Jedidjah Julia Noomen – Improvise Your Storytelling: How To Use Improv Techniques For Writing

Jedidjah Julia Noomen in Improvise Your Storytelling: How To Use Improv Techniques For Writing, the next 2021 Playful Creative Summit presentation I’ll highlight, focused on a conversation about improvised story-telling in written form with Alyea Sandovar. Sandovar began by asking “How do you, Noomen, define improvisation?” Noomen related her introduction to improv, as a professional writer who segued into improv theatre, which led her to see improv as (broadly paraphrased) “Stop thinking. Just do it. You can’t structure something in advance.” Noomen found that improv frees up her creativity, pushing her past “where do you start?” blocks. Improv taught her to trust her instincts about her stories, that she would be able to tell them. It has expanded her imagery, giving her a perspective to be more absurd sometimes. One technique she uses to jumpstart her efforts: imagine the mundane. If you are crafting a story between two people, create a scene which starts them together in a garden, or washing the dishes, something everyday-ordinary. See where that leads. Stop in the middle of imagining this, jump to “how will this end?” Generate a list of endings, see which you like best. I’m curious to take a class sometime, I wonder how I could use improv in day-to-day life – if I could imagine gardening with someone I have to have a difficult conversation with…