Garnishing Your Comedy Script

We’ve had a couple of queries recently about the supporting material for your sitcom or comedy-drama. While most of the effort should go into the script itself, when your work is as polished as it can be, and you’re ready to enter competitions or apply for initiatives, there are certain other elements to consider. I’m going to call this ‘the comedy garnish' and give you a flavour now.

Logline
This is the first thing anyone looks at, often before they even read your opening page, so it’s incredibly important. In one sentence you have to explain your idea as clearly as possible. Here’s an example that describes ‘Work Do’, myself and Helen’s recent effort:

An office-based sitcom where we never see the office, instead each episode takes place at a different team building event; all intended to promote workplace harmony, but which end up having the opposite effect.

Hopefully this makes the premise clear and leaves you wanting to know more. Writing a logline is useful even if you never share it because, when you read the words back, if your script sounds identical to an existing TV show, that’s a definite red flag.

Synopsis
Here you’ll describe what happens in your pilot in enough detail for industry types to understand the plot, while keeping to a single paragraph. Producers want to know where the story is heading while expending the minimum possible time and effort. If your synopsis shows the pilot goes nowhere, why would they read the script? Writing a synopsis isn’t exciting but it is unavoidable, and it also has the benefit of revealing any failings in your understanding of structure, or cause and effect. Ideally a synopsis will illustrate your plot escalates and resolves satisfyingly, rather than falling flat in a mishmash of unconnected scenes.

Series Bible
This shows the industry you haven’t put all your ideas into the pilot, and are aware of the need for consistency and perhaps a series arc, if your initial idea gets picked up. A good series bible will also prove your show is ‘returnable’ for future series (a very big consideration right now). Summarise each of your six episodes (or more) in short paragraphs, detailing each of the individual narratives in broad terms. You probably won’t know the detail yet, but don’t worry. An effective series bible is about showing that you’ve considered where the concept might go in the longer-run, not the minutiae of every set-up.

Pitch Deck
This is a recent innovation favoured by producers who prefer visual aids to words, mainly in the U.S. from what I’ve seen. The challenge here is to convey your premise, characters, tone and plot in what is essentially a graphic Powerpoint presentation, using mocked-up images to give a flavour of your show. It’s worth noting that, in the competitions I’ve script read for, those submissions with professional-looking pitch decks never seemed to do as well as the scripts where the writer had spent their time reworking the screenplay further instead. That said, if a producer asks for a pitch deck, best not to refuse. Canva is a good, free resource for customisable templates.

Writer’s CV
When you’re starting out this will be light on detail, but a CV is often required for applications, initiatives or when approaching agents. Even if you’ve had plenty of success, I would recommend limiting it to a single page. List your available scripts with loglines as a kind of succinct portfolio, along with any broadcast credits, competition placings, writing courses completed, industry schemes you’ve been involved with or pertinent qualifications. If you’re still struggling to fill the page, you could always explain tangential aspects of your life that show creative artistry, diligence or ambition. Like that world record you hold in making effigies of celebrities out of matchsticks, for example.

As ever, these are just my opinions, and I’m sure others will have different takes or varying experiences. One way to access the broader writing community is to join screenwriting sites like Scribe Lounge, or Facebook groups such as Into the Script or UK Screenwriters. Members here are usually more than willing to give input on specific queries you may have.

Photo by Delightin Dee on Unsplash