It used to be that everybody thought they had a novel inside them, nowadays it seems like every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks they have a sitcom inside them. I'd be interested to know if there are any figures, but I'd wager than sitcom submissions have increased exponentially over the last few years, and that now production companies get deluged with more material than ever before.
I'm sure you're right - and I'll bet 99% of the scripts they receive are garbage. I'd hate to be a script reader.
Well, certainly everyone thinks they can write - until they try it. I'm not sure its solely sitcom though, I've heard people saying they would love to do a drama, horror, romantic story too.
No, I don't believe this is true. I think a lot of people look down at sitcoms, sure it's increased over the years, especially since the amount or arty related uni courses has risen and the err others have dropped.
I hate hearing about the amount of people that hope the achieve the same things as me, it makes me feel very insignificant.....some people have told me that this a good thing.
i'd love to write a novel but i haven't got the concentration span. anyone done one? how did you do it?
Maybe everyone thinks they can write a sitcom because of the general state of the genre.
I had an idea for something and then it spawnws another, then another.
I just want to keep writing.
I have a novel inside me and its rocks the house but i've only written 2 chapters 
Johnny, I've written 3 novels but am so busy I can't edit the third even though it's completed. I know a few others here have written novels.
The fallacy is that writing a novel is the hard part. It is ... while you're writing it. When it's complete and it goes through edits and rewrites til you know the pages inside out. That's harder. Then you have to tout it around and hope someone bites. Which is harder again. Each stage gets harder and harder. Unless you're an established name when it actually gets easier. So easy that you can be a 'Cartland' and dictate it and publish the first draft after some poor sod has edited it for you.
Realistically, if your philosophy is 'Live for today' then don't write a novel, choose sketch writing instead. That's not meant to be facecious, both are artforms that need mastering. However, novels are an investment of time and effort in the present and your future that is long-term and very painful - even when it goes right first time. Which it never does.
I have no social life BUT I do have one particular novel that makes me almost physically sick when I see it or read parts of it because I'd read every one of the 90k words a MINIMUM of 30 times. Oddly, I think that that's compensation in itself. 
Word on the street is it's harder to get something good published now. Apparently the standards of comedy have dropped. Not verbatim - but some consider there's a market for 'dumbed down'; or 'AmericaniZed' scripts...
Quote: chipolata @ October 8, 2007, 10:43 AMIt used to be that everybody thought they had a novel inside them, nowadays it seems like every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks they have a sitcom inside them. I'd be interested to know if there are any figures, but I'd wager than sitcom submissions have increased exponentially over the last few years, and that now production companies get deluged with more material than ever before.
Great thread. I think you are right. I know from personal experience that what I thought might be my "every-person-has-a" novel turned in time into a screenplay which in turn generated a sitcom. And I expect they are all fairly average in any medium, but as long as I enjoy doing it that's irrelevant.
Quote: johnny roulette @ October 8, 2007, 5:03 PMi'd love to write a novel but i haven't got the concentration span. anyone done one? how did you do it?
So glad you asked that, a thread which at last gives me the chance to promote my book; http://www.lulu.com/content/1091377
I never thought I had the concentration span but not all books have to be War and Peace type epics. You can even go for self-publishing like I did because publishers, like comedy reviewers barely read past the first page of a manuscript! It is THEY who lack concentration span 