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We’ve been building a list of plots for our sample sitcom, Naturally.
We’ve thinking about how certain plots might work for certain characters.
We’ve also made Zena a bit more of a monster.
Here’s the next thing to thing to think about:
How would the relationships play out in a plot?
Lots of scripts I’ve read in the last few years have characters in their own worlds and talking past each other. One upside is that these characters are comically deluded and lacking self-awareness. That’s normally funny. But if every character is ignoring every other character, there’s no chemistry. There are just inert elements banging into each other and bouncing off each other. Boooo-ring.
But we don’t want characters to change, right? Correct. We don’t want them to change characteristic or learn huge life lessons.
We do want to them to engage, listen, get the wrong end of the stick, correct their course, interfere and generally get in the way of each other.
At the moment, there seem to be two main relationships in Naturally.
Relationship #1: Zena, Debbie and Aaron
One is a love triangle. Zena is concerned that Huggie Debbie is a bit too huggie with her hubbie, Aaron. This is mostly in Zena’s head, who assumes that Debbie is envious of her ‘perfect’ relationship with Aaron. (It’s not about Aaron being a real catch. At least, not as far as Zena is concerned who makes everything about her). Plus Zena will always want to show her environmental credentials because the shop was her idea, even though Aaron does most of the work, and Debbie also works hard.
Relationship #2: Bibi and Chas
Thrill-seeker Bibi and churlish Chas see life completely different from each other. And Bibi can’t understand why Chas doesn’t just throw himself into new experience. She finds it funny. Chas finds it annoying that Bibi finds it funny. He can’t can’t understand why Bibi is so impulsive. (Maybe he’s concerned for her because he is desperately in love with her but hates himself for it, and can’t even admit to it. Until series 3.)
So let’s go back to one of our first plots and combine them:
Kale is fashionable. But is it as healthy as everyone seems to think it is?
Could this be a Bibi/Chas plot? Bibi is convinced that a kale diet will cure all ills. She’s eating loads of it, and maybe sets up a smoothie bar to make kale smoothies. Chas thinks they are not only disgusting, but have no effect. And to prove it, he drinks lots of kale smoothies, but he deeply regrets the side-effects which he is forced to hide from Bibi for fear of losing the argument (even though Bibi didn’t know they were arguing)
A smoothie bar with bizarre ingredients.
Meanwhile, Debbie’s attempts to make smoothies goes horribly wrong and she covers herself in green goo. She has to change her clothes and ends up wearing an old T-Shirt that didn’t sell. It’s far too small and extremely revealing, and Zena thinks Aaron is ogling her. Well, two can play at that game. Zena ups her game, and Aaron wonders what the hell is going on.
These are just starting points. But the idea is that we’re involving more than one character in each plot from the get-go.
We’ll talk more about them in the webinar, since there are some problems with these plots, but they could be fixed. Wanna come and help fix them? Sure you do. Join the webinar on Wednesday 24th April at 6pm UK Time.