Job 'n' Knock Page 3

It's very brave to post something for strangers to see but don't be disheartened. Nobody and I mean nobody writes good first drafts. Don't take it personally it just is the way it is. Water is wet, first drafts are pretty shit.

It's great your friends find it funny but friends:

a) Are not comedy commissioners

b) Are friends and so will be nice you, otherwise they wouldn't be friends (unless you have instructed them to be honest and they are stupid enough to be honest!)

c) Are not going to sell their houses to raise the £150,000 - £300,000 an episode it takes to make a sitcom.

If you want to be a writer you have to learn to take, even love criticism because you will get lots of it much more than anything else (including success). You also have to study sitcom and know why sitcoms are successful. There is a link between all successful sitcoms and if you want to be a serious comedy writer you have to attempt to understand what that link is.

Unfortunately sitcom writing is probably one of the most difficult crafts to master. It's no different than any other skill. You have to practice, practice, practice, study the great exponents of that skill and then even after that there is no guarantee that you will have that certain something that will make you stand out from the crowd and persuade somebody to invest hundreds of thousands of pounds in you.

Of course if you're doing it for fun and for your friends that's great. If it gives others pleasure then good on you. But if you seriously want to be a comic writer then you need to not just expect criticism but welcome it with open arms.

My advice would be to go back to basics (skip the basics and you will never ever develop as a writer), buy some sitcom books, go on a sitcom course (like the sitcom mission course), keep your sitcom idea on hold ( many writers keep ideas on hold for years that eventually get made) give yourself time to get the basic foundations and then you will be in a position to write something that could start you on the road to a professional career.

Oh and there are loads of people who want to write sitcoms, and do, and yet how many great sitcoms have you seen recently? So just remember that writing a great sitcom is absolutely pretty damn impossibly difficult and anybody who says different is either delusional or lying. But hey that's the challenge! And if you crack it, then you will be showered with praise and worshipped and be able to work in America. Until then it's just criticism I'm afraid!

Why thank you David if you're serious about reading more then I can email you the whole series if you like? And on here you are the only person that liked it (so far) so hopefully there will be more. But it doesn't change the fact that I still have to make some big changes.

Yeah just pm me. It still will be funny with the changes!

You're lucky - you've got more feedback than most newcomers who post on here. Make the most of it!

Thank you Rexer, I know that this is going to be very hard and a lot of hard work so all I can do is take the advice on board and try my hardest. Thanks.

No, problem. Getting something down on paper is half of the battle, the other half is getting something down on paper that is really great. So the good news is you're half way there.

Oh, and why run before you can walk. There is a show called Newsrevue that you can submit sketches to. There are radio shows like 'The Show What You Wrote' and NewsJack'. Sketches are a lot easier than writing a sitcom and you can learn a lot about structure and the pacing of lines and also practice writing punchlines.

I'd also sign up for an improvised comedy course as comedy impro is great for developing characters, and sitcom is fundamentally about great characters. Try some stand up as well, anything that gets you performing and interacting with an audience. You could try a character that you envisage being in your sitcom and do them as a stand up routine.

Just get involved in comedy and become a big comedy learning sponge! Good luck!

Hi Tony,
I think the premise of your show is pretty good, and it's as far back as "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet" since I remember a comedy set amongst builders, so we could be due for something along these lines. There are a lot of themes to play with, so your stories each week would have plenty of material, such as how the resession is affecting work, and how the character that wants to cut corners (sorry, I can't recall the name) so comes into conflict with the character (Mike, right?) who wants to run the firm by the book.

Also perhaps there could be competition with a local Polish building company (although careful not to step over the line into xenophobia).

I would agree that the snippet that you posted doesn't so far tell us much about what the story for this week is going to be. Perhaps the script was getting to that, but I think I'd want to know what's happening a bit sooner, to maintain my interest. Shows like The Inbetweeners look like it's just a bunch of teenagers hurling abuse at each other, but each week there's a story that builds and is finally resolved, usually at the expense of one of the characters.

Another point, on swearing, I f**king love a good curse.
But to get the most bang for your f**k, so to speak, you need to use them sparingly, and imaginatively. Example, there's a line in your first or second scene, where one of the characters asks Ninja where his van is, and he replies "where do you f**king think?". That might be exactly what Ninja would say, but it's not an amazingly funny line, it's just a line in the scene that is leading into a story about a dog walking shit up the stairs (which is a funny image).
if you pepper f**ks left right and f**king centre, the f**king impact won't be so f**king funny, when you f**king want them to f**king be. See what I mean? Use them sparingly, like women use blowjobs, and it'll give the lines that really work with them added punch/shock. If you save them up, you can even unleash them in a tirade, which is funny precisely BECAUSE of the swearwords, and not IN SPITE of it. One of my favourite lines from "The Thick of It" is where Malcolm Tucker, who is potty mouthed anyway, gives daggers to someone who is hovering half-in and half-out of a meeting, and tells them "sit the f**k down, or f**k the f**k off" (or words to that effect).
It might even be funny to have the "by the book" character (Mike?) doesn't swear at all, and is perhaps quite a timid or quietly spoken character. It will be in stark contrast with the other, more robust characters, and perhaps you can have his patience tested in each episode, so he's pushed to the boundaries of unleashing a torrent of foul language, but instead just manages to contain himself (e.g. "If ONE MORE person submits an incorrect bl(pause)inking timesheet I'm going to f(pause)lipping well murder the f(pause)ellow").

Anyway, keep up the writing, and edit, and rewrite and edit, and rewrite. I'm brand new to this comedy writing lark, so all the above opinion is that of a comedy fan and viewer of TV comedy, rather than that of a writer or editor, as some on this forum are.
I look forward to seeing more of your work.