If you are a bottom-up thinker, there are certain techniques in long-form improv that might work better if you try to do top-down thinking instead. Why would you do such a thing? And When?
Game and second beats might be challenging to a bottom-up thinker. You need to get used to wrapping up a bunch of details into a single idea, gist, or synopsis regardless of what direction you think in. The synopsis is where top-down thinkers start! Maybe it’s faster doing top down for this?
This episode includes a couple different examples of when I think I probably take more of a top-down approach as a life-long bottom-up thinker.
I also detail a pretty quick way to do a second beat using a form of visual thinking (hyperphantasia), since we were talking about it. Selfish tangent, that, maybe. But it’s in there too.
Listen to the episode
Discuss this topic with others!
Discuss this topic with improvisers
This link will take you directly to the forum for this newsletter on the Improv Update Discord.The discord also contains a bunch of channels for improv nerds. Nice.