Every scene worth doing assumes a conversation has already happened — what each of you wants out of it, what is off the table, and what happens when someone needs it to stop. Most couples skip that conversation. Not because they disagree with it, but because starting it from nothing is genuinely awkward, and a blank evening is a bad place to invent a structure.
So we made the structure. It is three printable pages, it is free, and it takes about fifteen minutes to fill in together.
What it asks you
Each of you answers separately first, then you compare. The comparing is the part that does the work.
- What each of you wants out of it — not the scene, the feeling. To be looked after, to be the one deciding, to stop being the responsible one for an hour.
- What is off the table permanently, written without discussion and binding on both of you.
- What is a maybe — the things worth asking about first, which is where a scene usually finds its next step.
- The words — one that stops everything, one that means lighter but keep going, and one either of you can ask at any point.
- The signal for when speaking is not available, and what the other person does the instant they see it.
- The practical part — how long, where, who else is in the building, and what happens if one of you starts laughing.
- Afterwards, decided in advance, while neither of you is tired and one of you is not still in character.
It finishes with three debrief questions for the following day, in the phrasing that gets an honest answer rather than a polite one. Print one copy each, fill them in by hand, and redo it every few months — the answers move more than people expect, and the second version is usually the more honest one.
You do not need the book
The worksheet stands on its own and nothing on it depends on having read anything else. It was built alongside The Roleplay Playbook, and readers who arrive here from its front matter are welcome — but if you found this some other way, take it anyway. It is the same sheet either way.