Improv for Writers

Deborah Sale-Butler on using improvisation exercises for better storytelling

Maybe you’re stuck for ideas, or your scene is running in place. Maybe you really liked the last story you wrote, but it was just – missing something. Years of performing improv helped me internalize a few techniques that I’ve found invaluable as a writer for pushing through blocks or bringing new life to a scene.

I’m sure I heard a few of you say, “I can’t improvise. I’m not funny!” 

You don’t have to be funny to improvise. The secret of good improv is that it isn’t trying to be funny – it’s trying to be truthful. It often makes people laugh because deep down, there is always an element of humour to our humanity.

Improv exercises were created to train actors to quickly access their feelings and imagination to create a fully fleshed-out scene with characters, a setting, conflict, rising stakes and a strong resolution – just like writers.

Let’s look at one of the most useful, writer-friendly rules of Improvisation:

Go for the Agreement, Not the Argument, aka “Yes, And.” 

Writers often try to create conflict in a scene by starting a fight. In life, this feels very dramatic, but for the purposes of scene development, it kills forward momentum. Yes, both characters have a strong opinion in direct opposition to the other character (conflict), but in a fight scene, neither person wants to give ground so there is no development. For example:

Doreen confronts Cory with his cell phone. “I saw Becky’s number on your phone. You’re seeing her again, aren’t you?”

He places his hands on his hips, “No, I’m not!”

She flies into a rage, “Yes you are!”

He holds out his hands, pleading, “No, I swear I’m not!” 

She throws the phone at him, “Yes, you are, you scumbag!”

As you can see, this scene is spinning its wheels. There’s no discovery – no development. We don’t know where they are, or who they are to each other.

Let’s use the same scene and add a place, an associated activity, and the concept of “Yes, And.”

• For this exercise, you are not allowed to use the words no or but.

• After the word yes, each character has to agree with the last thing the other character said.

• After the word and, build on the previous statement, then add new information.

Notice the word statement. Improv works best by keeping questions to a minimum. Does this mean you can never ask questions? As my favourite teacher at Second City, Martin De Maat, said, “You can walk through the valley of the shadow of death – just don’t build a house and live there.” So, use questions if they are absolutely necessary, but try to go without for a while and watch how the scene builds.

Let’s rewrite the previous scene, adding a place and an activity. Since this is a domestic scene, let’s make it a room in a house (laundry room) and an activity associated with that room (sorting clothes).

Doreen is sorting clothes into piles, shaking each item roughly and checking the pockets before throwing them into the washer. As she shoves a pair of jeans into the washer, a phone falls out onto the floor. She stops and snatches it up. Doreen looks to see if anyone is watching, then logs onto the phone and scrolls through the texts, clenching her jaw. 

Cory walks into the laundry room and sees Doreen holding his phone. “Oh, you found my phone!” He strolls over to her and casually reaches for the phone.

Doreen holds the phone out of reach, like a game of keep-away. “Yes, I found your phone, and Becky texted you last night.”

“Yes, I texted her, and I told her I didn’t want to talk to her anymore.” He reaches for the phone. 

Doreen turns her back to him and holding the phone closer to her and reads. “Yes, you said you didn’t want to talk to her, and she said she had to see you one last time.” 

Cory walks behind Doreen pointing over her at the screen. “Yes, she said she needed to see me, and I told her to leave us alone.” 

Let’s stop here.

Raise the Emotional Stakes/Explore and Heighten 

Even though the characters were agreeing to each other’s statements and adding information, it was only information that was new to the reader, so there was no discovery. The characters were just spitting out exposition. Nobody does that in real life. 

What improved? We had a little more context than before. She found the phone in his pants while doing laundry, so we know they probably live together. There is a conflict over Becky, but it’s still not very specific and it doesn’t reveal much else about Doreen and Cory. The scene was still pretty static. 

The characters must have an emotional need – a want. It can change during the scene, but it must be present from the get-go. One incredibly useful technique is to go for the love. If you can, always assume that the characters love each other. We want to care about the characters and we’re much more likely to care about people who are vulnerable. If you have trouble finding the love between the characters, ask yourself, “Why do they even stay in the room?”

If love is not a viable option in a scene, make sure each character’s actions and dialogue are motivated by emotional need, otherwise, they’ll just be talking heads. With each exchange, see if you can raise the emotional stakes for each character.

And don’t forget to infuse physical action with emotional intent. In the previous scene, Doreen shows she is angry by how she’s handling the clothes, but the anger is an expression of her emotional need, which is to trust Cory.

Let’s run the scene again and add Rising Emotional Stakes. Stick with statements, but you can eliminate the explicit “yes, and.”

Doreen is sorting clothes into piles, shaking each item roughly and checking the pockets before throwing them into the washer. As she shoves a pair of jeans into the washer, a phone falls out onto the floor. She stops and snatches it up. Doreen looks to see if anyone is watching, then logs onto the phone and scrolls through the texts. Her head drops. 

Cory walks into the laundry room and sees Doreen holding his phone. “Oh, you found it.”

Doreen holds the phone limply in her hand. “Yes. I can’t do this anymore. You texted with Becky. Again. I feel so betrayed.”

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to scare you. I blocked her, so she texted me from a burner phone!”

“That’s what I mean, you never even changed your phone number when she already proved she’s insane – like the time she hid out in the back seat of your car, planning to kidnap you. I’m terrified of what she’ll try next.” She sobs.

Cory walks to Doreen and puts his hands on her shoulders, “I’m so sorry. I would never let anything happen to you and the kids, so I made sure she could never hurt us again.”  

Doreen touches his hands on her shoulders. “I’m so relieved that you’re finally willing to change your number.”

“Oh, I changed my number, and I did something even better!” He pulls the keys from his pocket and hands them to Doreen. “We’re moving!” 

OK – let’s stop it here.

In this scene, both people actually want to be together. The stakes are raised as we learn of Becky’s insane obsession and how it affects them. The beat ends because Cory recognizes and addresses Doreen’s fears. A beat generally ends when somebody wins.

New Line

During a recent writing forum, one of the authors complained that they had finished a story, but thought the ending was weak. Here’s an exercise for brainstorming a new ending.

In a game called New Line, the director claps to interrupt a scene and yells, “New line.” The actor who spoke last has to replace their last sentence with a totally different line.

Let’s just work with the last line of the scene:

“I did something even better!” He pulls keys from his pocket and hands them to Doreen. “We’re moving!” 

New line

“I did something even better. I set her up with my twin brother, Frank.” 

New line

“I did something even better. I need you to help me hide the body.” 

You can change out a line as many times as you want. The trick is not to think about it at all before you write. Just fill in the blank and see what comes out. 

Sometimes the whole story just isn’t hitting the way you want. If it’s a short story, or flash you can try writing it in another genre.

Rewind

In this game, players are given two suggestions, like a place and a relationship. Let’s go with bank robbers at a grocery store.

The players act out the scene and when they’ve reached the end of a beat, the director says, “Rewind!” and then asks the audience for a suggestion of a style of film (or genre of literature) from the audience. The players then re-create the same scene using the suggested style.  

The suggestion is: bank robbers at a grocery store.

Wayde and Reese each carried a six-pack of beer to the checkout stand of the corner market and placed it on the conveyor belt. Wayde elbowed Reese, snickering. Reese, tugged his baseball cap lower over his eyes and pushed his hands into the pockets of his windbreaker. He shot Wade a look, hoping his idiot friend would chill out, so they could just get the booze and go.

The lone checker looked up from the beer on the belt to the teenagers and sighed, “ID please.” Cora could tell they were fourteen, fifteen at most. She prepared herself for the game to come.

Her lacklustre request annoyed Wayde. “Seriously, is that all the energy you got, girl? Ayeee Deeee Pluueeeez.”

As he mocked her, he elbowed his friend to join in on the joke. Reese ignored him.

“Sir, I have to ask everyone for ID. It’s my job.” She leaned forward slightly, waiting for their next move

Reese reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a 9 mm revolver. “Check this ID.”

They heard a click from under the counter as Cora locked eyes with Reese. “You showed me yours, I’ll show you mine.”

The bullet from her Smith and Wesson Magnum ripped straight through the side of the check stand and dropped Reese in his tracks.

Rewind: Sci-Fi

Wayde and Reese floated to up to the bar. They set down their credit chips and nonchalantly ordered two Saurian Sunsets. The Ripsadian bartender wiped the bar with two of her arms and poured alcohol into a glass shaker with her other two. The shaking activated a red-orange glow as the liquids combined. The boys had heard about the effect, but never seen it in person. Wayde giggled in excitement at the colourful show. “So cool!” 

Reese shot a sideways look at Wayde. The cloaking chimeras that he’d scored to make them look like Bolan smugglers would only go so far. They needed to act like detached hard-asses, not giggling idiots.

The bartender poured out two shots, then held them aloft with her outer arms. She reached one of her remaining palms out to the boys and said, “Chronometers please.”

Reese pulled out his disrupter. “Looks like your chronometer’s run out of time.”

They hadn’t seen the bartender slip her free hand under the counter. Wayde watched in horror as Reese vaporized beside him. 

She turned back to Wayde and repeated, “Chronometer please.”

At its core, it was a scene about underage guys trying to score drinks. Even though details changed, the shape remained the same. 

There are so many great improv exercises that lend themselves to writing. If you can, challenge yourself to take an improv class. There is nothing like the brain training that happens in an actual workshop. But for those who aren’t keen on taking an acting class, there are many wonderful books on improvisation, filled with exercises to get your creative juices flowing. Start with Impro for Storytellers by Keith Johnstone. 

If you want to see examples of movies and television series which have used an improv-to-script technique, look for just about anything produced by Taika Waititi or Christopher Guest. Notice the humour that comes from a deeply human place, and how much you care about the characters, despite even the most absurd situations. 

As my favourite improv director, Patrick Bristow, says, “Be playful, joyful and relaxed.” But most of all, have fun.

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The featured image for the title is a photo by Navid Abbasi on Unsplash