Episode 3: Bottom Up Thinking & Plots in Improv

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All right, welcome to the Neurodivergence and Improv Podcast from Flat Improv.

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I'm Jen.

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Hi, these podcasts, they aren't for telling anyone what to do.

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They are explanations to help encourage people to be more inclusive in classes, on teams.

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These are not excuses for anything, and they're also not diagnosis.

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So don't use these episodes to diagnose yourself or anyone else for that matter.

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There are many different types of thinkers in all of the different neuro types.

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And every thinker will have several different ways of thinking, or there's different modes of thinking.

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For example, there's visual thinking, there's auditory logical ways of thinking, there's top down thinking, there's bottom up thinking, and there's going to be overlaps.

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And of course, they're also going to be affected by co-morbidities, other diagnoses.

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And there's different descriptions around on the internet about what they're actually like and what they actually cover or mean, or how they affect you.

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Now, the different ways we all think is really important to consider for improv performance and improv learning, because different ways of thinking and learning, they really complement and balance each other when it comes especially to playing on a team, shows, even forms that you choose.

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Now, it's a really detailed thing to think about when you want to really examine what each person brings to a team in terms of their strengths.

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I mean, how do they process information?

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But at any rate, for yourself, for you, you can focus on getting a really good idea about what you yourself do good.

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What do you do well?

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And how do you get good at the rest of the things, the things that might not come as naturally, the things that might feel a lot harder because it just doesn't sort of go along with the way that you personally think and process information, process data.

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But thinking about these things and kind of figuring it out, that will help you play to your natural strengths, the most often in improv.

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And that, that's a good goal to have.

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This episode is going to cover one of those thinking types, bottom up thinking and how it affects a very specific thing in improv.

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I can't believe I'm saying this narrative plot lines that are introduced to a set when you weren't expecting one, when you weren't really ready for it.

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Now, autism and as its own neurotype has several different ways of thinking or processing.

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So bottom up thinking or bottom up processing is a very common thing amongst autistics, all autistics possibly.

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And the relationship with plot lines or plots might also be affected, for me at least, by ADHD and auditory processing.

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Those sort of things are probably mixed in.

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It's all mixed in.

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I don't necessarily know where one begins and the other stops and all that kind of thing.

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And there's probably other stuff in there too.

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Basically, I'm trying to be this niche, everyone.

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I hear it myself.

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Anyways, and on that note, I will dedicate future episodes to how this type of thinking, bottom up thinking, affects other parts of improv, like second meets, for example.

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And I'll talk about how other types of thinking, like visual thinking, how that affects other parts of improv.

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And that's why I have a huge long list of episode ideas already, because we're getting this niche and granular all at the same time.

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What is bottom up thinking?

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So let's start with top down thinking.

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This is more common.

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This is non-autistics, for the most part, all-istics.

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Top down thinking takes prior experiences into account, to sort of form a concept, a hypothesis, a general idea about something.

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So you're taking all of your prior experience, all your lived experience prior to encountering this new thing.

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And you're using that to sort of tell yourself what you think is going on.

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Right?

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And then at that point, somebody who does top down thinking is going to clarify that hypothesis and figure out through the learning of details after that point, what is actually the case.

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So it's just concept first and then the details.

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Somebody who is a top down thinker will take that new information and they'll map it to sort of a generalised idea they already know.

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They're deducing things, they're busy deducing.

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Now, bottom up does that thing in the other direction, right?

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We're not used to making generalisations or hypotheses or assumptions.

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We're opening 50,000 tabs, reading hundreds of articles, and then, and only then are we going to arrive at our conclusion, right?

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This is me watching and analysing a whole bunch of sets, and then like, oh, what's going on?

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Like, I got this data set, I got this data set.

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I'm going to tangent for a second here.

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I had a problem in improv that I couldn't solve.

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I thought about it for weeks.

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I was like, why is this happening to me?

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Like, why is this happening to me?

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I don't get it.

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And I didn't even have an...

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I was like, I have no idea what's going on.

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So I sat down on my couch and I stared at a wall for four hours straight.

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I'd kind of thought about all the details, but I was like, ah, I just, I'm missing something.

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I'm missing some detail, right?

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So I sat down for four hours, I stared at a wall, and I basically kind of spreadsheet out in my head.

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I walked back and thought about, you know, sets and scenes and where this had happened for the past couple months.

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And I thought of every single detail and tried to make connections, like what was true in each one of these cases, where were all the overlaps, what connected just through all the details and everything until I finally arrived at a hypothesis.

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But I refused to make kind of a hypothesis before I did that.

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So that is bottom up processing in relationship, I guess, kind of to improv.

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So yeah, generalizations, assumptions, they will absolutely aggravate me.

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In real life, if someone's like, oh yeah, I think this, I will actually say point blank, I always have, always have.

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Why are we even talking about this?

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We don't know the details, we're just assuming, we shouldn't assume, we should go get the details first and then talk about it.

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Like I won't even want to talk about something until I've had time to information gather and process it.

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And it's really, truly, bottom-up thinking is a inductive approach.

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We're not deducing things, right?

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We get all the details before we form our concept or an opinion or make a decision.

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So it can be slower.

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For some things in life and improv, you have to approach things a different way in order for them to even work.

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Bottom-up thinking is not going to work for some things in improv.

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And that doesn't mean we can't do them.

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Like we can do them and we can do them well.

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We just have to approach it differently.

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You know, we have to kind of do those things that make us uncomfortable from time to time.

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It can be scary.

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It can be, you know, it can feel weird, but we can still do it.

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We could do it well, right?

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Just like somebody who's a top-down thinker can absolutely without question handle things that might come to us, bottom-up thinkers, more naturally.

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So what are the things that bottom-up thinkers like?

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We want all of the information.

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So we're kind of naturally looking for patterns and repetitions and connections, and then we want to kind of collect all that stuff and make decisions based on that collection.

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So that might be, you know, that's a very, you know, if this sort of collection of things are in a set is true, what else is true?

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So we might be, you know, kind of making those sort of moves in a set more often.

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Great for callbacks, great for connections, great for those kind of edit moves.

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And, you know, if you're in short form and stuff, we don't like guessing games.

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I don't like a guessing game.

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Every single guessing game makes me sweat, and I don't like them.

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It's important to remember, of course, that there's pros and cons to everything, right, for both types of thinking.

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There's things that come easier, there's things that don't, pros and cons.

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But neither of these types of thinking are better.

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You know, one's not better than the other.

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In improv and life, they're just different.

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For example, top-down thinking, very efficient, right?

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You're getting those gut feelings or whatever.

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I have a hard time even comprehending top-down thinking to be honest, but it's efficient, right?

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But bottom-up thinking, you know, we might be less efficient, but we can be quite innovative, right?

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We kind of have things that we just naturally look for that work well in a set for particular ways.

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I mean, this is even true for what types of improv, what sort of, if we go for the long-form narrative versus the game, right?

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We're all different thinkers.

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Doesn't have to do with just this type of thinking, but different neuro types, different ways of thinking will be naturally sort of drawn to different styles and ways of doing improv.

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And again, that's right or wrong.

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It's just different.

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Different ways of thinking is going to really affect how you're watching a scene, what kind of things are you looking for?

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What do you find funny?

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What do you find interesting?

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What are you pulling out?

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These two ways of thinking, they're really going to affect what you see because you're processing all of these things and ideas and concepts in the moment at different speeds.

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So you just end up sort of seeing different things than your scene partner.

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And that doesn't make for a bad scene.

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Both of these things are good for different elements in a long form set.

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That's all.

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And it's also really good to have these different types of players on a team.

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And before we get into the improv, I just want to mention that this is a very measurable thing.

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You can look for these kind of connections, this kind of brain wiring in EEG studies.

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And while you can use different ways of thinking, it might not feel comfortable to use a type of thinking that isn't wired into your brain.

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You can still think in different ways, but you cannot change your wiring.

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You're kind of stuck with the way that you naturally process things, the things that are wired into your brain.

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So it can be uncomfortable and more work to process in a way that goes against your wiring, but it is possible.

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But if everyone is playing more to their strengths, to their way of thinking personally, an elistic brain and autistic brain together on a team, that really makes just a powerhouse of an improv team, really, when we all can play to our strengths and we all have a better understanding of the way each other might be thinking and processing a show.

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So now we're going to get into the improv.

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How does this stuff affect improv specifically?

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All right, so bottom-up processing and things, I believe, like ADHD and auditory processing can affect plot-driven sets, especially if it's maybe something that you're not really prepared for.

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I find things a lot more easy if I know what to expect generally.

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So we're thinking about it a little bit more in the surprise is a plot thing.

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Again, this is only my personal experience.

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Other people in the same neurotype, other bottom-up thinkers as well, they might experience this a bit differently or quite differently.

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Again, like I say, it's probably influenced by ADHD as well.

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But again, this doesn't mean that we can't do or can't succeed at plot-based things, it just might not be the most natural thing for us.

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And a lot of us, we love challenges, right?

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Like that's why we're doing improv, and this just might be one of them, right?

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And I do love watching long-form narratives.

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This isn't some put-down on that style of improv.

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I love watching them.

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I love watching sets with long plot lines.

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But if I'm in one, as we all will be at some point, right?

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What do we do then?

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So let's talk about that.

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So I'm primarily a Game of the Scene style improviser.

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Like I absolutely love patterns.

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I love game.

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I love literal stuff.

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Like my favorite scene type.

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It's...

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I mean, I doubt it's for many people.

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I'm like, maybe it is really not for everyone, but there's probably a few nerds out there like me.

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I love a goddamn logic puzzle.

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One that like pokes holes, frustrates the voice of reason, but with like weird reason, like some kind of reason that could technically make sense, but deeply does not when applied to real life.

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I like deep diving and obsessing on that one small thing for a few minutes and like the scenes going nowhere.

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I love that.

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So like a plot-driven narrative is kind of on the other side of that.

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Whatever that is that I just described, but it doesn't mean that long form narrative or a long plot line, a long story, singular story.

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It doesn't mean that that sort of thing can't have those elements peppered in.

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You know, and that's what I try to do.

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It's like, that's what I'm here for to add if I can, right?

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Like, and it's not disruptive and it works and all those other things.

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That's what I kind of try to do.

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That's my personal approach.

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If it works in that set, I'm by default, I'm already kind of noticing details and noticing connections first before wrapping them into a bigger picture.

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Like that's bottom up processing.

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But I can still try to work that in.

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So in a high level, that's what I'm doing.

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I'm self accommodating.

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I keep going.

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I still try to keep it honest.

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I try to play to my strengths because inevitably that is going to be better for the team and my brain.

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It's kind of a win-win for everyone.

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Even if we're doing plot, if that's something that works.

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So I'm sort of taking a little bit more of a backseat role.

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I'm playing perhaps bit characters.

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I might do walk-ons.

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I'm doing what I can to add, to add those things that help support the story.

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But I try not to really drive the story.

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I do that in general in a lot of the scenes I do.

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I'm not sort of the driver, I don't think.

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But I kind of sweep those details and I'm listening for all those connections and details and I try to add those more than drive things forward.

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That's sort of, I think, how I tend to play.

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I let the people who enjoy the plot and enjoy the story drive those things more, because they're probably better at it than I am, right?

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So let's play each to our own personal strengths.

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And I think that's the way to make everybody sort of enjoy the improv a little bit more.

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We all play to our strengths.

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So I'll be bringing patterns, connections, a character game.

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I'll be doing maybe bit characters in something that calls for it.

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If it does, I'll try to stay out of the plot the best I can and just support it through support moves.

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Follow along the plot.

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I can.

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You know, I'm not saying that I can't follow a plot.

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I can.

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I'm just not following it as well as others do.

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So I'm trying to support it and just not drive it.

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And of course, if this stuff doesn't work, I mean, sure, it's risky.

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Maybe, you know, it's not your strength or you're not trained in it or whatever that might be.

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And you're worried about missing plot or subtext or screwing up the story archetype.

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I mean, I've never gone and learnt, you know, all the different story types.

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I'll I would probably mess that up if somebody else was trying to do it.

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Sure, I might mess something up.

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But guess what?

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We're playing make-em-ups.

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This is improv.

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It's art.

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It's creativity.

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We're all bringing something to the table, even if it's not perfect.

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I don't think we should ever be looking for perfection.

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We might find it accidentally and that's fun.

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But I don't think we should try to be perfect.

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And I'm saying that as a recovering perfectionist.

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So improv is great for that.

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So let's just give ourselves a bit of room to not be perfect and relax on beating ourselves up for things that we might not be the best at.

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We're all different.

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We're all thinking differently.

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And just support the best you can and try not to beat yourself up about it.

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Like I'm gonna get distracted.

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I'm gonna notice things that I want to use that maybe I don't need.

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I'm gonna get distracted by the cool way that somebody does a character or vocalization in a movie, and I'm gonna miss the plot.

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And this might happen in Improv too, because I try not to do that, but it is what inevitably comes to me naturally.

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I kind of have to force myself not to do it.

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So, you know, these things will happen, and we just need to roll with it.

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Use the tools that will help you as well.

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If I'm watching a movie and I get distracted by something, an IMDB synopsis, it feels like it's cheating, but it's not.

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It's just helping you.

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If you're in Zoom Improv, turn on captions.

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I've heard captions in watching movies can help.

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Captions in Zoom might be able to help you as well with some of this stuff.

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So if you're doing online improv, try using them and see if it makes a difference, because why not?

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They're there, use them.

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Even use the chat if you need to.

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And just remember that you can still do top-down.

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You can still do these things that don't come naturally.

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And try them, right?

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It's going to take more spoons.

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It's going to be more effort.

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You're going to be more tired.

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It's going to use your brain more.

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You might...

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I get headaches sometimes if something is just really not the way that I think.

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But that's okay.

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That's growth, right?

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That's becoming comfortable of just pitching in, in ways that you might not otherwise of trying new things, which are all good, and that helps inform you in the things that you are not comfortable at, because that sort of contrasts them with the things that you are good at.

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And that knowledge is really important, because then you can focus on getting really good at those things because you know what you're not as comfortable doing.

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And I think by now we're all like, oh, is this some big excuse, you know, or this, this, you know, encouraging people not to do things again.

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I mean, I said it enough, you know, I'm not really saying that, but this is an explanation, not an excuse.

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I don't even think I need an excuse.

:: 21:15

This whole podcast is about understanding the way that some of your teammates might be playing the way that we're thinking and why we're making the choices that we do.

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So then, your teammates can go, hey, I might not need to drive this part.

:: 21:31

They're going to take on this role, and I kind of take on this role, and together we're making a much better show as a result.

:: 21:38

So that's why I'm here just trying to figure out how I process and noticing the way that I play and the way that I skew naturally in the sets that I do.

:: 21:50

I'm attempting to recognize how my neurotype works, how my thinking works, how I naturally process and how this applies to improv.

:: 22:00

Because through learning what I do and what I don't, you're going to be better, you're going to optimize the way that you play.

:: 22:07

Make decisions based on this knowledge, strategize, empower yourself through this understanding and communicate.

:: 22:15

If you figure something out that's really important for yourself, tell your teammates, say, hey, this is how I'm working.

:: 22:23

Do those other things, of course, but focus most on the things that you do particularly well.

:: 22:29

It's not about what you're missing, it's about what you bring to that table, how your mind works, how it is stronger.

:: 22:39

I might be wrong about all of this stuff.

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I might be wrong about my position on the make-em-ups, all of it.

:: 22:48

But also, I'm okay with that, because at the end of the day, it's make-em-ups, and we move on to the next set, or in my case, the next episode.

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And yeah, if you're trying Zoom Improv, just try to turn on captions.

:: 23:05

If that's one thing that you take away, you have this issue, take away that.

:: 23:09

Try it.

:: 23:10

Before I leave, remember, a team is a collection of strengths.

:: 23:16

And my weakness, oh, and I've got them, is something that you might do.

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And vice versa, because we all need each other for balance.

:: 23:27

And you know, isn't that kind of true in real life, too?

:: 23:31

Eh, maybe.

:: 23:32

You've made it to the end, almost, of another one of these podcast things from Flat Improv.

:: 23:40

So, I don't know, I guess I'll do some plugs.

:: 23:43

I have online classes at the World's Greatest Improv School, which is where I hang out.

:: 23:49

The school has online jams, online teams, and a lot more.

:: 23:53

And in-person stuff, too.

:: 23:54

So go check out the school at wgimprovschool.com.

:: 24:00

I also have a website called flatimprov.com, and I'm starting to write some of these episodes out as blog posts.

:: 24:09

Can you believe that blogging is kind of coming back after all these years?

:: 24:14

I also list other online improv-related content on the website, have a newsletter that takes that content, sends it out twice a month.

:: 24:25

So it's not just my stuff.

:: 24:27

It's a whole bunch of online improv from around the internet.

:: 24:33

And you can even contribute your own stuff.

:: 24:35

If you're doing things, you can send it to the site and have it in the newsletter.

:: 24:39

So check that out at flatimprov.com.

:: 24:42

That's also the easiest place to verbally say where you can subscribe to this podcast, which I guess it's on all the podcast places, but it comes out on Substack.

:: 24:53

Go to flatimprov.com Substack.

:: 24:56

And that page also has a way for you to contribute to this podcast.

:: 25:00

I'd love to hear what you think.

:: 25:02

Or if you want to send in like a voice note that I play or something written that I read about this topic or any past topics or something you'd like me to talk about in the future, send those in.

:: 25:16

Send me a message.

:: 25:17

I'd love to hear from you.

:: 25:18

And of course, if you want to join me on here, you can do that too.

:: 25:22

And that's all I have.

:: 25:25

So thanks for listening and I'll be back.

:: 25:28

Bye.

:: 25:29

Oh, with more really niche things.

:: 25:31

Yeah.

:: 25:32

Yeah.