the periods of inactivity and the lengthy time required when writing and planning a sitcom that makes you do sketches as it's more fun(?)

I never have enough ideas for sketches either. But guys like Winterlight have sketch ideas coming out of their ears. Do you (and others) consider yourself a 'sketch writer' and you'd rather have the instant hit and move onto the next little idea?

Anyway, just a few thoughts.

View original

Well if you look at the sketches most of them come from just one pen. They're coming so thick and fast I don't read them anymore.

Also it's easier to read and comment on a sketch than a sitcom.

Sketches come to me faster and take less time to write.

The sitcom I'm working on at the moment takes a hell of a lot more time, so I think for that reason I am more protective of it.

I'm guessing this is the same for most people.

More effort = more protective

Quote: Seefacts @ June 23 2008, 11:17 PM BST

But guys like Winterlight have sketch ideas coming out of their ears.

View original

Hey, I've cut back! And I'm still writing crap out of my system, to be fair.

Back to the topic. The first thing I ever wrote was a sitcom. I didn't really pay sketch writing that much notice, but then I found I quite enjoyed it. For me personally, it's due to the disposable nature of sketches. I can have a standalone idea, write it down and then move on to the next one. You could almost call it laziness to commit to something bigger. I imagine that's why the critique forum is 95% sketches / 5% sitcom.

It's not quite as simple as laziness, though. I'd like to write a sitcom and I'd also like to write sketches. I find sketch writing easier, so I'm sticking with that for now. Saying that, I had an idea recently for a radio sitcom and I'm going to start work on that soon.

Oh and do I consider myself a sketch writer? No, I just consider myself as a wannabe comedy writer at the moment.

I hope I haven't come across in a manner that I thought I was 'standing in the dock'. I really didn't mean to.

Quote: Winterlight @ June 23 2008, 11:54 PM BST

Hey, I've cut back! And I'm still writing crap out of my system, to be fair.

View original

Ha, sorry I wasn't digging at you there. I'm impressed by the ability to come up with more than one sketch idea per 3 months like I do.

You're probably too busy thinking up intricate sitcom plots!

Quote: Winterlight @ June 24 2008, 12:00 AM BST

You're probably too busy thinking up intricate sitcom plots!

View original

Ha! No even when I concentrated on sketches, idea were few and far between!

Quote: David Chapman @ June 23 2008, 11:20 PM BST

Well if you look at the sketches most of them come from just one pen. They're coming so thick and fast I don't read them anymore.

Also it's easier to read and comment on a sketch than a sitcom.

View original

My ears are burning!

I've been writing alot less of late, and editing more.

I hope I'm not chasing other people out of critique.

Also sitcom critique has a habit of being more savage, than skit critique.

From all the time I've been on here I think almost every occasion someone puts up a sitcom episode they are told "it's too long, do it in bits". Then when it comes in bits people say "blah blah blah - can't really get a flavour of it from bits and bobs". I know I've said both of these. So it's much easier to get forum feedback about shorter pieces. That's my reckoning, anyway.

It's also different getting feedback on a 15 minute 1 page special. As opposed to a 30 page master piece. Some feedback on sticoms, has been needlessly mean.

It's why more often people offer to swop scripts.

Quote: Griff @ June 23 2008, 11:34 PM BST

Although I don't post in Critique, I'll join in the chat anyway.

I prefer writing sitcom, given the choice, as I love the depth of creating a whole world rather than bite-size pieces of sketch writing. (In fact I suspect I might soon become so jaded with the production-line mentality of sketch writing that I might take six months or even a year off from it and immerse myself in something substantial like writing a play.)

But nearly all the projects I get involved in seem to want sketches, so I find myself spending most of my time on sketch writing, and more recently gag writing for things like stand-up (or voiceover gags for NewsRevue etc.) - I just spent tonight in a pub with a stand-up friend of mine working on co-writing a new routine for him.

However I'm reserving the five weeks running up to the Sitcom Trials deadline for doing nothing but writing a Trials-length pilot of a new sitcom, and that will be bliss.

View original

Sitcom trials??

Is it not pretty simple? You can write a crap sketches and not give it too much thought but if you get a couple of weeks into a crap sitcom you know you've screwed up. Obviously, there's a few people who are oblivious to it being crap and a few sitcom scripts end up on the forum accordingly. But, for the most part, only the best writers have the confidence in their work to go beyond a 30 sec gag and many of those are happy to rely on feedback from alternative sources (fellow writers, producers, whatever)

I'd love to read some great sitcom pilots on the forum but the thought of wading through hundreds to find a gem, as is often the case with sketches, is horrendous.

I want to have a broadcast sitcom, so I write sitcom. I have tried sketches for competitions, ie where I thought the obvious quality and inherrent uniqueness of my carefully crafterd mini masterpieces would offer a shortcut to fame and fortune. Which didn't happen, of course. So I went back to writing what I wanted to write.

But I did find writing sketches harder. Not the writing part, but the ideas. I've written 2 sitcom pilots in the last couple of years based on my two ideas for sitcoms. Which is not prolific but you pick up a copy of a sitcom script and it feels like a lot of work has gone into it, so, not too bad. But if I had spent 2 years writing sketches I'd want to see hundreds of good quality skits. But I've maybe only had a dozen decent sketch ideas in that time.

I'm probably not a sketch writer. I like to come up with funny word play and biting repostes which are probably more suited to longer character based pieces than they are to sketches. For which the current vogue seems to be keeping them short and sweet.

So, yeah. Sitcom for me, I think.

For me, it's as much a problem of presentation as anything.

I personally couldn't wade through fifty pages of unbroken, improperly formatted sitcom (as is unavoidable when posting on a forum) and likewise I wouldn't expect anyone to do so with a script of mine.

I'd much rather read just one scene of a sitcom on the forum. I don't have time to read through a whole episode.