How to End your Sitcom Episode

By cheating and putting it at the beginning

Photo by Nikola Knezevic on Unsplash

An acorn isn’t wondering what it’s going to be when it grows up. It knows. An oak tree. The ending is determined by the beginning.

Ending a sitcom can sometime feel torturous. How do you wrap things up, keep things simple and surprise the audience?

The clue to your ending is in the beginning.

Speaking of clues, I wrote about murder mysteries last time, and here’s another lesson to learn from them:

We know how a murder mystery end because it’s obvious from the beginning. There’s been a murder. So there’s going to be an investigation. Whodunnit? Where is the episode is headed? The sleuth’s final discovery and accusation with crucial convicting evidence.

Easy. It’s baked into the format. And it’s why murder-mysteries are so wildly popular. The audience knows what it’s getting.

Lesson learned. Back to sitcom.

What is your character’s quest? Let’s build the ending into the beginning.

Our hero says they want to pass their driving test. This is it. They’re finally going to do it! They’ve been putting it off for far too long. They book the test – and there’s a three month wait. Too late. But, oh, there’s been a cancellation! A slot opens up in 72 hours. Perfect! That’s how long a sitcom time frame should be, to keep the pressure on the characters.

How is this episode going to end? Well, duh. With a driving test. That’s what we’re all building up to. The audience is no doubt about that. We can sit back and enjoy the ride. With plenty of stress, gear crunching or poor clutch control.

But what if my episode isn’t about a driving test?

My answer to you is: How about a driving test?!

What I mean is that you should gravitate towards plots that have a clear ending in mind. Your character has to give a best man’s speech; or takes part in a bake off; or decides to run a 5k.

How do those episodes end? With a wedding reception, a bake off final judgment and a 5k finish line.

It’s not the complicated, is it?

If you have a big long list of plot ideas, some will naturally present an ending. This doesn’t mean you should only focus on those. But if you have a quest that is too open-ended, don’t be surprised if you can’t end it.

In general, you’re always looking for plots that have an event at the end we can understand: in some ways, it’s a ‘day of reckoning’ when all is revealed, and we see if our hero has passed the metaphorical test.

Does our hero pass their driving test? Does it matter? Well that all depends. Why are they taking it? That’s what we’ll look at next time.

But if you can’t wait, and want more advice right now - and you’d like to support this wildly unprofitable blog - then why not get my epic webinar called Writing your Sitcom without Losing the Plot? It lasts over 90 minutes and is crammed with not annoying, very practical advice. The replay is yours, along with notes, for a small contribution. It’s over here. Chip in. And jump in.