Elephant Bucks. Sheldon Bull
confident of victory.
Our story now needs an Obstacle for Frasier, something or someone who will get in the way of Frasier achieving his goal. Because we want our script to demonstrate that we understand the series we have chosen to spec, the Obstacle should also be organic to the series. As our Obstacle, let's say that:
2) Frasier discovers to his horror that Niles is running against him for president of the opera club.
Frasier would be very upset to find his brother as his opponent, wouldn't he? This would create conflict between Frasier and Niles. Now we're starting to have some fun. Already we're eager to know how this is going to turn out.
Having decided on a First Goal for Frasier and having planted an Obstacle preventing Frasier from achieving his goal, the Main Character must now take a First Action to overcome the Obstacle and achieve his First Goal. At this moment in a situation comedy, the Main Character will almost always make an unwise decision. There is no comedy without an unwise decision. If Frasier acted wisely either by withdrawing from the race for president of the opera club, or deciding to be mature and face his brother in a clean campaign, the story wouldn't be very interesting to watch, would it?
The fun of a situation comedy is watching the characters give in to the same human frailties that plague us all. Situation comedy usually exaggerates the degree to which the characters surrender to their shortcomings, but that's the fun. As viewers, we get to watch our favorite characters behave in a very human way, but we also get to feel superior to them because we probably wouldn't behave as foolishly as they are behaving. (Or at least we can let ourselves think that we wouldn't.)
In order to achieve his First Goal of becoming president of the opera club, Frasier must now take a First Action to overcome the Obstacle of Niles running against him. Frasier's First Action will involve an unwise decision. The unwise decision must spring organically from Frasier's established personality. So based on what we already know about Frasier from watching him over the years, what First Action do you think he would take? What unwise decision will Frasier make to overcome the Obstacle of Niles?
Let's say that as his First Action:
3) Frasier tries to discredit Niles.
By making this unwise decision, the Main Character is upping the stakes of the story. His unwise decision is going to make matters worse. This happens to all of us from time to time, doesn't it? In order to get what we want, we make an unwise decision and take action that only increases our troubles. This is normal human behavior. This is real. When our unwise decision unwittingly makes matters worse, the Obstacle we were trying to overcome just gets bigger, and we end up further away from our First Goal than when we started. Our plan backfires on us. This has happened to everyone.
This is precisely what ought to happen to Frasier now. His First Action should backfire and make everything worse. His attempt to discredit Niles should put Frasier further away from his goal than when he started.
Why?
In part, because that's what seems to happen in real life. But practically speaking, and for the purpose of a sitcom episode, Frasier's First Action has to backfire right now and make everything worse because we are already approaching the middle of our story. We are about to stop the story and go away for a commercial. So we want to leave Frasier in a real mess that our viewers or reader will be eager to see resolved. We want the viewer or reader to feel a rooting interest in Frasier somehow resolving his problem or achieving his goal.
As the writer, you need to create a cliffhanger at this moment that will draw the audience back after the commercial. This cliffhanger moment — where everything has gotten worse because of the unwise decision and the First Action that followed it — is called the Act Break.
If Frasier's First Action is to discredit Niles, how can that First Action backfire in a way that is organic to the series, spring from the personality of our main character and make matters worse, thus creating a cliffhanger moment for our Act Break?
What if Frasier makes unfair accusations against Niles in front of the opera club? Niles would be furious, wouldn't he? An embarrassing and nasty argument could break out between Frasier and Niles in front of the entire club. Here's a wonderful irony. Our snobby, ambitious characters, Frasier and Niles, are hissing like cats in front of the people they most want to impress, and the people who are least likely to tolerate their unseemly behavior. Our cliffhanger moment could be that:
(Act Break) Frasier and Niles are both disqualified from running for president and asked to leave.
At the Act Break then, Frasier's unwise decision and First Action have backfired and made matters worse. Frasier is now further from his First Goal than when he started. Our reader or viewer has a rooting interest in coming back from the commercial to see how Frasier will get himself out of this mess.
What I have laid out so far is one-half of a sitcom story. I started out with a First Goal for Frasier — becoming president of the opera club. If Frasier simply ran for office and got elected president with no problems it'd be a pretty boring half-hour, wouldn't it? Because real life seldom works out so smoothly, I added an Obstacle for Frasier: His brother, Niles, is running against him for president of the opera club. Niles is an organic obstacle because it has been well-established on Frasier that Frasier and Niles are competitive. I am using the paints that are already in the tray. The premise of the series — about a radio personality in Seattle and his mismatched family — works with the personality of the main character — a pompous, egocentric social climber — to produce a story.
The reader or viewer reaches the Act Break eager to see how the story will be resolved.
What might the second half of our story be?
Frasier's in a real mess, isn't he? His own personality, his human frailty, has gotten him into trouble. He has been disqualified from running for president of the opera club. He is further from his First Goal than when he started. His unwise decision and First Action have backfired and made the Obstacle even larger. Frasier has to do something now to solve the new and bigger problem before he can ever get back to his First Goal of becoming president of the opera club.
Frasier now must clean up the mess that he created with his First Action. He can't run for president if he has been disqualified. Frasier needs to show the members of the opera club that he isn't as immature as he seemed at the meeting. We also have Niles in the same predicament. What then is a logical Second Goal for Frasier, given what we have established so far?
Let's say that after Frasier and Niles get done blaming each other for their mutual predicament:
4) Frasier and Niles decide that they need to work together to get back in the race.
That's the Second Goal.
The only way to accomplish the Second Goal is to take a Second Action. Since Frasier and Niles have agreed to work together as the Second Goal, it seems logical that the Second Action would be to:
5) Return to the opera club and attempt to be respectful of one another. If they can get back in the race, at least one of them has a chance at becoming president.
Just as the First Action made matters worse, the Second Action is going to complicate things even more.
Why?
For one thing, your Main Character should now be in a heightened emotional state. His original plans have gone awry. He is worse off than when he started. When we are upset we get desperate, and our behavior becomes even more illogical. Your Main Character will be desperate by the time he resorts to the Second Action. His desperation will cause him to behave even more irrationally than he did during the First Action.
One of the persistent themes of situation comedy is that human beings overreact to minor problems. We find ourselves in competition or conflict with a meddling parent, a jealous sibling, a romantic rival, an ambitious co- worker, a rebellious child or a nosy neighbor. Our survival instinct overwhelms