Top Highlights

• If the world of the scene is undefined, then the audience won’t care about the character’s point of view. That is what this book is going to teach you: how to create scenes that the audience will care about.
• Here is a list of things teachers have told me, over the years, not to do when I improvise: Don’t talk about what you are doing. Don’t think. Don’t use questions. Don’t say the word no. Don’t talk about the past. Don’t talk about the future. Don’t talk about characters who are not in the scene. Don’t start the scene with a problem. Don’t start at t...
• the noodles are what you are make-believing and the sauce is how your character feels about it.
• The noodles are whatever you are make-believing. Who you are pretending to be, what you are pretending to do, where you are pretending to be—you know, the make-believe world of the scene. That make-believe is built by figuring out all these specifics, or, as they are often called by improv teachers, the who, what, where. How do you figure out these...
• Your character’s point of view about what is happening in the scene is the sauce. Think about the sauce this way: it is how your character feels about what is happening during the scene.