The British director Mike Leigh assembles a cast, then has each actor create a character. He gets them together in different small groups for improvisation sessions, often in the real world. Or, he’ll tell an actor, “Go grocery shopping as “, and he’ll follow them around the store. Throughout this process, he is taking notes – lines of dialogue, interactions, gestures – which comes together to produce a script. So then, they shoot the movie, and it DOES have a real fixed script, but it is the product of this great organic process.

I have always thought that sounded, above all, like a ton of FUN – and I feel like versions of the process could apply / unfold in other creative domains, too. I suppose anytime you start with a “vomit draft” as a writer you are doing something similar.

— Robin Sloan, The Good Place, 2025