Ten drafts and thoughtfulness is great Jennie. What I'd do now is stop, put it away for a month or more, and then come back to it with a fresh eye when, ideally, it will feel like someone else's script and you can assess it neutrally. Good luck with it.
Lack of forward momentum is the biggest problem with most amateur scripts - certainly the ones that pop op up on here.
Not knowing where your story is heading, and it not being dramatically sound, leads to slow, ping-pong dialogue and static scenes.
Plot and drama are the hardest bits - pretty well any writing team will tell you that - it's often the reason you get pairs of writers, a story man and a gag man (or woman).
Adding gags is easy.
Finding a reason for your characters to be where they are is harder.
Sit first - Com later.
Lazzard you have the ability to get things professionally precise and I can see how structure and momentum are vital so I'm not in disagreement on that front.
The difference we have is on the importance of the humour and when it should be considered, so for me it's funny first, drama second.
I know I'm swimming up river on this one as these days there is no interest in plain funny as most companies produce surreal or angst sitcoms or are content with producing panel show after panel show.
My set up and aims are old fashioned as I just like funny and don't look to heavy into the drama. Take Mrs Brown, I'm not a fan as I think it is dated and should have been set in the past from the get go, but the show is very popular.
Now given that it is almost a farce drama wise if it was sent in as a script the BBC wouldn't touch it because it flouts every accepted rule.
The reason it is on TV is because when the lad took it to the stage it sold out everywhere it played and it drew in people to the theater who never normally go and they loved the format and enjoyed the funny.
So there are two sides to this and no one is in the wrong as I am the first to admit that a well paced dramatically correct set up is vital, I'm just sticking up for the fun side and it's importance.
And finally you state that writing gags is easy, well it's not for me unless I think of the funny thing first then lay out the vehicle.
There are those I could see your system benefiting, take Steven Sunshine, package wise he has a great avatar and screen name, but it's his timing that makes him funny because it's economical and spot on every time.
As such someone like him could scan a drama and drop in the funny but I can't do that as I have to think of the funny then construct the vehicle.
I know my scripts are weaker for it but for me me funny is vital and if it's funny enough then it can be fixed.
But there are far too many professionally correct scripts that are polished to perfection that turn out not to be funny at all, so it's no that cut and dried.
It's a common theme take graffiti, there's stencil images and freehand and both of the protagonist will tell you that what they do is the real art.
But it's two completely different schools with completely separate methods and ethos but it's not till the image hits the wall that the public can decide.
Banksy is great and I love a lot of his images, but do I want all my graffiti to be prepackaged stencil art that may have been focused grouped and site scouted before being produced?
Or do I opt for difference in approach and enjoy other formats?
After all I still smirk when I see a basic willy and balls hand drawing in the gents, it's a classic but can you see Banksy work-shopping that one?
>> The difference we have is on the importance of the humour and when it should be considered, so for me it's funny first, drama second.
For me, it's funny drama first, gags second. I don't want just a string of gags, but neither do I want unfunny drama.
I've never written a gag, I try to make the situation or the dialogue carry my humour that's why I write the way I do. I agree ping pong dialogue if carried on for to log is no use, but it has it's moments.
I absolutely agree Teddy, that humour is very important. If my script isn't funny, it has failed as a sitcom.
Ultimately, I think drama can only ever make a comedy better. I mean 'drama' as in story, rather than angst or sentimentality.
Drama is an essential ingredient of comedy - isn't all laughter a release of tension?
A friend telling me a knock knock joke wouldn't be that funny to me - because there are no stakes and no emotional investment.
If the same friend told me a story about getting her skirt stuck in her knickers at the office, I would laugh. The tension created by the environment and the embarrassment create the comedy.
I think we laugh the most when we emotionally identify with the situation. That can only happen through plotting, characterisation and tension.
Anyway, some really interesting input.
Michael - you are absolutely right about putting the script down for a bit. I have recently come back to it after a month's break and am seeing it afresh! Hence this exercise to try and nail the plotting.
I had an agent who told me to use that technique several years ago. I think anything that gets a laugh is a joke so to say you don't write jokes is to take too literally the form. A piece of business or a glance that gets a laugh is as much a joke as the set-up/tag. Far better you load your scripts with laughs every chance you get then you can take the ones you don't need out later. You've got to be able to write a joke to write comedy. Or am I wrong?
I just try not to make the audience gag.
Providing opportunities and cues to laugh is a good way of thing about it.
Whats the title of your sitcom Jennie?
It's called 'Legal Privilege'. It's about a group of barristers and their clients in a provincial Crown Court.
I originally wrote it for the Sitcom Mission on a whim, and really caught the bug. I haven't really written anything creatively since I was at school, but I'm finding it really satisfying - if a lot of hard work!
Get a snappier title title Jennie I'd say.. something about Briefs might have been used but it should trip off the tongue when people talk about it at the water cooler that we all have now. I wrote a pilot for something called Street Legal ( I think, can't remember) . So can't give you legal advice but can pun up some titles for you.
I think you're probably right Marc - I was considering changing the title.
Clearly we offer complimentary skill sets - I can offer legal advice (I am a barrister) whilst you can pun up a title!
Quote: Jennie @ July 1 2013, 11:17 PM BSTI think you're probably right Marc - I was considering changing the title.
Clearly we offer complimentary skill sets - I can offer legal advice (I am a barrister) whilst you can pun up a title!
You may well get a PM soon!! 
I'm already purported to be representing Beaky - clearly BCG is fertile hunting ground for a criminal defence brief!
There is a pun there probably but I am not going to go there. 