Confidence vs Hesitation in Improv Scenes

WEBVTT

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If you've ever started writing your next line in a scene

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while your scene partner was still talking,

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you might have been doing a couple things in that, right?

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You might have been trying to get out ahead

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of some kind of pause.

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You might have been trying to eliminate a pause

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that you thought might happen.

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Maybe you wanted to be a really fast improviser.

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Maybe you saw an improv team

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that was just super fast once,

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and you thought that looked really cool

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and you wanted to be like that.

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Fair enough.

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It can kind of sort of work.

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You might get your response out on time.

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Maybe it will make sense,

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even with missing what they said.

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And maybe nobody noticed any gap between those lines

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and they thought that it was really fast and raw.

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But at that same time, right, this is the problem.

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You might've missed a good chunk

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of what your scene partner actually gave you.

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You might've missed a really important offer.

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And that's a pretty big trade-off.

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It's a pretty big risk in a craft

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that is based entirely on listening.

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So that's the thing that I wanna get into in this episode,

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is that beat, that pause that happens between an offer

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and the response that you give to that offer.

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I want to talk about what happens

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between those two improv lines.

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What is it?

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What is this pause?

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What people think it means when they watch you take one,

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this could be the audience,

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it could be your teacher, your teammate,

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and what you can actually do

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to make those pauses really, really good,

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to make them read how you want,

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which is going to also make them really, really good.

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Welcome to Your Improv Brain.

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This is your home for cognitive improv nerdery.

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I'm Jen deHaan.

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In this episode, we're talking about those pauses,

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those juicy pauses, how to make them really good.

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Really good is juicy pauses.

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How to let those pauses turn our scenes

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into really good improv.

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Improv, it's something about receiving.

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It's a receiving activity first before anything else.

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Somebody says a thing,

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and then you take in that thing into your noggin.

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And then you respond out of that noggin to that thing

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that they actually said,

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what they actually said, the whole offer.

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Now, this thing sounds pretty simple

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when you reduce it down to those strange sentences,

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but this actually a really hard skill

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to keep available in your head under all that pressure.

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And that might be why we take so many classes

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and levels and stuff.

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Now in between those two moments, there is a gap.

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There is a beat.

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That's the same thing.

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A beat is like a pause.

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It's a pause of some sort.

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And now beats, pauses, gaps between sentences,

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they're there in every scene for every person for every improv player and

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usually nobody's noticing them nobody thinks about these things because for a

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lot of improvisers in a lot of scenes these pauses are really short right they

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just kind of disappear into the rhythm the cadence of the dialogue and the

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scene itself. However, when those pauses stop being short, people start noticing

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them, right? We start noticing them. The audience might notice a pause that's

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longer and now that noticing can go different ways, right? It can be positive.

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It can be negative. Most of the time it's just neutral. That's when it kind of

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disappears into everything and that's good too right? So it depends on how you

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do that pause. They can be positive they can be negative. So is that pause, is

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it like a hesitation or like is the improviser blanking out and freezing? I

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have a whole bunch of videos about that and things that you can do in those

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situations. I'll put a link in the description. And now that pause could be

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another type. It could be a juicy pause. It could be loaded with stuff. That could

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be a very good pause. So the way that improv teaching and us improvisers when

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we're learning especially or we're trying something new or we're with new

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people, new situation, new theater, a lot of times in these cases that pause is

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Kind of read or taken as some kind of confidence problem

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So in this case, you might be getting a note if you're learning from a teacher yet or you have a coach

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You seemed unsure in this particular moment that they would then point out or they might just give you a note

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Hey commit faster or trust your first instinct. Just say the first thing that comes out of your mouth, right?

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That's like the lessons and I came in some of those freezing videos. They might be giving you something

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In that genre they might be treating you like you didn't know what to do or what to say in that

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Moment or something else that might happen is maybe your scene partner thought that you weren't sure in that moment

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They thought that maybe what they said didn't make sense. So they start filling in the pause for you

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Oh, no, right

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or I mean that could also come from a confidence thing on their end right like I've I've

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Being in scenes with improvisers that they clearly didn't know if what they said made sense or whatever

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They kept adding on and on right so

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Every one of these notes or reactions assumes something kind of

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Specific about what's happening inside your own head during that particular silence

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They're assuming that that silence that you had was like

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Hesitation of some sort they thought that you were an unsure

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improviser and some of us

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Really don't like assumptions, right or at least those assumptions

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Because in some cases they might be thinking that reading that from you and that's not the case of what's going on in your head

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Because there could be different stuff and now there's stuff

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To keep up with that overused word now, there's stuff we can do about all of this

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Thank God for stuff. So let's talk about the different types of

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pauses the different types and there are at least

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Two different very different things that can produce a very similar

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Outward look so one of those things is just genuinely not having a thing to say, right?

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This is the case the common case the case that's often assumed is that your brain went blank

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That the thing that your scene partner just said

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Didn't register perhaps. Maybe you're stalling. Maybe there's some kind of pressure that you're responding to

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now the other

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Pause that can happen is that that offer that your scene partner gave whatever they just said is

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is still arriving in your noggin.

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You heard those words, you heard what they said.

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They're still being processed.

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So the meaning of that phrase

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is still assembling in your head.

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And maybe you're three quarters of the way through

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that processing work in your noggin

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and you're just trying to finish up

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what sentence you wanna blurt out in another second or two.

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And this is very common for neurodivergent improvisers.

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we have auditory processing needs at times

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or other processing delays,

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and this can affect how fast we respond

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to some offers in a scene.

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Now, in these two cases,

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it can be a fairly similar kind of silence,

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but internally, they are completely different situations

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that are going on,

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and the audience will oftentimes fill that silence

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with some kind of reason or some kind of assumption.

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And I'm including the audience could be

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the other people on the stage,

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or it could be the actual audience up in seats in the theater

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because this is what brains do with ambiguous situations.

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And this one can be a little bit ambiguous.

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And so this is when your teammates and your teacher,

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usually with that note that they're gonna give you,

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this is why they tend to say hesitation

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because it can be a little bit ambiguous seeming.

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So now there's the third type of pause

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that happens on stage, and this is the intentional pause.

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So this is the juicy pause.

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This is the good type of pause.

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This is the one that is filled with stuff.

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So think of this kind of pause as a dramatic pause.

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This is where the silence itself

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is carrying the meaning.

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This is the pause where it is probably, hopefully, clear to everyone that you have something.

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Your character has something and you're adding to the scene by adding the silence.

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This is what we want to aim for.

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More on this in a bit. So once you've been told a few times that you look hesitant

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you might end up trying to solve for this condition and the most common solution the one that

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Well, probably not

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Everyone teaches you because it's not something that you really want to do an improv

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But almost everybody arrives at on their own

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Quite naturally is to start building your response while your partner is still speaking

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That's what I talked about right at the top of this episode.

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And now this technically it can work because you aren't going to get that pause in there

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when you're doing something like this, right?

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You're responding quickly.

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You're coming in on time.

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You sound really decisive.

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You sound like you knew what you wanted to say.

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Hey, there was no hesitation there.

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But then you might start getting a new note from that coach that you're writing the scene

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because there's still a tell when you do that.

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Because that's technically what is happening.

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You're only kind of half listening,

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sorta to what your scene partner is saying.

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So the line that you're coming in with hot

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is a line that you could have said in almost maybe any scene

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because it's a little bit generic.

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And if that's the case, then you also might hear notes

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like you don't seem present or you're in your head.

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And probably you weren't going to hear something else like react

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to your partner more, which is actually just kind of the same note,

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just wearing a different hat. Cause that's the other thing.

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You aren't reacting to what they said last,

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like the last thing that they said,

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you're actually reacting to the beginning of what they said or earlier on in,

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in that phrase or in that paragraph of,

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of speech that they gave,

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or maybe even something a little bit before that,

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depending on how your brain works.

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So then you start working on your presence,

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'cause that's the new note, right?

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And you're working on your reactions

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and being in your head,

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and you're consciously trying not to write your scenes

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or plan something for later to fill those gaps,

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which might make you even more in your head in the end.

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And that's just, that's a worse place to be overall,

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'cause that means the improv isn't fun anymore.

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I mean, that's not fun improv.

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So processing is another thing too.

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Auditory processing delay,

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as one example of processing differences,

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is common in autistic and ADHD people,

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and it can mean the words arrive fine, right?

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You understand everything.

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It's just the meaning takes a little bit longer

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to assemble for some people.

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Working memory can be a part of all of this too.

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If your SIEM partner is giving you

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like a really long detailed offer.

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Maybe there's like four pieces of information in it.

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Like holding all four of those things in your head

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while you kind of decode and decide what to do with them.

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That can take a lot of effort.

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And that effort often takes time

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if you choose to take in all of that information.

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Now more on that in a second.

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We aren't gonna forget that bit.

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And anyways, that time that you're taking

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all that shows up as a pause.

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So the adjustment you want to make in your improv

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isn't about making your processing faster

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because you probably can't.

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And the whole like, just be quicker instruction

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or note that you're getting is asking you to fix

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the one thing that isn't really available for a fix.

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So what can you actually do?

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Good question.

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I'm not going to leave you hanging.

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So improv already has a name for this pause.

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Like it's a beat.

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It has a lot of name improv has different names wherever you go like different theaters

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You're gonna get different terminology and different names and people trying to create

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Phrases I've done that here. I've done it too. I'm guilty of this

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Anyways, that pause a beat whatever you want to call it and when a confident performer takes

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One of these things that's when we're calling it a choice

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Wow

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That choice was filled with intention. Oh

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I love that juicy pause. The silence itself is the same either way, right?

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Like technically the sound base, there's no sound coming out of your mouth, but the rest of it isn't

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the same. This is expressed a lot through physicality. It can also be expressed through

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your vocal choices before, or even if you can make a noise or something. So this is all about like

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energy and body position, your characterization, embodying your character.

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So the useful question is probably what you can put into that beat.

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That might be the useful question for you.

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So it's reading as a choice.

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It might have been a choice.

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It doesn't have to be a choice.

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It can be a hesitation.

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It just has to read as a choice.

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Acting.

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So the simple part of the answer here is mostly about your face and your body.

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Could also be about a little bit about your, your vocal stuff too, depending on how you

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want to play this one out.

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So a pause with a reaction in it of some sort is usually reading as some kind of character,

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person, whatever, having a response already there.

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Right?

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pause that doesn't have any of those things and it can read like a character

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or a person who just doesn't have something available. So the audience is

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watching you more than they're like actually they're not setting up a timer

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on their watch or something about your pause. So if your face is like doing

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something while you process like maybe it's showing some surprise or some

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Suspicion or just delight or some slow dawning of like

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You did what?

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That kind of but just on your face, right all of that stuff

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Maybe it's just like a shift of energy in your space work or whatever. There's something there

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Then that's even when there's nothing there. I just want to keep saying that there doesn't have to be something there

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It just has to look like there's something there then that silence it carries all of that information and then

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Like all of that information is just kind of that's juicy stuff, right?

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Like your scene partners can be like, oh

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They have something and then they're gonna wait for you and they're not gonna try to fill that in some of the best

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beats in improv are silent have no noise coming out of your mouth and

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and a lot longer than the ones that you like.

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Like, you're hesitant.

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This can be so much longer

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than your natural hesitation.

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You might be hesitating.

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This is gonna buy you time to think, right?

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You're good.

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And then those notes are gonna be like,

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oh, that was a good one.

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So the move is to react

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or at least show something physically

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before you respond verbally.

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and to let that reaction be the first thing that happens,

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it's an offer too.

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So you're basically telling everyone,

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your scene partner, the audience, your coach,

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I have something.

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It's being told with your energy,

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with your body instead of your voice.

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It can also be subtle, it can be small.

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It doesn't have to be like that big, crappy,

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like dramatic stuff that I just did back there, right?

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Like this can be small, but it has to,

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it does have to communicate.

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And this has another benefit too,

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because if you're giving some kind of physical reaction

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to what your scene partner just said,

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it forces you to keep listening very actively,

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and it might also help you process

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if it is a processing delay.

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Now, I covered silence and pauses

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as a chosen dramatic tool back in another episode

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that I will link.

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Now, for all the different things

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potentially going on under the hood in your noggin.

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If this is a case where you're like, say,

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given that short monologue with four different things

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to process instead of one thing,

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you can always opt, it's an option to you,

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to just take the last thing that they said.

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So you can drop those first three things, for example,

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if you really can't process them,

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and just take the fourth thing

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as the thing that you work with.

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and then you and your scene partner can work out the rest.

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So if one of those three things that you dropped

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was really important to the scene,

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your scene partner who said it

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will have your back on making that work in the scene.

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Or in either case, or in any case,

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you don't know what to do with your brain that froze,

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you didn't understand, or they gave you too much info,

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you can always ask a question in improv

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while staying in character.

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That's totally legitimate and allowed.

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So these things are always an option

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because adding all of those details

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is something for your scene partner to work on

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after the scene, not adding too much in what they say,

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not delivering those monologues.

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Your job is just to stay in character really

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and give them that juicy pause and then roll on.

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That pause is not going anywhere, even the hesitation ones,

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But it can be an excellent addition to your scenes.

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Those are great.

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You're gonna make that choice

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even when you aren't hesitating to add that pause.

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Adding space in a scene is great.

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Now, there are a couple of ways.

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It can look on the outside.

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It can look like hesitation.

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But there's several things

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that might be happening on the inside.

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It might not be hesitation.

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And those things and appearances

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can get interpreted quite differently than the reality.

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And if your scene partner does have something

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and is intentionally taking that juicy pause,

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know that you will usually,

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maybe not always, but quite often,

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you're going to be able to tell.

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Even if subtext is tough for you,

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you're probably going to be able to tell in your gut.

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Also, before I do go,

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I want to give a quick shout out to Susie Barrett,

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another great improv podcaster

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who called a pause "juicy pauses."

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This was her note and it never left my brain

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when I heard that note come out of her mouth.

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I don't even remember who it was for.

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It might've been me, it might've been someone else.

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Anyways, I love the phrase and so I've kept it.

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So good ones, good pauses are now juicy.

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So just passing that along to your brain,

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now you might not forget it

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even if you don't like the phrase.

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Sorry and you're welcome.

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Oh wait, we're doing confidence in this episode.

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I mean, you're welcome.

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So if you do want to work on those pauses

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other people and confidence. I run off script sessions monthly.

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They're built for this kind of thing,

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for practicing our confidence and practicing good stuff in

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scenes. Links in the description. Bye for now.