Improv Notebook » Storytelling

Applied Improv Principles: Storytelling is Collaboration

Richard Cox — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:58:08 +0000

In the article What is Applied Improv? I discussed seven principles of improv that apply in the work environment. Here I expand on the concept of “Storytelling is Collaboration”

As humans, we are natural storytellers. Much of how we communicate and think comes from telling stories to ourselves and others. Each story that we tell involves people, experiences and ideas that we have interacted with in our lives. (Sawyer, 2007) * In this way our stories are a collaboration with all of those elements that we have experienced. Bringing together the combined experiences of several people allow us to tell stories as a group with each person adding their own offers.
A team solving a business problem in a group meeting is a story that might look something like this:

Once upon a time our product was constantly in demand, but sales have been down for a year, because of that we are looking at our customer feedback, because of that we see that updates to the product are needed, and now we can create a plan to roll out the new features. This summary story might take place over several meetings with many different people adding pieces to the story based on their experiences and ideas.

Collaboration

Collaboration means listening for those offers and accepting them in a way that makes your partner look good and builds on them by “Yes, and”ing them.

*Sawyer, Keith 2007. Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration

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Kurt Vonnegut on Drama

Richard Cox — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:44:28 +0000

My friend Chet, an improviser with Secret Improv Society in San Francisco, sent me this article.

http://sivers.org/drama

It is really interesting look at at some very familiar story structures, the “Cinderella” story, the “Disaster” story, and then real life.

This is an interesting way of looking at Narrative arcs. Personally, as a visual thinker, I find this useful especially when looking at longer improv formats with more than one connected scene.

I like the idea that we can, in improv, take explore these high’s and low’s easily. There are no restrictions, we can go anywhere, anytime, and be anything.

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The stories we tell ourselves

Richard Cox — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 06:53:25 +0000

I was late. I was late and stuck. I was late and stuck in the line at the gas pump. And worst of all, I could see the people holding up the line I could not get out of. I watched for several minutes as all three people talked, joked, and admired the side of their car. And worst of all, they just sitting there, next to the pump, and not even pumping gas.I spent two minutes creating that story bit by bit. My mind filled all the details. It was so easy, I could clearly see what was happening right in front of me.

Human beings are natural storytellers. How many of your conversations are about telling friends what happened last week, last night, or even last meeting? That’s a story!

And then one small detail forced my carefully created story to evaporate into thin air. One of the people pulled a bent coat hanger out of the side of the car. The woman who owned the car was re-united with her keys inside the car and quickly moved on and the two others went back to the gas station offices.

I was relieved to be moving forward with my day again, slightly embarrased at how angry I had been for no reason, and excited by how quickly I was able to revise the whole story and write a new one. This is what happens in an improv scene, the audience and the players are always writing the story out into the future, but only one of those stories are ultimately told.

Each detail is a new piece that may undo many of ideas we had planned ahead. Our minds are constantly writing new endings to the stories in front of us. We need to remain flexible and allow each detail to create a whole new set of possibly next steps.

Our brains are an amazing gift as storytellers – as improvisers we can use that tool to help us stay in the moment.

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KJ4 – What would you ask Keith Johnstone?

William Hall — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:08:40 +0000

What would you ask Keith Johnstone?

I’ve known Keith for about 20 years. He has taught me many things…mostly about eliminating fear from the stage….so that we can reveal ourselves.

Earlier I asked you to help me put together my list of questions. I asked you,what would you like to know about him, his theories and his view towards improvisational theater. Many of you wrote in…thank you.

The interview took place on Sunday at 6pm in the BATS Improv theatre in San Francisco (see photo below).

_________________________________Thanks to David Boyll for the photo.

Keith Johnstone and I talked for an hour. Well…mostly he talked…which I think is the idea.

He spent about 30 minutes on growing up in a small fishing village and then 30 minutes on improvisation. He told one joke and talked about the kind of improv he does go to.

He also told us ‘why he still teaches’. Good stuff.

I’ll write up a little bit about the interview and post it here ….er..soon.

Thanks to everyone for your questions.

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Getting to the point

Richard Cox — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:51:32 +0000

You knew it was going to happen again, you were asked to give a presentation and you couldn’t come up with a good excuse not to. As the deadline approaches you keep finding ways to avoid it, but finally you can not escape. You sit down and face a blank screen with no ideas on what structure to create.

Many people take improv classes to help with public speaking, and for good reason. The lessons learned in telling a story in a scene can be applied directly to presentations.

Clearly communicating your story is as much about what you don’t say as what you do. Japanese architects created a specific form of presentation for public showings of their work called Pecha Kucha.

Pecha Kucha

Pronounced in three syllables like “pe-chak-cha”, is a presentation format in which… a presenter shows 20 images for 20 seconds apiece, for a total time of 6 minutes, 40 seconds.

Wikipedia

Here is an example of what a Pecha Kucha presentation is on you tube. It has an additional two slides as an introduction to the format – and then a full presentation on signs.

This presentation in the video contains an meta message that can be useful. Emotions are engaging. Careful use of emotion can help your audience connect with the message. This is what I was doing at the beginning of the article.

I love this structure, the constraints give you structure to stay in and unlocks the creative blocks. This is the same mechanism that games such as the Alphabet Game work. Distract your mind with the “rules” and let the ideas flow.

You have 20 slides, and 20 seconds to fill – so you message on each one has to be tight. This helps you distill the idea down to its essence. The audience gets only the most important information.

So, the next time you have to do a presentation, try a Pecha Kucha.

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The flow of stories – interesting vs. easy

Richard Cox — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 15:47:00 +0000

Rich

This week I was teaching and intermediate improv class – working on telling stories. I asked them to tell word at a time stories with the energy and voice that you use to encourage a dog or toddler to do something. Lots of positive energy and emotion. After telling several of those, I asked them to tell plain, slightly boring stories and they told several that way.

After the storytelling I asked each group of four to bring back observations about the exercises to share with the group. There were many good lessons discussed about shared control and having to say “the” instead of “good” words.

One insight that I liked in particular was this: “Trying to tell boring stories had an easier flow”. As I reflected on that, I remembered seeing fewer people looking up and struggling to find their words. There was a soft, even murmur in the room. Others said that it was easier to tell the boring stores.

The same group also noted that they thought the “higher energy” stories were more specific and had more details but that the stories wandered more and got “crazy”. There was certainly more energy in the room and I saw many contorted faces and pained looks of struggle.

How do we bring energy to our storytelling and still allow for the flow to be easy and fun? Which is more interesting a story with less detail and effortless or one that has lots of detail but risks going off the rails? Comments?…

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