Fearless Friday - Improv, Writing & Fear
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An empty stage, a blank page. They're both full of potential: That's what makes them so thrilling and so daunting. There's only one way to find out if that potential can be realized, and that is to step out, put the fingers to the keyboard, and let the words flow.
Of course, if the stage performance is a play, those words have already been written. But if the stage performance is improv, or even partially improv, those words are being put together in this particular way on the spot. The risk is so huge that it could be daunting. It is daunting to most adults, who are afraid to fail, and especially to fail in public, alone.
And yet, being out there, being transparent about the struggle, even if it's something as simple as coming up with a random list, as Eddie Izzard did at one point on Tuesday, pulls the audience in. The audience wants you to succeed. Your job is to persist and get through it. --Of course, if you struggle as a writer, and have a choppy section in your book, readers aren't likely to see it, because your editor will ask you to fix it. Still, if you persist and get through the fixes (revisions), then the payoff will be a stronger book. And you will know the thrill of saying, "I can."
Or you could fail. There are so many ways to fail. Your fixes don't work. But the worse failure of all is to walk off the stage, close the document and never open it again. Giving up means losing the possibility of succeess.
Giving up means you will never know the huge reward that comes when you do, at last, get it right. And the higher the stakes, the bigger the risk, the bigger the payoff is, both for your audience and for you, the performer, the writer. If you've watched improv, especially live improv, you'll know that even when the performers don't overtly acknowledge their achievement, their sense of triumph is almost palpable.
Earlier this summer, I read Mick Napier's Improvise: Scene from the Inside Out. One of the suggestions he makes is that improvisers mix things up. The example he uses is, if you're playing accountants, don't be accountants in an office, be accountants at an ice cream stand. See where the unexpected setting takes you. The thing is, audiences like the new and the unexpected. That's why Pride and Prejudice with Zombies was such a success. But you don't have to make it zombies or vampires or angels. Your Unexpected might be something as simple as a kid getting on the bus to the wrong summer camp, a camp that was expecting someone with his name, so that fact that he knows nothing about ballet goes unnoticed. But because he's really good with computers, when...
You get the idea.
The way I write, improv plays a huge role. I'm a pantser and a very happy one at that. The extra lift of joy, the "aha!" that shows on improviser's faces when a new idea hits, is a look I recognize. I know how they feel inside, because I've had that rush when a character does something unexpected yet so absolutely perfect. For me, that first draft is an improv, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
But the only way to make it work is to let go of fear.
I found that out last year when I was working on StT. Because it explores gender and sexuality, it's likely to be challenged. At a certain point, I realized that my own parents aren't likely to respond positively when it is published (I refuse to say "if"). However, I refuse to let either of those considerations affect the way I was telling this story.
For writers, letting go of fear should be easy, because when we're drafting, no one else is watching. We can go back later and clean things up, totally re-write, whatever we want. We have nothing to lose.
So go on! What's the biggest risk you can take?