At last! I've finished my first sitcom script!

At long last I have just finished the first draft of my sitcom!

I started at the beginning of June and have just typed the final word! A long time, but I suffer from not having enough hours in the day! It is finished though and I see that as a little milestone. I've never written anything this long; the last time I wrote creatively and over two pages would have been back at school in 1999.

Of course theres a helluva lot more work to put into it, namely:

* More jokes
* Emphasise the characters personality traits more
* Tighten the plot up a bit more
* Having read several other scripts of classic sitcoms, I've noticed that my dialogue is a little bit too long.
* I need to get a book on the correct format for scripting!
* My scene descriptions are too in depth at times.
* My script comes in at 37 pages which is too long. Cutting down on the dialogue will help and hopefully make the whole thing more densely packed.

However, there are some positives:

* I had a clear idea of the plot and have managed to achieve what I set out to do.
* The majority of the scenes I am very proud of and they will need little redoing to them.
* Each scene pushes the plot forwards.
* I've got some very good jokes in there!

Now comes the rewrite!

I'm looking forward to the rewrite very much. The pressure of getting the basic plot down on paper is now complete - I now get to come up with some extra-funny laughs! About 6 weeks ago, I had a day off work sick and decided to have a look through what I had written up to that point. I could see lots of things I wanted to change and better dialogue to put in. It was so tempting to spend forever doing that, but I had to be firm and tell myself that finishing the first draft was the most important thing.

No idea how long the rewrite will take, but I think a month will be more than enough. I hope....

Hurray!
Well done.

I don't think 37 pages is too long, btw. But then, who am I to say?

Well done Winterlight

Thanks!

The majority of the script runs at 1 minute per page. I'm going to run through the whole thing though and see what the running time ends up at.

Yep, good work. I don't think the writing time was overlong, The Slaggs brainstorm ideas for around 2 months before beginning a major project like a pilot. The writing takes about a month because the plot and several scenes have already been partially written and it's a case then of compilation plus writing and then further rewrites go into another month.

The Beeb ScriptSmart is a good template.

Sweet, congrats man. If you can, get someone you trust to look it over and say where they laughed and where they didn't. Can be invaluable.

Yeah, well done. I bet it feels good to have that bit done. When you're happy enough with it, post it on here for us to have a look at and crit!

Woo-hoo! Well done

Ah, the rewrite. The script i've just finished write now is 55 pages long and i'm not sure how i could improve it. I read it out loud and it came out at 29/30 minutes. In my defence, if it was ever edited together scenes and lines could be easily taken out. heh

Perhaps 1 more rewrite. I dunno.

Excellent dear boy, carry on towards Russia and we shall retake Moscow!

:-)

Well done. 37 pages isn't too long by the way, it says it Marc Blakes book that a 30 minute sitcom should be around 35-40 pages. As long as when you read it it comes up to around 30 minutes then that is fine. My script is 43 pages and it reads at around 30 minutes maybe a minute or two over, but its better to have stuff to cut rather than needing more material to fill.

Quote: Martin Holmes @ August 19, 2007, 5:10 PM

Well done. 37 pages isn't too long by the way, it says it Marc Blakes book that a 30 minute sitcom should be around 35-40 pages. As long as when you read it it comes up to around 30 minutes then that is fine. My script is 43 pages and it reads at around 30 minutes maybe a minute or two over, but its better to have stuff to cut rather than needing more material to fill.

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Would reading it slower or quicker be cheating?

Perhaps read it with a stutter?

Or have a really long commercial brake?

Yep, well done. Isn't it great to have something to show for the last couple of months?