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CHAPTER 4

STRUCTURINGYOUR STORY

Early in my career; I drove over to Paramount Studios for a meeting with Lowell Ganz. (He'd go on to write a bunch of hit movies, including Splash, City Slickers, Robots and Fever Pitch.) At the time, Lowell was the Head Writer of Laverne and Shirley, which was a big hit series at the time. Number one in the ratings week after week. Lowell explained to me and a group of other young freelance writers how to structure a story for Laverne and Shirley. Lowell's advice to us went something like this: “First, we think, 'Wouldn't it be funny if Shirley's head got stuck in a cake?' Then we construct a story that gets Shirley's head stuck in a cake.”

SEVEN PLOT ELEMENTS

When you're trying to develop a TV sitcom story, and you haven't done it before — or you haven't been able to do it successfully — I've found that it helps to break the story down into Seven Plot Elements. Sometimes this process can oversimplify the structure, and certainly there are exceptions to the rule, but if you're just starting out and trying to get a handle on how to cobble a sitcom story together, I'm confident that these Seven Plot Elements will help you.

First Goal (Active Main Character) or First Problem (Reactive Main Character)

The Main Character discovers something that he or she wants or is con-fronted with a problem that he or she must solve.

Obstacle

Something or someone gets in the way of the Main Character achieving the goal or solving the problem.

First Action (unwise decision)

The Main Character must take some action to overcome the Obstacle and achieve the goal or solve the problem. In sitcom, this action almost always involves the Main Character making an unwise decision.

Act Break

The First Action backfires, and the Main Character finds himself even further from the goal or with an even bigger problem to solve.

Second Goal

The Main Character devises a desperate Plan B to solve the new problems created by the First Action and get back on track toward achieving the First Goal or solving the First Problem.

Second Action

The Main Character puts Plan B to work. Things get even worse.

Resolution

The goal is achieved or the problem is solved. Sitcom Resolutions often involve an ironic twist. An Active Main Character may discover that he or she has been pursuing a false or superficial goal. A Reactive Main Character may discover that the problem could have been solved more easily with a “wise decision” rather than with the unwise decision that the character chose.

USING THE SEVEN PLOT ELEMENTS TO DEVELOP YOUR STORY

To get you familiar with how to use these Seven Plot Elements in developing your spec sitcom story, let's develop a story for a spec episode of Frasier.

I chose Frasier instead of, say, Seinfeld or Everybody Loves Raymond, or even a current series like My Name Is Earl, for a number of good reasons:

1) I say “learn from the best.” So let's learn from one of the best sitcoms ever.

2) Strong central stories. Seinfeld followed all the rules that I'm about to lay out for you, but I want a series that had a strong central story in each episode. Seinfeld used complex multiple story lines that are more difficult to master if you're just starting out.

3) Active Main Character. An Active Main Character like Frasier is a better learning tool than a Reactive Main Character when you are just starting out because it's easier to see how the Main Character drives the story. If you can learn to write an Active Main Character like Frasier, you can easily adapt those skills to a Reactive Main Character like Ray Barone.

4) Familiarity. Almost everyone has seen Frasier, so I don't have to spend time getting you familiar with the premise or the characters. When I teach classes, I find that I save myself a lot of time and save the students a lot of confusion if I talk about series that almost everyone already knows. If perchance you've been living in Uzbekistan for the last two decades and haven't seen Frasier, it is running somewhere in syndication every day. At the time of this writing, Frasier reruns could be seen daily on Lifetime. Frasier episodes are also available for rent on DVD from NetFlix.

5) Avoiding temptation. If I used Two and a Half Men or another well-written current series as an example, some unscrupulous reader might be tempted to borrow from what is discussed in this book. Frasier is out of production now, so you won't be writing a spec episode of that series.

6) The vagaries of fate and television scheduling. Even if I decided to flaunt temptation and show you how to write a spec episode of some current hit, how can we be sure that current hit would still be on the air once you read this book? Remember Eight Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter? I bet a lot of aspiring writers wrote spec episodes of that series. Why not? It was a good show and a big hit. And then John Ritter, the star, tragically died.

The strong yet simple premise of Frasier, and the unusually well-developed characters, make it the best tool that I could find for explaining how to use the Seven Plot Elements to structure a sitcom story.

So here we go: To create a story for Frasier, we'll use the premise of the series about Dr. Frasier Crane, the intellectual and neurotic psychiatrist from Cheers who was spun off as the host of a Seattle call-in radio show produced by the randy Roz Doyle. Frasier shares a luxurious apartment with his father, Martin, a down-to-earth retired cop, and Martin's quirky physical therapist, Daphne Moon. Frasier is frequently involved in one- upmanship with his equally snobby brother, Dr. Niles Crane.

Frasier's pomposity, his insecurity, his desire to prove himself was central to his character on Cheers, and became the driving force behind his character on Frasier.

We know from the series formula that in nearly every episode Frasier's ego and his insecurity are going to get him in some kind of trouble with his family, his co-workers, his neighbors, or with the high-society world in which he circulates. We'll let our premise and the personality of our Main Character work together to generate a story.

If your series has an Active Main Character like Frasier, your story needs a First Goal for that character that springs organically from the character's established personality. Remember how Lucy wanted a new hat because Caroline Appleby had one? What kind of similar goal can we create for Frasier? As regular viewers of Frasier, we know that Frasier is always trying to improve his social status. He's a snob. He's competitive. He's highly sophisticated and equally childish. So as a First Goal, let's say that:

1) Frasier wants to be president of his opera club. He happily begins his campaign, confident of victory.

Our story now needs an Obstacle for Frasier, something or someone who will get in the way of Frasier achieving his goal. Because we want our script to demonstrate that we understand the series we have chosen to spec, the Obstacle should also be organic to the series. As our Obstacle, let's say that:

2) Frasier discovers to his horror that Niles is running against him for president of the opera club.

Frasier would be very upset to find his brother as his opponent, wouldn't he? This would create conflict between Frasier and Niles. Now we're starting to have some fun. Already we're eager to know how this is going to turn out.

Having decided on a First Goal for Frasier and having planted an Obstacle preventing Frasier from achieving his goal, the Main Character must now take a First Action to overcome the Obstacle and achieve his First Goal. At this moment in a situation comedy, the Main Character will almost always make an unwise decision. There is no comedy without an unwise decision. If Frasier acted wisely either by withdrawing from the race for president of the opera club, or deciding to be mature and face his brother in a clean campaign, the story wouldn't be very interesting to watch, would it?

The fun of a situation comedy is watching the characters give in to the same human frailties that plague us all. Situation comedy usually exaggerates the degree to which the characters surrender to their shortcomings, but that's the fun. As viewers, we get to watch our favorite characters behave in a very human way, but we also get to feel superior to them because we probably wouldn't behave as foolishly as they are behaving. (Or at least we can let ourselves think that we wouldn't.)

In order to achieve his First Goal of becoming president of the opera club, Frasier must now take a First Action to overcome the Obstacle of Niles running against him. Frasier's First Action will involve an unwise decision. The unwise decision must spring organically from Frasier's established personality. So based on what we already know about Frasier from watching him over the years, what First Action do you think he would take? What unwise decision will Frasier make to overcome the Obstacle of Niles?

Let's say that as his First Action:

3) Frasier tries to discredit Niles.

By making this unwise decision, the Main Character is upping the stakes of the story. His unwise decision is going to make matters worse. This happens to all of us from time to time, doesn't it? In order to get what we want, we make an unwise decision and take action that only increases our troubles. This is normal human behavior. This is real. When our unwise decision unwittingly makes matters worse, the Obstacle we were trying to overcome just gets bigger, and we end up further away from our First Goal than when we started. Our plan backfires on us. This has happened to everyone.

This is precisely what ought to happen to Frasier now. His First Action should backfire and make everything worse. His attempt to discredit Niles should put Frasier further away from his goal than when he started.

Why?

In part, because that's what seems to happen in real life. But practically speaking, and for the purpose of a sitcom episode, Frasier's First Action has to backfire right now and make everything worse because we are already approaching the middle of our story. We are about to stop the story and go away for a commercial. So we want to leave Frasier in a real mess that our viewers or reader will be eager to see resolved. We want the viewer or reader to feel a rooting interest in Frasier somehow resolving his problem or achieving his goal.

As the writer, you need to create a cliffhanger at this moment that will draw the audience back after the commercial. This cliffhanger moment — where everything has gotten worse because of the unwise decision and the First Action that followed it — is called the Act Break.

If Frasier's First Action is to discredit Niles, how can that First Action backfire in a way that is organic to the series, spring from the personality of our main character and make matters worse, thus creating a cliffhanger moment for our Act Break?

What if Frasier makes unfair accusations against Niles in front of the opera club? Niles would be furious, wouldn't he? An embarrassing and nasty argument could break out between Frasier and Niles in front of the entire club. Here's a wonderful irony. Our snobby, ambitious characters, Frasier and Niles, are hissing like cats in front of the people they most want to impress, and the people who are least likely to tolerate their unseemly behavior. Our cliffhanger moment could be that:

(Act Break) Frasier and Niles are both disqualified from running for president and asked to leave.

At the Act Break then, Frasier's unwise decision and First Action have backfired and made matters worse. Frasier is now further from his First Goal than when he started. Our reader or viewer has a rooting interest in coming back from the commercial to see how Frasier will get himself out of this mess.

What I have laid out so far is one-half of a sitcom story. I started out with a First Goal for Frasier — becoming president of the opera club. If Frasier simply ran for office and got elected president with no problems it'd be a pretty boring half-hour, wouldn't it? Because real life seldom works out so smoothly, I added an Obstacle for Frasier: His brother, Niles, is running against him for president of the opera club. Niles is an organic obstacle because it has been well-established on Frasier that Frasier and Niles are competitive. I am using the paints that are already in the tray. The premise of the series — about a radio personality in Seattle and his mismatched family — works with the personality of the main character — a pompous, egocentric social climber — to produce a story.

The reader or viewer reaches the Act Break eager to see how the story will be resolved.

What might the second half of our story be?

Frasier's in a real mess, isn't he? His own personality, his human frailty, has gotten him into trouble. He has been disqualified from running for president of the opera club. He is further from his First Goal than when he started. His unwise decision and First Action have backfired and made the Obstacle even larger. Frasier has to do something now to solve the new and bigger problem before he can ever get back to his First Goal of becoming president of the opera club.

Frasier now must clean up the mess that he created with his First Action. He can't run for president if he has been disqualified. Frasier needs to show the members of the opera club that he isn't as immature as he seemed at the meeting. We also have Niles in the same predicament. What then is a logical Second Goal for Frasier, given what we have established so far?

Let's say that after Frasier and Niles get done blaming each other for their mutual predicament:

4) Frasier and Niles decide that they need to work together to get back in the race.

That's the Second Goal.

The only way to accomplish the Second Goal is to take a Second Action. Since Frasier and Niles have agreed to work together as the Second Goal, it seems logical that the Second Action would be to:

5) Return to the opera club and attempt to be respectful of one another. If they can get back in the race, at least one of them has a chance at becoming president.

Just as the First Action made matters worse, the Second Action is going to complicate things even more.

Why?

For one thing, your Main Character should now be in a heightened emotional state. His original plans have gone awry. He is worse off than when he started. When we are upset we get desperate, and our behavior becomes even more illogical. Your Main Character will be desperate by the time he resorts to the Second Action. His desperation will cause him to behave even more irrationally than he did during the First Action.

One of the persistent themes of situation comedy is that human beings overreact to minor problems. We find ourselves in competition or conflict with a meddling parent, a jealous sibling, a romantic rival, an ambitious co- worker, a rebellious child or a nosy neighbor. Our survival instinct overwhelms us. We make unwise decisions based on our heightened emotions. We take action that only complicates matters, and we end up worse off than when we started. Watching characters on a sitcom dig themselves into a deeper and deeper hole is fun. It's why we tune in every week. It reassures us that other human beings are as silly as we are.

As the Second Action, Frasier and Niles return to the opera club in an effort to get back in the race for president. Frasier is still trying to accomplish his First Goal of becoming president of the opera club.

It's important that your Main Character never loses sight of that First Goal. He is always trying to get back to it.

Frasier and Niles make a real effort to be respectful of one another. But of course they can't pull it off. Because of the established personalities of the characters this Second Action quickly deteriorates into more bickering. Frasier and Niles not only lose the presidency, but they are kicked out of the opera club forever.

At this moment, all seems lost for Frasier. He has no chance now of accomplishing his First Goal. Because of his human frailty, he is worse off than when he started.

So what happens next?

We've played out our First Goal, Obstacle, First Action, Act Break, Second Goal and Second Action. Now the characters must reach a Resolution. How do we logically resolve this story?

When I was producing sitcoms, it was pretty normal for the writers to get stuck plotting out a story. Often we'd hit a point where we didn't know what the characters should do next. When that happened, I would always ask the same question: Why are we telling this story?

Maybe we didn't know why we were telling the story, and it was time to figure it out. Maybe we did know, and we'd just lost sight of it for a minute. Sitcom stories work best when they have a theme: when there's a reason for telling the story. If you know why you are telling a story, you never get lost. You can always figure out what the characters should do next.

Why are we telling this Frasier story? I ask that question at this moment because the answer is going to lead us logically to the Resolution.

What's this Frasier story about? It's partly about running for president of the opera club. But how are the premise of the series and the personality of the main character working together to produce this story?

Part of the premise of any series is the relationships of the characters. Part of the premise of Frasier is the relationship between Frasier and Niles. This Frasier episode is really about their sibling rivalry, which was mined again and again on Frasier. In our story, we are exploring how Frasier and Niles' similar interests have made them furiously competitive. That's the theme of the episode so far. So if the theme of the episode, at least at this point in our story development, is the relationship between Frasier and Niles, and the lengths to which the two men will go to outdo each other, then our Resolution is going to involve that dynamic.

As our Resolution, let's say that:

6) Frasier and Niles admit that their sibling rivalry caused the problem. This also harkens back to the premise of the series: Frasier's human frailty — in his case, pomposity and vanity — constantly getting him in trouble.

Frasier and Niles' realization that their sibling rivalry caused their problem brings about the Resolution. They realize how foolish they have been. They rediscover that their relationship as brothers is more important than outdoing each other. They patch things up between them. But just so things don't get too sappy, we might end the story with Frasier and Niles vowing to form a new and even snobbier opera club in which one of them would be guaranteed the job of president.

TWO-ACT FRAMEWORK

We saw in this exercise that every sitcom story has two basic parts.

Part One includes the First Goal, the Obstacle, and the First Action, all leading up to the Act Break.

Part Two is the Second Goal, the Second Action, and the Resolution.

I'm sure you see that the two parts form two acts.

Situation comedies have traditionally used this Two-Act Framework.