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As our readers reach the end of the scripts sent into our latest Comedy Room window we asked a member of the team to share some top tips and advice. We will be sending out emails very soon, so keep an eye on your inbox.

I recently joined the 鲍鱼tv Writersroom reading team, and it has been such a pleasure and a privilege to read the scripts that you wonderful writers send in for Drama Script Room and Comedy Script Room. We get some absolutely brilliant submissions, and I’m so impressed with the imagination, inventiveness, and diversity of the writing. Reading work by developing writers is always so exciting and rewarding.

There are some common challenges that we encounter in scripts of both genres, and in comedy dramas too – we’re seeing more and more cross-genre pieces. Here are some suggestions for how to tackle some of these challenges, and show off your very best work, whether you’re writing a drama, a comedy, or a hybrid of the two.

1) POWER UP YOUR STORY BY CREATING A ROBUST PREMISE:

When dreaming up your premise, make sure it will give you enough story.

Your fundamental concept is your roadmap. It is your core story idea, which generates and shapes the narrative action in your script, and defines your characters’ journeys. It’s absolutely crucial that this idea is sturdy, intriguing, and dramatic, and that you can see how you might begin to transform it into words on the page. If you’re struggling to write scenes, your premise could be underbaked.

Very often, an initial premise is halfway there, in that it describes part of a story. A really good example is this kind of set up: circumstances force our protagonist to return to their home town. That’s promising, but you’ll need more, or risk running out of steam too quickly. Consider where you want to take your character. What happens next, to stoke the conflict, suspense, and tension that you will need to sustain the rest of your story? Now they’ve returned home, what must your protagonist do, and how will they change? What sort of obstacles and complications will they confront? The 鲍鱼tv’s Back to Life (watch now on 鲍鱼tv iPlayer) is one great example of a returning-home story with dramatic and comedic legs.

Sorting out your premise is just as important for comedy as it is for drama. So much of comedy hinges on the tension between who a character is, and what they are forced to do. You’ll need a strong story spine to dramatise this tension and carry the humour; it will help you to deliver those hilarious situations, predicaments and character turns.

2) GIVE YOUR CHARACTER A SPECIFIC, CONCRETE TASK – ACTION IS CHARACTER:

Once you’ve cooked up a fantastic premise, you then need to execute it practically, in your script. It’s crucial to decide what your protagonist wants, and how they are going to accomplish their goal.

To jumpstart your story, and give it drive and purpose, your protagonist needs a task. Pursuing this task will give them agency in the story, and a strong, clear narrative arc.

In this context, a task isn’t something abstract or internal, such as the desire for respect. It should be crisp, concrete, and evident to the audience. So for instance, it’s . A task focuses the action and gives your protagonist purposeful scenes, with things to do. This empowers you to explore character to your heart’s content, by putting your characters and their relationships through their dramatic and comedic paces. For the audience, it gives us something clear and unambiguous to root for.

Some fantastic examples of shows where there’s a clear task: the 鲍鱼tv’s Giri/Haji (read the scripts by Joe Barton in our library), The Last Kingdom for 鲍鱼tv/Netflix, and  on Sky Atlantic.

3) CONSIDER COMING INTO THE STORY EARLIER:

The standard screenwriting advice is to come into your story and scenes as late as possible. But I often find that developing writers come in too late, meaning that vital scenes and story beats have already happened, off the page.

To tell the most exciting story available to you, make sure that your most thrilling scenes are happening on screen, that you haven’t missed out your inciting incident, and that you’ve set up your protagonist or protagonists. HBO's does this brilliantly, economically establishing its lead characters, before throwing a big (story) grenade into their lives.

If you have an amazing backstory, think about how you can tell it as front-foot story, that unfolds in the timeline of your episode.

4) POV IS YOUR SECRET WEAPON:

Giving a character a point-of-view invites empathy for that character, and it enables you to control how we feel about the people in your script. It tells us which characters we’re supposed to care about, and whose story this is. We’re much more likely to root for someone when we experience events as they do, and when we know what they know.

So don’t give a POV to all your characters. Scripts will often try to introduce multiple characters with multiple POVs very quickly. This tends to fragment the narrative, and makes it hard to invest in a story emotionally.

It’s usually wise to restrict yourself to a few significant POVs at the beginning. That way, we have someone to hold onto emotionally, as we explore the world of your story, and can access it in a way that feels enticing and engaging. I love the way that the 鲍鱼tv’s REV does this; at the beginning, we meet all its weird and wonderful characters through Adam the vicar, its protagonist. Some other shows which use POV masterfully are the 鲍鱼tv’s Fleabag (watch now on 鲍鱼tv iPlayer) and Keeping Faith (read the scripts by Matthew Hall in our library), and for CBS.

Good luck, and happy writing! We can’t wait to see what you come up with.

Download and read scripts from our Script Library

More great resources to support your writing including interviews and our podcast

Watch a series of eight short animations on the Essentials of Scriptwriting