“It’s easier to find than to invent.”
This quote, often attributed to Nikola Tesla, captures something I’ve spent nearly 30 years learning on improv stages around the world.
When I started out as an improviser, I believed great stories had to be clever. The more surprising, the more layered, the more elaborate, the better. I built plots, invented twists, introduced side characters, layered mysteries on top of conflicts. And I regularly got lost in my own constructions. So did the audience.
At some point, something shifted. I stopped trying to invent stories and started finding them — in the moment, in my scene partner, in what was already there in front of me. The change was quiet, but it changed everything about how I play.
This is the heart of what I call Storyfinding. It’s also the title of my chapter in the new book “Der Impro Code”, published by Gabal Verlag.
The difference between Storytelling and Storyfinding
Most storytelling literature is written for screenwriters and novelists. Those writers have the luxury of time. They can rewrite, restructure, polish, throw away a draft and start over. They can plan the hero’s journey with care.
On an improv stage, none of that is possible. You start with a suggestion from the audience — a place, a situation, sometimes just a word – and seconds later, you’re playing. There’s no time to design a plot. The story must be found, not constructed.
That requires a different toolkit. It requires reduction.
The two things a story actually needs
Here’s the surprising part. When you strip a story down to its absolute minimum, you only need two ingredients:
→ Characters we genuinely want to know.
→ A dramatic question that stays unanswered until the end.
That’s it. The famous thirty plot structures, the hero’s journey, the elaborate turning-point theories — most of it is ballast on an improv stage. Sometimes even off it.
A dramatic question is a simple yes/no question that drives the story forward. Will they fall in love? Will he get the truth out in time? Will she finally tell her father what happened? The audience may never hear the question spoken aloud, but they feel it. It’s the invisible thread that holds everything together.
In Titanic, the question isn’t Will the ship sink? (We know it will.) The real question is Will Jack and Rose find each other? In a James Bond film, it’s Will he save the world in time? In any romantic comedy: Will they end up together?
Once the question is in the room, every scene gains meaning. Everything you do either heightens the question or threatens to answer it too soon. The discipline of not answering until the end is what separates a satisfying story from one that fizzles out in the middle.
CROWD: a compass for the first act
In my chapter, I introduce a simple model for getting into a story quickly. It’s called CROWD, and it stands for:
- C — Character: Who is on stage?
- R — Relationship: How do these characters relate to each other?
- O — Objective: What does the character want right now?
- W — Where: What’s the setting?
- D — Dramatic Question: What’s the underlying yes/no question of the story?
The trick is to internalize CROWD so deeply that it becomes an instinct, not a checklist. In performance, you don’t have time to think through five letters. You need a compass, not a manual.
The model is borrowed from Konstantin Stanislavski’s “given circumstances,” adapted for the speed of improvisation. It works. And once a group starts using it, the first act of any scene gets dramatically cleaner.
Characters with depth, not complications
Here’s something I want every improviser – and every storyteller – to know. You don’t need a complicated character to play a great character. You need a clear one.
A character with one strong inner quality — cheerful, anxious, stubborn, lonely — is enough. That quality becomes your anchor. When the scene goes wild, when the plot threatens to spin out, you hold onto that one quality. It carries you through.
In my chapter, I dig into the tools that bring characters alive: endowment (assigning qualities to your scene partners through dialogue), backstory (which mostly emerges through reference rather than explanation), and monologue (the underused secret weapon of depth). Each of these tools is small. Together, they create characters that feel real — to the audience and, just as importantly, to the players on stage.
Why Storyfinding matters beyond the stage
Here’s what surprises me most, even after all these years: the principle of reduction works far outside improv.
It works in meetings, where teams pile complexity on top of complexity instead of asking: what’s the actual question we’re trying to answer?
It works in strategy processes, where elaborate frameworks often obscure a simpler truth that everyone in the room already knows.
It works in difficult conversations, where two people argue about the surface details while the real dramatic question — Will we stay together? Will I be respected here? Will I finally be heard? — sits unspoken in the middle of the room.
The Storyfinding mindset is, at its core, an attentional discipline. You stop trying to invent your way through complexity. You start listening for what’s already there.
Maybe that’s why Storyfinding is more than a theater technique. It’s a way of seeing.
Practical exercises
In the chapter, I share several exercises that help groups practice this mindset directly: CROWD Typewriter for tightening the first act, Marlowe for narrating the inner life of a character, First Kiss for focusing entirely on the emotional journey, and Dutch Square for training discipline across all three acts of a story.
These exercises aren’t just for improv groups. I’ve used variations of them with leadership teams, with writers, with coaches in training. The reduction principle travels well.
The book and what’s next
“Der Impro Code” is released on May 26, 2026 by Gabal Verlag. Twenty authors, twenty perspectives on what improvisation can offer the working world. Each chapter stands on its own; together, they make a quiet but powerful argument that improv is one of the most underestimated training grounds for modern life.
You can pre-order on Amazon: https://www.amazon.de/Impro-Code-Profis-Business-Alltag-Erfolg/dp/396739283X
And if you’d like to experience Storyfinding directly — with your improv group, your team, or your organization — I’d love to hear from you. I run trainings and workshops that bring these principles into practice, whether on stage or in the working world. [Link to your training page]
The stage is waiting for your stories. But more importantly: the moment you’re in right now is waiting too. There’s a story in it. You just have to find it.