Well, they need funny characters. Again, obvious. We’re trying to write comedy sketches here. So obviously funny characters. Except it isn’t obvious, it is. I mean it’s obvious we need them. It’s not always obvious how to get them. Certainly not to me in the heat of sketch composition.

Writing topical comedy many of the characters come ready made. We’ve already got some idea of what Cameron, Boris, Clegg, Milliband etc are like so this gives us their comic angle on a story. But to take the last series of Newsjack, many of the best sketches introduced new comic characters we had never seen before – like the Downing Street cat diary sketch.Others gave a new angle to a public figure and got that ideal “ah yes, that really is the comic truth about so-and-so” reaction.

I look around at the best sketches and sketch writers and they are getting character right in their sketches. They have characters with their own unique comic angles on the story, who thus bring out or even counterpoint the premise of the sketch. Often character and premise are so intertwined as to be indivisible. The funny lines then arise naturally from the comic characters, stuck in that comic premise. No need to shoehorn jokes into a dull interview format.

It’s said the late Eddie Braben (prolific joke writer for Morecome and Wise amongst others) treated each joke as a miniature story. That should be even more true of a sketch. They need to want something and they need their own way of looking at the world they are in. For minor characters, there may not need an elaborate back story, but you should still think about them as a character. Each character has to have a reason to be.

Which means sketch writers have to put almost as much thinking into their characters as sitcom writers do. (Sitcom characters have to more range, and more places to go, I admit). This is why parody (using characters someone else has created) is so often used by beginning writers. (Not saying it’s a bad thing or that I haven’t done it myself, just that it can be a short cut.)

But it does mean that writing good sketches is excellent preparation for writing good sitcom (and vice versa). All the more reason to do it well. Remember it’s not meant to be easy. But it is meant to be fun.

No credit for me this time. But I have learned a lot from the process of writing for a non-topical show. And from Jon Hunter‘s excellent general feedback which he has shared on the BBC website.

The big learning point for me is that I need to have to discipline to give my sketches the good hard edit they deserve. It’s too easy when writing topical comedy to use the excuse that it has to be fast, there’s no time to give it another polish, fire and forget and write the next one. But there is no point in writing mediocre sketches. Some of those pieces in the TSWYW will have been polished over months (if not years). I can’t hope to bang out 20 sketches, not look at half of them twice and compete with that.

I need to make sure I take the time to edit each sentence to get rid of dead words and get the funniest possible construction and also to “tick the laughs”. If there are any long gaps between jokes I want that to be deliberate.

Also on a practical note, I think getting your sketches in early helps. With the best will in the world, if you are reading 15,000 sketches by the time you get to the second 7,500 you are looking for reasons not to read on, rather than looking for more sketches for the maybe pile.

And of course listen out for my sketch “Strivers vs Skivers”. I can’t take all the credit – we all contributed to writing and rewriting all the sketches (which means all the best lines were of course me… hem hem).

But what if you can’t wait until 9pm? Well then, it’s already available as a podcast here. You lucky people.

I managed to send 21 sketches in the end. And just in case you’re interested here’s the breakdown by category:

Documentary – 5

Scifi/Horror – 4

Kitchen Sink – 6

Thriller/suspense – 2

Historical – 4.

I didn’t manage to send any one liners – I found it hard to come up with them in a vacuum without a news story to provoke an idea. And in any case, I find them much harder to write than sketches (I have had more sketches than one liners on Newsjack for example).

Rumour has it that they may have only four shows and, in that case, they will fold the documentary stuff into the other four as appropriate. So that means even less places for sketches. I suppose it just makes that proper Radio 4 credit even more precious if you get one. Right, off to cross all my fingers and toes.

But now that all that’s over for now I thought I ought to tidy the blog up a bit. I’ve added a summary of some of the writing credits I have (some more ancient ones to be added when I can dig them out). I have also added a contact form - please use responsibly (he says in his best Dad voice).

Next step is to actually update some of those lonely unloved sidebar widgets which seemed a good idea when I was setting this up. And to write some lengthy, useful, entertaining posts. Yep, that. Right. Better get on with it then.

Thanks to the various Kirrin Island writers who have chipped in and generally taught me a lot about writing funny.

Now this is assuming you already have a killer premise… what do you think about when writing/reviewing your sketch?

These aren’t meant to be rules. Just things you should think about. Not all will apply or help for any given sketch. So don’t waste time dreaming up counter-examples. There will be loads!

Here are some of the things I try to consider,  feel free to add your own in the comments.

1. Is the situation/location set up at the start (ideally in the first couple of lines)? Even in a pull-back and reveal I think you often need some context to make the reveal work and not seem like it is cheating.
2. Is the premise set up at the start (ideally in the first couple of lines)?
3. For Newsjack - have you written a Justin Intro? You should. Don’t use the sketch premise as the joke in the Intro – it gives the game away and blurs the sketch.
4. Where there are characters, do they have clear objectives/motives/positions?
5. Where the comedy comes from character, are the characters in conflict, ie do they have clashing objectives/positions? Not always necessary but the staple “sane man/mad man” set up exists for a reason!
6. Has something changed or developed by the end of the sketch?
7. Can you make things happen in the present/shown in the sketch rather than just talked about?
8. Do the characters each have an identifiable style/voice?
9. Do the characters lend themselves to funny performances?
10. For NJ or any specific market where you know the performers – do the characters lend themselves to these performers? Are you using as many of the cast as you can?
11. Are all the funny lines you have thrown in relevant to the premise?
12. Does any escalation flow naturally and stem from the one premise?
13. Does it escalate? Or is it just repeating?
14. Is it too long or too short?  Too long is more likely… Remember diminishing returns… But if something really really works, milk it.
15. Are there the minimum number of words needed between laughs? Remember “needed” can include rhythm as well as sense.
16. Are there 3-4 laughs per page? (OK sometimes tension/drama will do instead, particularly if it is resolved with a BIG laugh, but you should only do this deliberately, not waffle on for pages and pages.)
17. Can you include any callbacks/running gags?
18. Did you put in a clever joke that doesn’t really help the sketch move along? Cut it.
19. Does the ending relate back to the premise/start, whether by contradiction, logical conclusion or call back? We can’t all end sketches by having Terry Gilliam come on in a suit of armour and hitting someone over the head with a rubber chicken. No. We can’t.
20. Check again – did you get distracted and start writing a different sketch half way through? If so, put it in a different sketch.
21. Don’t fall asleep with your pen on your face.
22. For some reason babies want to eat computers.

Don’t forget the Best of Series 7 show is tonight on Radio 4 at 11pm. Proper grown up radio 4. The one your Gran listens to. And of course, this episode of Newsjack (series 8) will go out on Radio 4 Extra tomorrow night at 10.30pm.

Better go and do some more preparation…

So don’t you do what I naturally do – throw some funny lines a into word document, hit it a few times with a stick and hope a sketch comes out. Spend time working out a funny idea for a sketch. Find the killer premise, which is funny even when you’re whole sketch has been rewritten, and you have a very good chance of getting material used. (I have had a whole 2 minute sketch on Newsjack where only one word remained from my original draft. Which seems a bit like cheating. But I’ll take it.)

I now spend more time coming up with the premise for sketches than I do writing the sketches themselves – but once you have a really clear idea of why the sketch is funny it is also much quicker and easier to write.

And don’t do what I naturally do and change subjects half way through a sketch. Stay on target – the sketch should be about one funny idea from beginning to end (or at most two funny ideas that collide).

To find that original idea you will almost certainly have to go through lots of unoriginal ideas. The key thing is to generate ideas. Lots of ideas. Look at the way other stories have been covered in previous episodes for inspiration. Brainstorm. Think of the weirdest and most unusual angles you can. You won’t be able to use most of them but they might lead you to the one idea you need.

So to summarise the things I’ve learned: Come up with lots of potential sketch ideas. Hunt through them for that killer premise. And if you keep hitting your netbook with a stick, you’ll need a new netbook.