I enjoy writer Ken Levine’s blog most of the time. Like most blogs, it goes through its occasional bouts where the signal-to-noise ratio is heavy on the noise (more baseball announcing anecdotes, anyone?) But he more than makes up for it when he gets into a vein of absolute gold on his blog, and he’s on one now.
A couple of days ago, I posted a link from his Aaron Sorkin spoof. Today, I bring you his words of wisdom concerning developing your story-based entertainment. Seems Ken is approached frequently by people suggesting that their place of business would make a good premise for a sitcom. After a few moments of diatribal explanation why those encounters don’t yield Million Dollar Ideas, here’s what Ken has to say about story idea development:
Here’s what nobody ever pitches me: a show about a relationship. THE OFFICE is funny because of the relationship between Michael and his employees. It is funnier still because of the relationships among the employees. What they actually manufacture is completely unimportant.
Start with the characters first.
So funny, so obvious: you could say the sit-com is not so much about the Sit, but really about the Com, but the truth is, if you do it right, it’s about neither. Like every other good story worth telling, it’s about character. Add this to your List of Obvious Things that Need to be Written Down and Repeated. And don’t tell me you don’t keep a list like that because I know you do.
