Photography: The writer's room, 1:07 AM
Every Great
Sketch Started
As A Bad Idea.
and we kept a file of all of them — turns out half are actually genius
Bit is where sketch writers, improv troupes, and solo creators who learned everything from YouTube bring their half-finished premises, their one joke that's too weird for the show, and their 1 AM voice memos. We take them seriously.
"Index Card"
a sketch about therapy, avoidance, and extremely efficient note-taking
INT. THERAPIST'S OFFICE — DAY
DR. CHEN sits across from MARCUS, 34, who is holding a single index card.
MARCUS
I wrote down what I want to talk about today.
DR. CHEN
Great. What's on the card?
MARCUS
(reading carefully)
"Everything."
A beat. Dr. Chen writes something down. Marcus nods like this was helpful.
"The index card joke is the one that kills every time. We don't know why. We've stopped asking."
Lines circled three times
"He nods like this was helpful."
"Everything." (pause) "Still on the card."
The therapist starts billing by the silence.
Marcus Webb
Chicago · Sketch & Improv
"The LinkedIn Influencer's Funeral"
a 7-minute sketch performed live. nobody expected the pivot to grief.
Written and performed by the Loose Ends Collective over three consecutive Tuesday nights until they got it right. The third version added the motivational poster. That was the one.
Loose Ends Collective · Chicago, IL
"A character who is extremely good at the wrong job."
147 responses so far — and three of them are genuinely disturbing
Every Monday at noon we drop a premise. Writers have 48 hours. The best responses get developed into full sketches — sometimes by the person who wrote them, sometimes by someone else who couldn't stop thinking about it.
Free to join · 3 min to respond
Member Responses ↓
A motivational speaker who is secretly just reading fortune cookies in a different font.
Two ghosts arguing about whether their house is haunted. One of them is the house.
A wellness retreat that is just a Wendy's but they've removed all the chairs and added crystals.
TED talk about the importance of eye contact delivered entirely via text message.
A hostage negotiator who can only speak in the language of passive-aggressive email.
The Loose Ends writers' room, 11 PM on a Wednesday.
The whiteboard that started "Index Card."
Kezia, post-table-read, pre-rewrite.
Inside the Room Where It Happens (at Like 11 PM on a Wednesday)
not the glamorous version. the real one.
The Loose Ends Collective rents a back room at a bar in Lincoln Park every Wednesday. The bar doesn't care what they're doing back there as long as they keep ordering the nachos.
They've written 23 sketches in that room. Performed 18. Three of them have been performed by other troupes without attribution, which they consider their highest honor.
"The nachos are not good. We keep ordering them. This is the bit now."
This is what a writers' room looks like when it's actually working: slightly too loud, slightly too late, and someone is always circling one line on the page and saying "this is the one."
You've Earned
The Rest
of the Bit.
you laughed. we saw you. there's more where that came from.
The full sketch, the director's notes, the alternate ending they cut because it was "too mean" (it's not), and the 47 responses to this week's prompt — all in the latest issue.
Read the Latest BitFree · No algorithm · Just bits
The People
Behind the Bits
1,200 writers. Some write every week. Some write one thing every six months that is so good everyone else has to take a walk. Both are welcome.
Meet All the Writers
"I write the weird ones."
Kezia Okonkwo
Sketch & Character
Brooklyn, NY
sketches
"Every premise is a gift."
Tomás Reyes
Improv & Cold Opens
Austin, TX
sketches
"Cut the third joke. The fourth one kills."
Priya Nair
Director & Script Notes
Chicago, IL
sketches
Your weird idea
deserves an audience.
The latest issue is out. Fourteen sketches, two photo essays, one argument about whether a mime sketch can have sound effects (it can), and the week's top 10 prompt responses. It's free. It's funny. You'll forward it to someone.
Free forever · No algorithm · Biweekly issues