"DMs are Open" Week 3 - We did it!

Mission accomplished (pending the actual selection process) and some plans for the future

For context, this has been a three week sketch submission journey, here are parts 1 and 2.

"DMs are Open", and so is my writing process, heart and snack cupboard

"DMs are Open" Week 2 - Creating vs Consuming

Well here we are! As this post is published, there will be roughly ninety minutes left for the public at large to enter for the final two themes for this series of “DMs are Open”, Late and Party. I submitted yesterday at lunchtime, as the sketch ideas and redrafts had come a little more easily again this week.

I’ve found writing to overblown musicals and wordy pop quite helpful this week, and combined them all into one giant playlist.

I wondered if I would need to analyse the hidden message from the production team in the six episode themes, but I think “Help! Secret Enemies Holiday Late Party” is self-explanatory.

I’m also pleased to report that the sketch bug is spreading amongst our Writer’s Room cohort, and Gillian McCall joined myself and Katy Edelsten for feedback to each other and submission of sketches. It was a real flurry of WhatsApp messages, sage comments and timely¹ redrafts throughout the week, and there is something wonderful in sharing a writing journey like this. It also increases the chances of having seen an original script that might be selected for broadcast, to allow us to analyse what process it goes through after it leaves our hands. And then we may be able to congratulate someone directly, with a little quiet seething on the side.

It always seems to be the way in the creative world that any group of creative collaborators will eventually and inevitably be pitted against each other for sparse opportunity. But I’m certain that collaboration lifts us up, and makes the whole industry stronger.

That’s enough smug pontificating, show us the notebook you coward!

Late

Obvious (Avoid)

• Interview/Appointment

• Funeral (i.e. Late = Dead)

Ideas

• SUPERHERO CHARACTER FROM PREVIOUS SKETCHES arrives late to save someone

  • Would need a great punchline or hook to justify it²

• SECRET ACTUAL IDEA³

• One half of a couple late to the cinema - increasingly silly descriptions and connections between characters, leads to a debate on the merits of the film with the people in front or behind⁴

Party

Obvious (Avoid)

• Politics (eugh)⁵

• Birthday of child, awkward parents/social interactions

• Present giving

Ideas

1. SECRET ACTUAL IDEA⁶

2. Ghosts - A Late Party

   1. Opposite of a funeral, a welcoming

   2. Can SUPERHERO CHARACTER FROM PREVIOUS SKETCHES actually die? Is that mad?⁷

3. Dinner party where the meal has to be alphabetical - use jokes from this previous Fancy Falls post ⁸

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The Future

So, that’s it. Around mid-March, the new series of “DMs are Open” will be preparing to record and air, and we’ll all hear if we got anything in, one week before the episode airs⁹.

I have loved having a prompt for writing, and am really enjoying the format of these Substack posts, so I’m going to keep this going for a little bit, in a sustainable way to allow for the other opportunities I’m aiming for this year.

My plan is to find a random word generator, announce my prompt for the following week, and share my workings for writing up a sketch in the same way as I have here. Only now, you’ll get to read the finished sketch! At the very least I’ll try it twice, and see how we go.

So, for next time, the prompt is

Colleague

generated here¹⁰ with the Game Wordplay and the category Nouns, as that felt closest to a theme like we’ve had. Any suggestions to change the process are welcome!

Of course if anyone else wants to join in, I’ll happily read and share any other writing. In these new-style posts I will also continue to share what I’ve been reading, watching or intending to consume in a weekly Televigion Update.

Televigion Update

As promised quite recently, here’s what I’ve been reading, watching or intending to consume.

Watching

• Michael Palin’s Hemingway Adventure - as mentioned last week, his diaries have inspired me to re-explore the shows he is making at that point (1999-2009). I definitely have seen this show before. Having watched it with my wife this week, I recognised everything¹¹. She made the fascinating point that Michael Palin is in a very privileged position, and someone of lesser stature and particularly a female presenter (even now 25 years later) wouldn’t likely have the access he did to e.g. the Kenyan rangers and warden. We only watched one episode, though it was entertaining. Neither of us know Hemingway all that well, and it didn’t seem to have a clear throughline to keep us hooked.

• Michael Palin’s Sahara - But this is more like it! We’ve watched it three nights in a row, and only have the final episode to go. More intrigue and danger, more of our host’s charm required to ride out the dangerous and difficult situations, and just a lot more interesting.

Intending to Consume

• High Potential (Disney+)

• Goosebumps: The Vanishing (Disney+) - I saw this pop up on Disney+ and heard no-one talking about it. Anywhere. It turns out I missed a whole first series in 2023, and it’s a loosely connected anthology series of teen-friendly horror stories, as would make sense from the books that I loved as a teenager. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to watch it. I enjoyed the film with Jack Black too.

• Small Town, Big Story - This trailer for a new Sky Original written and directed by Chris O’Dowd and starring Paddy Considine (!) and Christina Hendricks (!) looks a lot of fun.

• SNL 50th Anniversary - I WILL be watching this.

Footnotes

1. Thymely?

2. I didn’t come up with one.

3. This idea is probably my least silly so far, quite a broad observation and much shorter than my usual blabbing on. It might be just what they’re looking for, so I’m glad I stuck to it.

4. This doesn’t sound hilarious, but has potential for Fancy Falls, I promise.

5. I could not be more glad this is not a topical show, I submitted to Newsjack for an entire series years ago and found it an absolute slog. I do want to broaden my writing horizons, so will try again with e.g. Breaking the News when that is up for submissions.

6. In contrast to my sketch for Late, this is utterly ridiculous, but is based on some sort of actual observation, not just mad characters. I think it’s my favourite of the six I wrote.

7. He died at the end of a sketch from last week, or so it seemed. I gave up on the recurring character for this week’s submission, as the other ideas were better.

8. Is it cheating to use previously written ideas as inspiration? No, it is not.

9. And the only way we’ll know if we haven’t is by the absence of an email, checking spam relentlessly, assuming something went wrong with sending your confirmation, listening to the broadcast and misremembering what you wrote two months previously.

10. The second entry on Google for “random word generator”, since I’m far too hipster to go for the top hit.

11. I think I’ve realised why I have watched so many first episodes of series and just not continued - she is not inclined to watch much TV just now, and I love watching with someone, particularly her. So my bar for continuing anything is even higher than usual!