Play Your Want

How to Stop Inventing and Start Pursuing

There’s a version of “playing an objective” that most trained improvisers have encountered.

You decide, before the scene starts (or early on), what your character wants. You hold that want in mind and pursue it. The scene becomes a negotiation between what you want and what your scene partner wants.

In principle, this makes sense. Scenes need drive. Something has to be at stake.

But there’s a problem with choosing your want before anything has happened: it severs you from the scene.

You’re playing your plan. Not what’s in the room.

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The Difference Between Invented and Discovered

An invented want is one you brought with you.

You’ve decided your character is suspicious. Or desperate. Or ambitious. So you enter the scene playing suspicious, or desperate, or ambitious, regardless of what’s actually happening between you and your scene partner.

It can work. But it tends to feel thin. And it tends to make your scene partner feel like an obstacle rather than a person, because they’re there to receive your want rather than to create something with you.

A discovered want is different.

Something happens. You feel something. And inside that feeling, there’s a direction — something you want that you didn’t know you wanted until right now.

Maybe your scene partner picks up an object and you feel a sudden protectiveness about it. That’s a want: you want her to put it down. Maybe he says something and you feel an unexpected warmth, and what you want is to hear him say it again. Maybe the scene creates a tension and what you want, more than anything, is for someone to finally say what’s not being said.

These wants aren’t dramatic in an abstract sense. But they’re real. And real wants are what audiences can feel.

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Wants Don’t Need to Be Big

There’s a tendency, especially in more heightened scenes, to reach for large, dramatic wants. High stakes. Life and death. Love and loss.

These can work. But they’re not required.

Some of the most compelling scene work involves very small wants. I want you to look at me. I want to get out of this room. I want you to admit you were wrong. I want to feel like I matter here.

Small wants, pursued honestly, create tension. Because the audience can feel the gap between where you are and where you want to be. They don’t need that gap to be enormous. They just need it to be real.

And small discovered wants are almost always more honest than large invented ones.

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The Shape of a Want

A want that’s useful in a scene has a few qualities worth knowing.

It’s present-tense. Not “I want to eventually tell him the truth.” Just: I want to say this. Right now. But something is stopping me.

It’s connected to the other person. The best scene wants are filtered through your scene partner. Not “I want to leave this place” in the abstract, but “I want to leave and I want you to understand why.” The other person becomes part of the want, not just a barrier to it.

And it’s simple. Not a complex objective with sub-clauses. Just one thing. I want this. That simplicity is what makes it playable. You can feel whether you’re getting closer to it or further away. And the audience can feel it too.

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What Happens When Two Wants Meet

A scene becomes something when two wants meet.

Not two characters. Not two premises. Two wants.

And they don’t have to be opposed. That’s worth noting, because there’s a tendency to think conflict requires opposite objectives. But aligned wants can be just as interesting — the tension comes from how each person is pursuing them, and whether the way they’re going about it is working.

Two performers who both want to be loved, but both too guarded to say so, can carry an entire scene. The want is aligned. The friction is internal.

Abstract wants often carry more weight than concrete plot objectives. To be seen. To feel in control. To not be left again. These don’t need plot to have stakes. The stakes are human.

The important thing is that both performers are playing a want. Because wants create pursuit. And pursuit is what story actually is.

You don’t need to construct a narrative arc. You just need to care about something and move toward it. The story will come from that.

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When You Over-Justify

One of the signs that a want isn’t grounded in feeling is over-justification.

This is the moment when an improviser explains their want rather than pursuing it. “I lied to you because when I was growing up, my father always told me that…” and on and on.

What’s happening here is that the improviser has a want (to be understood, usually) but doesn’t trust it enough to just play it. So they build a scaffolding around it instead. Backstory. Context. Justification.

The scene stalls. Not because the information isn’t interesting, but because nobody’s in pursuit of anything anymore. They’re in explanation mode.

The friction in a scene lives in the gap between wants. When you explain your want, you’re trying to close that gap with words. But the gap is where the scene lives.

Trust the want. Play it. Let the friction be there.

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Wants and the Circle

In the Scene Circle, the want is the point where a feeling becomes a direction.

You felt something. And now there’s a something you’re moving toward — or away from, which is the same thing with a different vector.

The want is what makes you active. Without it, you’re just responding. With it, you’re pursuing. And pursuit is the thing that keeps scenes moving.

But the want has to grow from the feeling. That’s the part that can’t be skipped. If you arrive at a want without moving through a feeling first, it won’t have roots. It’ll be an idea you’re playing rather than a need you’re following.

Check in with the feeling. Notice what it’s pointing toward. That’s your want.

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When You Don’t Know What You Want

It happens. You’re mid-scene, fully present, and you draw a blank on what you actually want.

This is a sign to go back one step in the circle: check in with how you feel.

Not what you think would be dramatically interesting. Not what your character “should” want given the situation. What are you actually feeling right now, in this moment, in this scene?

The want is usually inside that feeling. It might be small. It might be quiet. But it’s there.

And if you genuinely can’t find a feeling, go back another step: do something. Move. Touch something. Make a physical choice. Action generates feeling, and feeling generates want.

You’re never actually stuck. You just need to move one click around the circle.

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A Scene Is What Happens When Two Wants Meet

Bring a want. Let them bring theirs. Don’t rush to resolve it.

The tension between two wants, held and pursued honestly, is what makes a scene feel alive. You’re not trying to win. You’re not trying to make something happen. You’re just genuinely moving toward something, in the presence of someone else who’s genuinely moving toward something.

That’s the whole thing.

Don’t invent a want. Notice a feeling. The want is inside it.

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Playing your want is the third pillar of the Scene Circle. To see how the three pillars fit together as one connected system, the Scene Circle piece lays out the whole loop.