Write like you Talk
In improv, you don’t just talk at people, you build something with them....
I was picking up on various tips for writing, and one kept coming up over and over again:
Write like you talk.
This sounds wonderful. I can absolutely talk.
Often decently, too.
As a former teacher, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to engage with material and communicate effectively to an audience. I figured I had this whole writing thing in the bag.
Right?
No, no.
Because there’s a key difference between writing and talking. In conversation, or when teaching, I had a real time stimulus to respond to, I had context. Whether it was the other person in the conversation or the students’ expressions showing how the information was hitting, there was always a cue guiding me.
A bonus in teaching was the lesson plan—a lily pad for this frog to hop from.
I very rarely have the opportunity to communicate in the way that comes naturally to me. Flittering. Bouncing from one thread to another.
This way of engaging makes me so froggin’ happy.
And when I do get to have conversations with people who can follow where I’m going, it’s often because they’re doing the same thing - and I hope I am giving them an opportunity to bounce too!
Talking without boundaries. Without constraints.
In understanding these patterns of conversation - I do have an advantage.
A dusty degree in communications; back before it became synonymous with marketing, communication was about making connections effectively - a point of symbolically infused reasoning shaped by delivery.
In theory, I understand how to set the boundaries and use templates allowing for effective communication.
But the send-receive model i.e. I have something to say, I work to figure out how you can receive it - doesn’t quite fit with how I prefer to operate.
I like being able to respond to the context around me, in addition to pulling from my mental archives, or trying to drive a specific point.
To see if I could more naturally form boundaries and do so quickly, early last year (2024), I simultaneously took up improv and Toastmasters.
The idea?
To find the sweet spot between speed and structure, spontaneity and order. It was an experiment in setting boundaries around my communication, something I thought my hoppy frog style of communication could benefit from.
Toastmasters, with its polished speeches and precise evaluations, was supposed to help me with structure. I was told time and again that in Toastmasters, communication is all about the audience.
This didn’t sit well with me.
I knew it wasn’t solely about me—if it were, I could just talk to myself in the mirror and save everyone a lot of time. But to say it was only about the audience felt like missing the mark.
Sure, I could deliver a well-crafted speech that ticked all the boxes, but it felt transactional, like a performance done for the audience, rather than connecting with them.
Then came improv.
In improv, there’s no script, no second takes, just a group of people creating something new in the moment. Every scene is a fresh take, something that had never existed before and would never exist again.
It wasn’t just about the audience, or the players, or any single person.
The communication was an exchange where everyone involved—players and audience alike—shaped the outcome.
It felt more reflective of how we actually navigate conversations in real life: messy, collaborative, and sometimes a little chaotic.
Improv, in its own unstructured way, taught me that communication is far more fluid than any transactional model allows. It’s about creating together, in real-time, with roles that are flexible and interactive.
Every person in the room—whether speaking, listening, or laughing—contributes to the experience. This wasn’t just communication; it was co-creation. Emergent communication.
After spending time in both these worlds, I came to a conclusion that Improv should be mandatory for any communications program. It breaks down the rigid sender-receiver model and instead fosters an environment where everyone is a collaborator.
In improv, you don’t just talk at people, you build something with them.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s the kind of communication we need more of—where the boundaries aren’t walls, but guidelines that help us create something new together.
Don’t get me wrong, the Toastmasters community were amazingly supportive, and really helped polished my sentences, got me more comfortable speaking in front of people, while offering me specific feedback, and making me more aware of my audience; but it was improv that reminded me that communication is a living, breathing thing.
I needed both: the discipline of Toastmasters to shape my words with purpose and the freedom of improv to remind me that communication is alive, fluid, and shared.
It’s in this balance—between the structured and the spontaneous—that I’ve found a way to let my flittering, bouncing thoughts come together into something that resonates in my own writing.