British Comedy Guide

Ideas scrapping

As a serial comedy-writing rejectee, I wondered what other people's response to it was - do you ditch a project after a few rejections and begin your next masterpiece? Or do you attempt to rewrite?

no you should look at it like a car, if it dosn't perform how you want it to, kit it out, or in sitcom terms, tweek it in key areas, so maybe, change the characters, add characters, create new characters to replace some, put in a feature to make it different from the rest, i got this advice from a writer, and it is working he also suggested that i leave it alone for a few weeks, and concentrate on other projects, then when you return to it, you can spot mistakes with it and sometimes the bad bits, hit you in the face(figure of speech).

I'm in the early stages of writing my sitcom so I can't go around giving advice but I find giving a copy (I do it with sketches) to someone who isn't baised and they can give it a fresh look and tell you what they don't get etc.

I regularly ditch stuff as soon as it gets rejected and begin a new project, but occasionally take bits I thought were especially good and use them in the new one. You're right Lewis about looking at it a while later. Presumably you wouldn't resubmit to a producer who'd previously rejected though..?

I like yr description, "fit it out, tweek it in key areas". Sounds like Pimp My Ride, but I suspect mine's more Scrapheap Challenge!

Quote: Jason Kindred @ November 16, 2006, 9:43 AM

but you have to know when to give up on something and move on, otherwise you'll spend your entire career polishing a turd.

Hey, that's my career and my hobby.

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