Emma Kennedy on writing, part 2

Emma Kennedy is a prolific writer, whose credits include The Sunday Format, It's Been A Bad Week, Katy Brand's Big Ass Show, This Is Jinsy, Strange Hill High, Waffle The Wonder Dog and her original sitcom The Kennedys. She has written thirteen books, including the Wilma Tenderfoot series, Shoes For Anthony and The Tent, The Bucket And Me, on which The Kennedys was based. Her latest memoir is Letters From Brenda. Following on from Part 1 of our interview, here our chat with her continues.

If you could give our members one writing tip, what would it be?

Sit down and start. Your first draft will be useless. Don't worry about that. First drafts are Get It Down, Get It Done. It's the second draft you need to concentrate on. That's the draft you're going to show people.

Do you have a favourite show you've worked on? If so, what was it you liked so much?

I'm going to pick three if I may - This Morning With Richard Not Judy which was just insane amounts of fun, The Sunday Format, the radio 4 show, where I think I laughed more than I have ever laughed on a job and Strange Hill High for no other reason than I got to work Josh Weinstein, head writer of The Simpsons and the late, great Caroline Aherne.

A lot of newer writers struggle with structure. How do you approach storylining?

I'm going to recommend a book - Into the Woods by John Yorke.

It's the best book on story structure you'll ever read. But in a nutshell - you need a hero who has a want and a need and those two things are not the same.

Your hero has a nemesis stopping him from achieving his want. He goes on a journey to find the want but on finding the want, he'll work out what he needs.

That's it.

If you could name one series - or one novel - our members should experience because it's such a comic masterclass, what would it be and why?

People Like Us by John Morton. Preceded The Office and is still the best mockumentary ever made. The writing is INCREDIBLE.

Curb Your Enthusiasm is a masterpiece in misanthropic characterisation.

For sitcom - Dad's Army. It's perfection.

How do you feel about the comedy industry at the moment? Are you optimistic about its future?

I feel like there isn't much getting made by terrestrial broadcasters to be honest. It's one of the reasons I moved sideways into Children's and novels.

Back in the day (she said, lighting a pipe) you could watch an original comedy every night of the week. Now we're saturated with reality TV and format shows.

Comedy no longer commands the viewing figures it once did - you'd be amazed how small audiences are for some amazing award-winning shows - and that's what it comes down to for broadcasters these days.

They want cheap telly. It's a shame.

Thank you so much, Emma. We really appreciate you talking to us.