Start by pinning down exactly what you want to be improving. Is it character interactions? World building? Word choice? Dialogue? Focus on one piece at a time. Trying to do it all at once just gets messy.
From there, I really enjoy novelizing my favorite TV shows and movies (you could easily do it with podcasts to). Now, I'm not talking fanfiction here. I mean taking a scene from a non-written form of media and writing it out one to one. Keep the exact dialogue, the exact actions, the exact happenings, just write it all out.
I find this helpful because it sort of takes imagination out of the equation and lets you focus JUST on craft. You don't have to worry about world building or character building or plot, you're just focusing on the writing itself. How do you portray the moment Eddie finds Buck after the tsunami and realizes Chris isn't with him? How do you take the emotions that Ryan and Oliver mostly portrayed on their faces with stuttering, cut off scraps of dialogue and convey the same thing through writing? What's the difference if you do it from Eddie's perspective vs. Buck's? Why are you making the choices you are to portray those things? If something isn't converting well, how can you come at it differently?
Sometimes its also fun to get a little more fanfictiony with it, and fill in the gaps in media while keeping it 100% within canon. Touch more creative freedom that way, but still some pretty decent bumpers to keep you focused on what you're trying to learn from the exercise.
origamiaround
tangentwithtanner
janainaart
theartofmadeline
2087
baratheonpilled
blakekathryn
