The key comic idea

"What is the key comic idea?"

It's a question script editors will ask a lot, particularly when working with newer writers.

Every joke, every sketch and every scene of your sitcom needs a key comic idea at its heart - an idea that is fuelling it and driving it forward.

In a sitcom, those comic ideas will be deployed as part of a wider plot that roots those scenes and interactions in a logical and dramatically satisfying order.

The storylines in sitcoms are often clearly comic (but not always - particularly as series progress).

Usually they can be expressed very...