#process:exercises

[wrex-writes]

How to “improve”

To do something sustainedly, especially something at which you’re trying to improve, you have to see yourself making progress.

Now, you don’t linearly “get better” at writing - everything you write is its own, self-contained, valuable event, and nothing you write is objectively ���better” than anything else. But hopefully you see what I mean.

A lot of writers believe they’re stuck because they see themselves doing the same ineffective and uninteresting work (as they perceive it) over and over again. Whether or not that’s true, they experience it that way. And that makes them hate doing it. These folks need a way to make incremental, observable progress, even if “progress” is not quite an appropriate way to think about writing. Everyone needs to feel as if they’re changing with each thing they write.

Here are some exercises that might give you more confidence that yes, today you have learned something new.

First of all, though, if you find yourself needing these exercises, I ask you to put aside your ambitions for larger projects for the moment. That burning “I need to accomplish this story!” urge, especially if it’s because you crave validation (as all of us do), will work against you because you’ll fixate on the finished product instead of the process of learning. So take a break from that and focus on the micro level so you can really see yourself moving forward a tiny step.

Anyway, here they are:

I do this one to prove to myself that my mind contains interesting things, even when I’m not aware of them. (This is a fear of mine). So: freewrite a few paragraphs of off-the-wall stuff. Nonsense, weirdness. Taboo subjects. Whatever’s just below the surface of your consciousness. Don’t premeditate. Do it so fast the words surprise even you.

For people who are frustrated they never finish anything: start and then finish a tiny story. It can be extremely short, as long as it has a beginning, middle, and end. Don’t write broad thoughts, make it a single scene about a very small moment. Include concrete sensory details - textures, colors, weight. Only requirement: things are slightly different at the end than they were at the beginning.

For people who want to acquire skills and don’t know how: identify one small feature of your writing you’d like to improve. Don’t make it something big like “dialogue.” Something more limited - sentence-length variation, let’s say. Now look at a writer you like and see how they do that thing. Observe them carefully, and then imitate them. No need to do this for more than a paragraph or two. You can revise a paragraph you’ve already written or write something new. (Don’t treat this as a challenge you can fail at, or as a skill you have to perfect. Treat it as an experiment that, whether you incorporate it into future writing or not, will simply give you new information.)

More skill development stuff: listen to a real conversation and write it down. Reread it and observe how these people talk, and see how it differs from the way one imagines people talk. (If you’re tempted to disparage your own dialogue, resist that urge and just file this away as research, as new information.)

For those who fear they have no ideas: read a newspaper article, listen to a podcast, or otherwise find a real-life story about people’s lives. Write down the gist and then think about (and, ideally, write down) how you might turn it into fiction.

Do the same thing except with one of your own memories. (This one might feel super bad for some people. If it does, maybe try another item on this list instead.)

All of these exercises are discrete accomplishments. Small ones, maybe, but all development of a craft happens by small increments. It’s true that any writing contributes to your development whether you’re aware of it or not, but these will do in a way you can see.

[wrex-writes]

Hi Wrex! I'm just transitioning from short stories into long form fiction (fanfic), and I keep getting stuck on my draft because I don't feel like it's any good, especially compared with the beautiful stories I see others write. I know I'm supposed to just let go of that, trust that it'll get better with editing, and most importantly, that I will get better with practice. The reason it's difficult is that I'm not sure that's true: I know practice works for art, since it's a physical skill, 1/2

2/2 but with writing it just seems different. Like, what are some concrete ways in which you–or any followers–have been able to improve their writing by practising? A lot of people I see just starting out, often younger than me, are just so good. I’m also more a thinker than a feeler, and maybe to be a good writer, you need to be the latter? Emotion and atmosphere are really hard for me. Anyway, this is like ten questions in one, sorry about that :) Thanks for your inspiring blog!

This is a very good question! First of all, I don’t actually think that’s true about art - I literally just saw a post about the problem with telling young artists to “just practice” without any hint of how to practice. So it’s an issue for both art and writing. Art might have a larger kinesthetic component than writing, but both skills fundamentally involve your perception and judgment, each of which need experience and training to develop.

This more than most is a question I’d like to kick to my followers. But I can tell you two things I’ve done to practice:

1) One thing I do a lot is reread writing I like (pro or fanfic) and try to figure out exactly why I like it. The key here is to stay very technical in my observations and not to get swept up in “well it just makes me feel all these things!” and similar judgments that just make me devalue my own work even more. I try to figure out exactly what they’re doing, word to word. If you’re concerned specifically with emotion, look at a story you like and analyze a paragraph with an eye toward emotion. How does the writer convey the character’s emotions? How often do they even mention emotions? Are they using key emotion-related words? Pick that paragraph apart. Then see if you can extract one little technique they’re using that seems really cool and effective to you and try it out in your own work. Don’t worry if it feels wonky at first. And - this is important - don’t think of that other writer’s technique as “the right way to do it.” Think of it just as a tool you can put in your toolbox. Other writers undoubtedly use different tools, which you’re free to borrow as well.

I mean, look - writing may seem magical, but it’s also highly technical. I have often calmed down my inner freakout of “but they’re all just so much better than I am!” by really breaking things down to a technical level and seeing exactly how my favorite writers are making their gears mesh together.

2) Another thing I do is the exact opposite of this: I freewrite, or as close as I can get. This just means I set a timer for 30 minutes and write literally whatever’s in my brain at the moment. If I’ve got a specific project brewing, I might think about that project and spew out the first things that come to mind, no matter how stupid or irrelevant. Or I’ll ask myself “what do I want for this story?” and crank out an incoherent paragraph of unrestrained wishes and ideas that reads like a six-year-old wrote it. This is actually super hard, because of course my impulse is to judge it all. So sometimes I will do something to distract a part of my attention (music with lyrics usually does the trick) so that my brain just does not have the bandwidth to write and judge what I’m writing at the same time. 

Very often, when I’m done, I’ll just throw this writing away. Or I might save it if it turns out to be useful rough notes for the project. The point is, I wasn’t trying to make it good, so I don’t reread it hoping for it to be good. It’s just an exercise. And the point of the exercise is merely to disinhibit myself as a writer, to gain access to that layer of unpasteurized thoughts, phrases and ideas that I usually filter out when I’m trying to write well. Because frankly, that filter can catch what’s good as well as what’s bad. And the more you filter yourself, the more difficult it is to reach that spontaneous, irrational, interesting part of you that’s purely creative instead of just correct.

It might seem kind of weird that I do both of these exercises: one devoted to removing the filter of judgment, and one oriented, in a way, toward strengthening it. I’m not sure why it works for me, but the two exercises seem to operate in a kind of dialectic. I know that writing is a technical skill, and that one way to acquire good technique is to become aware of techniques and employ them consciously. But I also know that writing has an accidental, unconscious, one might say id-driven aspect to it, and if I spend too much time obsessing over technique, I risk overinhibiting myself. So that’s why I do both, I guess.

Followers, weigh in with whatever you’ve got!

[wrex-writes]

Tiny Writing Exercise #9: Room of Joy/Sadness

Think of a room. It can be a real room you know, or an imaginary room.

Now, think up a narrator who has just received either wonderful or terrible news. (You pick the news. Whatever you’re in the mood for.)

Describe the room from that narrator’s perspective. But don’t directly mention the news. Just let its effects pervade the description.

[wrex-writes]

Tiny Writing Exercise #1: Gods

Choose an abstract noun. Open a book and choose the first one you see.

Now, imagine the deity of the quality named by that noun. 

Describe what they look like, how they are dressed. Describe how their voice sounds. Describe the bower, island, grotto, or temple where they live. If you have time, describe their priests: how they dress, what rituals they perform. 

Make up a religion for your noun.

[wrex-writes]

Tiny Writing Exercises: Intro

When I wasn’t doing so well, I used to wash a lot of dishes.

Washing dishes, if you’re not in any hurry and nobody is bothering you, can be soothing: you pick up each dish and you wash it slowly and that is all you are doing. It’s a simple, limited task, you have to do it one piece at a time, and at end of it, you have clean dishes. When I was anxious and depressed, I needed tasks like that to keep me calm and focused on the present moment. They broke time down into manageable segments. They limited the world to the space around my body. They focused me on my sensations and not on my thoughts.

At the time, I couldn’t write. Or I thought I couldn’t. I was paralyzed by a belief that if I wrote, I needed to accomplish something. I couldn’t just write a few sentences here and there. That would be failure. Doing nothing would be better than that.

What I could have used back then was a series of tiny writing exercises. Not ones that worked me up to anything or that led toward some larger project. And not ones that somehow shamed me for my small ambitions. Just chances to play with words and be satisfied by it. Ways to create a tiny world, live in it for about five minutes, and then leave.

I’m going to post exercises here to serve that purpose for you. I’ll be making them up, borrowing them from books and other writers, whatever. If you have an idea for one, send it to me! I’ll post them all in the tag #tiny writing exercises. 

[wrex-writes]

Tiny Writing Exercise #4: Metaphor Conversions

This is based on an exercise I once heard former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass give to his students as a way to limber up their metaphor-making abilities:

If the smell of coffee were a bird, what kind of bird would it be?

If the texture of an old shoe were a person, what brand of cigarettes would they smoke? (Or, if you will, what kind of beer would they drink?)

Make up a few of your own questions like this, and then answer them.

[wrex-writes]

Tiny Writing Exercise #8: Two Nouns, One Metaphor

(I don’t think I’ve been making these tiny enough, so here’s a very tiny one.)

Open a book to any page, close your eyes and put your finger down. You’re searching for a concrete noun, so pick the first one you see.

Do this again and pick another, so you have two concrete nouns.

Now, write a metaphorical passage in which you make one stand for the other.

Here’s an example.

I picked “dust” and “animal” and came up with this:

The herd when the wolves attacked blew apart like dust under a puff of breath.

[wrex-writes]

Tiny Writing Exercise #7: For People Who Like Dogs

This one’s by @permian-tropos:

Go to a dog run and observe two dogs interacting. Maybe one’s pushing to play and the other just wants a toy. Maybe they’re flirting with each other and getting along really well. Maybe they keep getting into fights.

Then write a story about two people (human or humanoid) with a somehow parallel relationship. You can even base their appearances on the dogs in some way.

[wrex-writes]

Tiny Writing Exercise #6: Mashup

Pick a paragraph from a novel. Preferably one you know pretty well. Reread it.

Now, rewrite that paragraph in the style of a radically different novel. Like, if it’s George Eliot or Henry James, rewrite it in the style of Elmore Leonard.

Don’t worry about changing the story if you need to. You’ll probably need to.

[wrex-writes]

Tiny Writing Exercise #5: Alternate Beginning

Pull out an old project, one that's done done done—a story you’ve finished and posted/published.

Now, completely reimagine the beginning. Start the story in a completely different place.

Write the first paragraph of that new beginning.

If you have time, do this twice.

[wrex-writes]

Tiny Writing Exercise #2: Estate Sale

You go to an estate sale. There are three lots up for auction: a set of 19th-century ivory dentures, a one-of-a-kind Chanel dress made for a woman seven feet tall, and 2 kilos of Uranium ore.

Draft a scene from the life of the person these things belonged to.