STORY TELLING
ONE WORD AT A TIME WORKSHOP
STORY TELLING
One Word at a Time
One word at a time is an improvisation game that has reached an almost iconic status, it has its own Wikipedia page, It’s more commonly known as an entertaining performance game and features in almost every impro based TV and radio show, and is undoubtable the most well-known of impro games. It was however devised originally by Keith Johnstone for the writer’s group at the Royal Court Theatre in the late 1950’s as an exercise to explore narrative.
“We learned that things invented on the spur of the moment could be as good as or better than the text we laboured over.”
Keith Johnstone.
One Word is one of the best learning games for groups because the mind of the group dominates and the game is likely to go wrong. It’s a game that can be played in pairs but I would suggest you work as a group at first so when it does go wrong (It it may well at first) it’s down to everyone, and if it goes well everyone can take credit. It’s a collective challenge to get it to work and each time it fails you will learn something, it’s generally fails because one of the rules of impro or narrative has been broken.
Here are three basic principles of impro
Working as a group takes the heat out of failure. One word as group teaches us to embrace failure. And if you do fail, do it spectacularly with grace and good humour.
GROUP BASIC ONE WORD AT A TIME (Group of up to 8 or 10)
Have the group sit, or stand in a circle. The group is to tell a story one word at a time. Start the story with one person saying the first word of the story and the person to their right in the circle invents the next word and so on round the circle. First see if the story can go round the circle twice (or whatever target you feel is reachable) and still have a story going. Try and make your word move the story on.
Note: You can give the first three people their words- “Once”…”upon”…”a”…”Time”…and the fourth person can pick it up from there. The advantage of Once upon a time, is that it clearly demonstrates how each person takes a word each to create a coherent sentence, it also sets up a fairy tale genre which encourages simple language, and story line.
Keep the story short, let it run round the circle a few time, don’t wait for them to finish the story, initially it’s unlikely they will manage that.
Transcript of a workshop one word story
Group: Sammy /and /Johnny /went /off /flying /their (pause) / yesterday / they (pause and laughter) /let / shoes/
Jon: This is interesting because we’ve skipped kite and gone onto yesterday and now and now we’ve gone onto shoes. Did it
seem obvious to everyone that the next word was ‘kite”?
Group: Yes
Jon: We may tend to avoid saying kite because it’s obvious and we don’t want to be seen as predictable- we want to be seen as
original, or we are fearful of committing to a noun; saying ‘yesterday’ feels so much safer, even though it makes no
grammatical sense. ‘Yesterday’ stops us moving into the future. It puts the breaks on. It’s important to know we all do this
and thanks to Sara for giving us such a good example… We all have these self- preservation techniques, if we didn’t we
probably wouldn’t have survived, it’s something we all do, but it doesn’t serve us as improvisers and it’s in our power to
change it. So where were we? Sammy and Johnny were flying their Kite, not yesterday but… they. Say ‘they” it’s. Easier and
more obvious. OK let’s pick it up from “they…”
Group: They / went / out / to / the / hill / flying / their / kite / until /suddenly / it /got / torn away / in/ a / terrible / storm / they
/ ran / furiously / after / the / kite / and / found / a / nother (laugher) / group / of / kids / looking / for / their / kite /
Jon OK Do you feel you’re getting it?
Group Yes
A word at a Time Story stops anyone from controlling the future. What people will notice is that every time you add a word, you know what word you would like to follow? When you say your word you have an idea of where the story is going but the person who speaks next is unlikely to give you the next word you wanted, they will almost always wipe your story out. Essentially anyone who tries to control the future of the story will only be disappointed. Unless you can dismiss the ideas you have about the future you’ll be paralysed.
Fear of failing will raise its head again- so try the next game to help the group understand that the stories are disposable – if they are not working abandon them. It’s crazy to punish yourself with a story that’s collapsed, is no longer coherent. Chuck it out. When stories collapse encourage curiosity as to why it did. A failed story is offering you a lesson; if you wallow in self-incrimination you’ll miss it.
THROW AWAY ONE WORD AT A TIME STORY (Group between 8 & 12)
The group tell a one word story as before but this time they should try and keep the story going longer but scrap anything any one person feels it isn’t going well, and start a new story, with whoever stopped the old one. Why suffer? Try a few stories sometimes they’ll run for a while, sometimes they’ll falter because they lose sense or energy or interest. Play for five minutes or so and then we’ll come back and get some feedback
Side Coaching: – Offer alternate words, when people block, keep adding adjectives, can’t think of anything, say something too original that confuses the story or if it’s negative. When it’ becomes a routine or boring, ask someone to say: ‘suddenly’.
Pointers: These are the most commonly used pointers I find myself giving after a story has collapsed.
Keep away from adding too many adjectives; don’t have two in a row
Define what the story is about quickly
Chose a word in response to the person before you that can help make a coherent sentence.
When a sentence stops being coherent scrap the story and start again.
Listen- don’t waste energy planning the story that might happen, it distracts you from focusing on the story that is happening.
Speak up so people hear the story
Don’t let the story go on – it’s stopped working. Start a new one
When it’ becomes a routine or boring, ask someone to say: ‘suddenly’
Sometimes, especially early on, these stories collapse after a few sentences so you simply stop and start another. What is good about the game is the way it forces us to adjust and accommodate all the time. Let’s suppose you start the story by saying ‘Mary’, you cannot help having a complete sentence form in your mind, perhaps - ‘Mary was walking in the park’ but every player will have a different sentence forming, ‘Mary drove to work’… ‘Mary hated school’…..so whatever you thought was going to happen gets blown out the water pretty much every time. You have no chance of controlling events all you can do is accommodate to what has already happened and move it on with a single word. People will still employ avoidance tactics, even as far as to not to commit to the subject. ‘Once there was a huge, hairy, ugly, frightening…’ They may keep adding adjectives until they are prompted to say a noun.
We need someone to come up with a noun to define what the story is about. It’s not uncommon for people to resist committing; people feel nervous about taking responsibility for the subject of the story. A list of adjectives is a sign that people are using a self-protective strategy to avoid naming the noun - What if everyone thinks it a weak idea? What if it doesn’t work, will it be all my fault? You cannot judge how one subject is better than another, a story of a hedgehog can be as equally thrilling as a highwayman; so commit and define the story as early as possible,
Hear what the person before you said and give a word that helps towards making a coherent story and be obvious rather than ‘original’. Having played this game with groups, thousands of times, one recognizable and constant feature is the look of disappointment on faces when all they have to give is an obvious but much needed “and” or “the”. So strong is the desire in some people to shine and appear creative that they throw in an ‘imaginative’ contribution even if it makes no sense at all.
When people misheard the story began to lose energy and sense so speak up
We let stories run too long when it was obvious we’d lost the plot. So play the game for fun and if it goes wrong laugh, if you don’t have fun and like the story kill it and start again. This is disposable theatre.
DICTATED ONE WORD LETTER
Get into small groups, three is best but if there has to be groups of four that’s OK too. One person in the group will have to play secretary. They take a piece of paper and pen and find something to rest on. Now the groups dictate a letter one word at a time for the secretary to write down. Let’s get the address down first, then the date. Dictate a letter, which the secretary writes down and then they can read it out to all of us at the end.
When some groups finish far ahead of others I suggest they write a PS.
It’s a nice game because it slows things down so it feels less pressured. But don’t comment or offer a ‘better’ to others; play one word strictly. Here is a workshop example:
28 Little Street
Brighton
Narnia
NO7 2XY
20th Dec 2000
Dear Mr. Muppet
I am profoundly annoyed at the state of the car that you have sold to me as I fell through a hole. Now I want you to reimburse my expenses for the hole and my loss of dignity. To your person I will aim for complete compensation by blowing up your vegetable garden unless you apologise for the hole and the hurt you caused
Yours in disgust
Rev Gladys Smallboys
The letter won't win the Nobel Prize for Literature, but it has imagination, humour because the game has difficulties that produce its oddness. They are great fun to do, but don't force laughs. In the letter above ‘Narnia’ and ‘Muppet’ don’t kill the story but they feel out of place. Someone is going for laughs; the effect of the letter is weakened. The person giving those words wants a fantasy story against all the group’s hints that it doesn’t.
A big problem is players going for laughs or trying to be original. Keith Johnstone promoted the idea of relying on the first word that comes into your mind in his book Impro but at a course we ran together in Dorset over 20 years ago he was already revising that idea. He told us a story of an improvisation where two men crept through a graveyard by moonlight to a tomb - opened the lid to a coffin - The first one said “ we’ve got to kill it, get me something”- and he gets handed a giant tomato. Keith stopped the improvisation and asked, “Why did you do that” and he says “it’s the first thing I thought of”. And Keith asks “Why a giant tomato?” and he says, “well, it’s original.” So there you are playing a vampire scene and you get given a giant tomato to kill a vampire. It more likely to kills the story than vampires.
If we start a story about Vampires then we should try and produce words that belong to the category of that story, like, blood, night, bats and stake (not tomatoes) You can set yourself up to think in a category.
PERFORMANCE ONE WORD
Two players stay close together and act out a word at a time story as they are inventing it.
“We are walking along the beach (They walk forwards) we see a cave (walk in) we enter the cave and explore it” etc.
If they have difficulty prompt them with injecting the word ‘suddenly.’ Encounter the wolf don’t run away from danger. If you die go to heaven. If you get eaten roam around in the monster’s stomach
One Word at a Time
One word at a time is an improvisation game that has reached an almost iconic status, it has its own Wikipedia page, It’s more commonly known as an entertaining performance game and features in almost every impro based TV and radio show, and is undoubtable the most well-known of impro games. It was however devised originally by Keith Johnstone for the writer’s group at the Royal Court Theatre in the late 1950’s as an exercise to explore narrative.
“We learned that things invented on the spur of the moment could be as good as or better than the text we laboured over.”
Keith Johnstone.
One Word is one of the best learning games for groups because the mind of the group dominates and the game is likely to go wrong. It’s a game that can be played in pairs but I would suggest you work as a group at first so when it does go wrong (It it may well at first) it’s down to everyone, and if it goes well everyone can take credit. It’s a collective challenge to get it to work and each time it fails you will learn something, it’s generally fails because one of the rules of impro or narrative has been broken.
Here are three basic principles of impro
- Say Yes and… to every offer. That is accept the reality of what your partners say and do and build on it, add to it.
- Look after everyone else to make them look good, Treat your partner as a genius it will help you accept their offers and respond positively to them.
- Be spontaneous and in the moment - Don't listen to the critic i your head, say or do the next obvious thing, don't try to funny or clever. The story will be surprising and rewarding enough if you are just average, you don't have to shine. ,
Working as a group takes the heat out of failure. One word as group teaches us to embrace failure. And if you do fail, do it spectacularly with grace and good humour.
GROUP BASIC ONE WORD AT A TIME (Group of up to 8 or 10)
Have the group sit, or stand in a circle. The group is to tell a story one word at a time. Start the story with one person saying the first word of the story and the person to their right in the circle invents the next word and so on round the circle. First see if the story can go round the circle twice (or whatever target you feel is reachable) and still have a story going. Try and make your word move the story on.
Note: You can give the first three people their words- “Once”…”upon”…”a”…”Time”…and the fourth person can pick it up from there. The advantage of Once upon a time, is that it clearly demonstrates how each person takes a word each to create a coherent sentence, it also sets up a fairy tale genre which encourages simple language, and story line.
Keep the story short, let it run round the circle a few time, don’t wait for them to finish the story, initially it’s unlikely they will manage that.
Transcript of a workshop one word story
Group: Sammy /and /Johnny /went /off /flying /their (pause) / yesterday / they (pause and laughter) /let / shoes/
Jon: This is interesting because we’ve skipped kite and gone onto yesterday and now and now we’ve gone onto shoes. Did it
seem obvious to everyone that the next word was ‘kite”?
Group: Yes
Jon: We may tend to avoid saying kite because it’s obvious and we don’t want to be seen as predictable- we want to be seen as
original, or we are fearful of committing to a noun; saying ‘yesterday’ feels so much safer, even though it makes no
grammatical sense. ‘Yesterday’ stops us moving into the future. It puts the breaks on. It’s important to know we all do this
and thanks to Sara for giving us such a good example… We all have these self- preservation techniques, if we didn’t we
probably wouldn’t have survived, it’s something we all do, but it doesn’t serve us as improvisers and it’s in our power to
change it. So where were we? Sammy and Johnny were flying their Kite, not yesterday but… they. Say ‘they” it’s. Easier and
more obvious. OK let’s pick it up from “they…”
Group: They / went / out / to / the / hill / flying / their / kite / until /suddenly / it /got / torn away / in/ a / terrible / storm / they
/ ran / furiously / after / the / kite / and / found / a / nother (laugher) / group / of / kids / looking / for / their / kite /
Jon OK Do you feel you’re getting it?
Group Yes
A word at a Time Story stops anyone from controlling the future. What people will notice is that every time you add a word, you know what word you would like to follow? When you say your word you have an idea of where the story is going but the person who speaks next is unlikely to give you the next word you wanted, they will almost always wipe your story out. Essentially anyone who tries to control the future of the story will only be disappointed. Unless you can dismiss the ideas you have about the future you’ll be paralysed.
Fear of failing will raise its head again- so try the next game to help the group understand that the stories are disposable – if they are not working abandon them. It’s crazy to punish yourself with a story that’s collapsed, is no longer coherent. Chuck it out. When stories collapse encourage curiosity as to why it did. A failed story is offering you a lesson; if you wallow in self-incrimination you’ll miss it.
THROW AWAY ONE WORD AT A TIME STORY (Group between 8 & 12)
The group tell a one word story as before but this time they should try and keep the story going longer but scrap anything any one person feels it isn’t going well, and start a new story, with whoever stopped the old one. Why suffer? Try a few stories sometimes they’ll run for a while, sometimes they’ll falter because they lose sense or energy or interest. Play for five minutes or so and then we’ll come back and get some feedback
Side Coaching: – Offer alternate words, when people block, keep adding adjectives, can’t think of anything, say something too original that confuses the story or if it’s negative. When it’ becomes a routine or boring, ask someone to say: ‘suddenly’.
Pointers: These are the most commonly used pointers I find myself giving after a story has collapsed.
Keep away from adding too many adjectives; don’t have two in a row
Define what the story is about quickly
Chose a word in response to the person before you that can help make a coherent sentence.
When a sentence stops being coherent scrap the story and start again.
Listen- don’t waste energy planning the story that might happen, it distracts you from focusing on the story that is happening.
Speak up so people hear the story
Don’t let the story go on – it’s stopped working. Start a new one
When it’ becomes a routine or boring, ask someone to say: ‘suddenly’
Sometimes, especially early on, these stories collapse after a few sentences so you simply stop and start another. What is good about the game is the way it forces us to adjust and accommodate all the time. Let’s suppose you start the story by saying ‘Mary’, you cannot help having a complete sentence form in your mind, perhaps - ‘Mary was walking in the park’ but every player will have a different sentence forming, ‘Mary drove to work’… ‘Mary hated school’…..so whatever you thought was going to happen gets blown out the water pretty much every time. You have no chance of controlling events all you can do is accommodate to what has already happened and move it on with a single word. People will still employ avoidance tactics, even as far as to not to commit to the subject. ‘Once there was a huge, hairy, ugly, frightening…’ They may keep adding adjectives until they are prompted to say a noun.
We need someone to come up with a noun to define what the story is about. It’s not uncommon for people to resist committing; people feel nervous about taking responsibility for the subject of the story. A list of adjectives is a sign that people are using a self-protective strategy to avoid naming the noun - What if everyone thinks it a weak idea? What if it doesn’t work, will it be all my fault? You cannot judge how one subject is better than another, a story of a hedgehog can be as equally thrilling as a highwayman; so commit and define the story as early as possible,
Hear what the person before you said and give a word that helps towards making a coherent story and be obvious rather than ‘original’. Having played this game with groups, thousands of times, one recognizable and constant feature is the look of disappointment on faces when all they have to give is an obvious but much needed “and” or “the”. So strong is the desire in some people to shine and appear creative that they throw in an ‘imaginative’ contribution even if it makes no sense at all.
When people misheard the story began to lose energy and sense so speak up
We let stories run too long when it was obvious we’d lost the plot. So play the game for fun and if it goes wrong laugh, if you don’t have fun and like the story kill it and start again. This is disposable theatre.
DICTATED ONE WORD LETTER
Get into small groups, three is best but if there has to be groups of four that’s OK too. One person in the group will have to play secretary. They take a piece of paper and pen and find something to rest on. Now the groups dictate a letter one word at a time for the secretary to write down. Let’s get the address down first, then the date. Dictate a letter, which the secretary writes down and then they can read it out to all of us at the end.
When some groups finish far ahead of others I suggest they write a PS.
It’s a nice game because it slows things down so it feels less pressured. But don’t comment or offer a ‘better’ to others; play one word strictly. Here is a workshop example:
28 Little Street
Brighton
Narnia
NO7 2XY
20th Dec 2000
Dear Mr. Muppet
I am profoundly annoyed at the state of the car that you have sold to me as I fell through a hole. Now I want you to reimburse my expenses for the hole and my loss of dignity. To your person I will aim for complete compensation by blowing up your vegetable garden unless you apologise for the hole and the hurt you caused
Yours in disgust
Rev Gladys Smallboys
The letter won't win the Nobel Prize for Literature, but it has imagination, humour because the game has difficulties that produce its oddness. They are great fun to do, but don't force laughs. In the letter above ‘Narnia’ and ‘Muppet’ don’t kill the story but they feel out of place. Someone is going for laughs; the effect of the letter is weakened. The person giving those words wants a fantasy story against all the group’s hints that it doesn’t.
A big problem is players going for laughs or trying to be original. Keith Johnstone promoted the idea of relying on the first word that comes into your mind in his book Impro but at a course we ran together in Dorset over 20 years ago he was already revising that idea. He told us a story of an improvisation where two men crept through a graveyard by moonlight to a tomb - opened the lid to a coffin - The first one said “ we’ve got to kill it, get me something”- and he gets handed a giant tomato. Keith stopped the improvisation and asked, “Why did you do that” and he says “it’s the first thing I thought of”. And Keith asks “Why a giant tomato?” and he says, “well, it’s original.” So there you are playing a vampire scene and you get given a giant tomato to kill a vampire. It more likely to kills the story than vampires.
If we start a story about Vampires then we should try and produce words that belong to the category of that story, like, blood, night, bats and stake (not tomatoes) You can set yourself up to think in a category.
PERFORMANCE ONE WORD
Two players stay close together and act out a word at a time story as they are inventing it.
“We are walking along the beach (They walk forwards) we see a cave (walk in) we enter the cave and explore it” etc.
If they have difficulty prompt them with injecting the word ‘suddenly.’ Encounter the wolf don’t run away from danger. If you die go to heaven. If you get eaten roam around in the monster’s stomach