Kurt Vonnegut's Rules for Writing a Poem

Kurt Vonnegut's famous 8 rules for writing a poem can easily be applied to Improv:

Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.
Start as close to the end as possible.
Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the audience may see what they are made of.
Perform to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
Give your audience as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Audience should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the poem themselves, should cockroaches eat the bottom of the page.

Time wounds all heels --- NN