On Wednesday 24nd April, I’m running a webinar on how to plot your sitcom. The plot is normally the biggest problem with any spec pilot sitcom script. It’s going to be a hands-on affair, rather than me talking for 90 minutes. It really will be well worth your time - if you’re serious about writing sitcoms.
That’s on Wednesday 24th April at 6pm UK Time.
To that end, today I’m revealing the sitcom I’ve created for training purposes. It’s nothing terribly clever, but it should fine for the purposes of our webinar.
Then I will suggest some exercises you can do which might help. And what happens next.
Naturally
A Sitcom by James Cary
Naturally is sitcom set in a health food store, stocking all kinds of natural ingredients, organic produce as well as supplements, remedies and semi-spiritual magazines about sustainable lifestyles and the Gaia.
The shop is on a struggling high street in a market town with dropping footfall. But you know what? It’s start to turning around with some shabby-chic coffee shops (okay, two - and one of those is just shabby but the coffee is amazing). The shop’s enemies are Amazon and online shopping. They do have some loyal customers.
The Characters
Aaron is a perfectionist, who is all about the rules of the store, stock-checking and making sure the numbers add up at the end of the day. He seems more interested in that than the mission of the store or his colleagues.
Disenchanted with his job with the town council, Aaron set up the store a few years ago with his partner Zena, who sees herself as the head of HR, team leader and peacemaker, mainly because she just can’t face conflict. She’s forever always wanting everyone to ‘talk it out’. But you know what? Sometimes, talking just makes things worse. Some things are better left unsaid.
Bibi, one of the newer staff, is a spontaneous, thrill seeker. She lives in a constant sense of wonder, promoting new products every week - and fad dieting. She thinks she’s open. Chas thinks she’s naïve and credulous. He naturally suspicious and always wanting more information. Chas is prone to conspiracy theories (or ‘going where the evidence leads’) and loves to maintain boundaries - and uses a burner phone and a VPN, obviously.
Chas just needs a hug. That’s Debbie’s theory, anyway. She’s a hugger. Debbie is warm, caring and focussed on others. She’s all about making the customer and her colleagues feel happy, especially in the moment.
Except Zena kind of thinks it’s her job to look after the staff… and especially Aaron. Is Zena jealous of Debbie? Yup. Is it all in her head? Erm, not sure.
Now what? We need plots!
Situational Stories
The temptation is to go straight for situation plots. Frankly, that’s as good as place to start as any. You have to start somewhere. How about these? (Don’t get too excited just yet. They’re not brilliant and I’ll explain why below.)
1. Kale is fashionable. But is it as healthy as everyone seems to think it is?
2. A smoothie bar with bizarre ingredients.
3. All the gluten-free products are wrongly labelled.
4. It’s new year and everyone wants to detox.
5. A new yoga instructor wants to advertise in the store.
6. The butcher’s shop opposite promotes a paleo diet – and promote it dressed like cave men.
7. A health inspector visits the store, but the staff's attempts to impress her with their nutritional knowledge backfire spectacularly.
8. Health Food Heist: a group of mischievous teenagers attempts to steal the store's prized organic produce.
9. A wellness workshop goes horribly wrong.
Any good?
Meh. These ideas are all okay as far as they go. They are at least appropriate to a health food shop.
There are two plots that I’m ruling out straight away. Can you guess what they are?
5. A new yoga instructor wants to advertise in the store.
7. A health inspector visits the store, but the staff's attempts to impress her with their nutritional knowledge backfire spectacularly.
I’m ditching (5) the Yoga Instructor and (7) the Health Inspector. Why? They both involve characters from the outside. And we want to get to know our main five characters initially, not some other character we might never see again.
Saving Yoga
However, have a think about how yoga could be salvaged. Can we do without the outside character? Yoga is part of this world for sure. The obvious way is for one of the characters to have taken up yoga, and it’s life changing but in an unexpected way. One of Bibi’s fads, maybe. Or Aaron has started it and injured himself.
Could health inspector be salvaged? Maybe there’s a spring clean episode where everything needs to made to sparkle. That plays into Aaron’s fastidious character.
The reason I’m not excluding the butcher’s shop is because they are permanent neighbours – and I think the caveman image is just funny. And funny is what we want. But I wouldn’t start with this plot.
I’m not excluding the teenagers/shoplifting one because the teenagers aren’t characters but an invasive species or a pest in this plot.
So why are these Plots Underwhelming?
They were product by ChatGPT3.5. I asked the question:
Think of 20 plots for a sitcom set in a health food store.
I picked out nine for the twenty is listed. And improved them a bit or edited them down for brevity.
But let’s be honest. Your script isn’t going to stand out with plots like these. You need plots that feel like they should take place in a health food store – but these just feel bland. (Except for the Paleo/Caveman and the Teenager/Shoplifting stories… Well done, ChatGPT)
It’s a starting point. And it’s not a terrible way of generating ideas for a sitcom.
But here’s a much better way:
Do Your Research
The best way to come up with plots for a health food store that feel fresh and original are to actually go to one.
Talk to someone who works in one.
Look around.
Make notes. Or at least make notes in a notebook when you get outside.
Secretly take some pics to remind you. Tap out a note on your phone.
If they sell magazine, or have a free store magazine, why not take one and thumb through it over a cup of tea.
Then see what sort of a list you come up with.
I’m going to do that this afternoon. I’ll try and have a conversation about bread flour and see what happens. I’ll report back tomorrow.
If you can’t manage that any time soon, click around online. Visit some online health food stores or Reddit threads on vitamins. Watch some YouTube videos that promote this lifestyle. Watch a Netflix doc on ‘clean eating’ with a notepad. Maybe browse some books on Amazon. Read some Kindle samples. Talk to someone who shops in one of those places.
Gather them up and we can talk about them at the webinar. In fact, you can send them to me in advance and we can even talk some of them through in the webinar. Just ‘reply to’ this email – or use the address provided on the confirmation email once you’ve booked in.
It’s on Wednesday 24th April at 6pm UK Time.
It’s a pay-what-you-like thing, with a very low minimum. But more than the minimum would be appreciated (and will determine whether I run these again in the future).