Opens Doors to Comedy Writers
Even without seeing your first draft, I can give you these notes for your rewrite:
1 – Put at least one solid laugh on every page. Not witty banter or zany behavior. A laugh. Not just your opinion, but based on other people’s reads. You are having other people read it, right?
2 – Double-check your story structure and make your act breaks strong to keep an audience interested (and surprised) to the very end.
3 – Make sure every scene has a a comedic high point (character-based) and a dramatic high-point (story beat) that advances the plot, hopefully in a funny turn.
4 – Let your characters have clear distinctive vocabularies and rhythms. Check by reading it out loud. You are reading it out loud, right?
5 – Make sure your characters, at least your leads, have more than one dimension; definable qualities that inform every action the character makes.
6 – Take another hard look at the structure. See if you can’t add a twist, turn or escalation. How many beats to the A story? How many beats to the B story? Is each beat a real step forward? What other fuel can you throw on the fire? A lot of comedy comes from escalation and scale.
7 – Do another serious punch-up draft. Try to add a laugh to every scene.
8 – Do another even more serious punch-up pass. Try to add a laugh to every page. If you have any funny friends, get them to help you. That’s not cheating, it’s what everyone in Hollywood does when they’re writing a pilot.
These notes are based on reading hundreds of scripts as a professional reader and judge of The Other Network Comedy Contest plus working with dozens of writers as a consultant.
They are specifically based on the surprising results of the contest this year: no winners (yet). New extended deadline is Feb. 28 with free re-entry for rewrites.
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