In the dark

As you know, we've been working on the outline for our sitcom, trying to decide how our story will develop from the pilot script. We had plenty of ideas but we needed something to tie them all together, something which annoyingly evaded us.

An unexpected event came to the rescue last night. We had a power cut. It started just before tea time (good excuse for a family takeaway) and continued into the evening as darkness began to creep in. With no television or computers to distract us, and the intimacy of candlelight tying us to the settee, we began to talk.

There's something about face to face conversation, without a keyboard or computer screen playing gooseberry, that allows for an honest and creative exchange of ideas. What had started as a relatively unlinked set of episodes turned into an adventure that built on the story with each step and presented a new struggle with a previously unseen enemy.

Our outline isn't complete but it now has a new impetus and construct that pleases us both. If we can get it finished this week, we'll be able to post it all off to the BBC very soon.