Writing Exercises for Stretching Your Style Muscles
There’s a lot of writing advice on the internet, and a lot of writing prompts, but something I see relatively little of is an idea of how to actually practice.
The thing about learning a skill is that it requires practice – but practicing will only get you so far if you’re just doing the same thing over and over. you might get better at doing that specific thing, but it can seem really difficult to get over a specific hurdle to accomplish some new thing you’ve never tried. I think a really common frustration is wanting to do a thing, and knowing what your end goal looks like, but not knowing actually how to accomplish it.
So that’s where practicing specific skills can really help you to feel more comfortable with your abilities.
Here are some skills exercises I recommend experimenting with to gain proficiency and comfort in writing things.
Write the Same Scene from Multiple POVs
Write a scene in 3rd person POV. Then go back and rewrite it from scratch in 1st person. Repeat for a 3rd person omniscient. Go deeper than just swapping out pronouns. Think: How does this scene change if I’m writing through the eyes of a single character vs over their shoulder? How does this scene change if I’m narrating the events through Character B instead of Character A?
Write a Scene in Present Tense
Present tense bumps up the immediacy level of whatever you’re writing. I think it also helps to break you from more passive sentence constructions. Try taking a scene you’ve written and rewrite it in present tense. Combine it with the above – try switching a 3rd person past to 1st person present, or even try writing in 2nd person.
Try Mimicking Another Writer’s Style
Sit down with a piece of writing from an author you enjoy, and pay attention to the writing itself. Ignore the plot and characters and story elements – look at just the nuts and bolts of vocabulary choices and sentence construction. Try to pick it apart. Is there a specific way the author tends to use commas? Certain words, or types of words, that they use more often? Longer sentences or shorter ones? Longer paragraphs or short? How is white space handled?
Study that and make yourself a little cheat sheet if that’s helpful to you. Then try writing a short piece – just a couple paragraphs, even – in their writing style.
Describe an Entire Scene Without Using Visual Description
Imagine you’re writing a blind character, if it helps, or someone who’s been blindfolded. Describe a whole scene built entirely around the way things sound, smell, taste, feel. Try to make it clear what’s happening through description alone.
Eliminate All Words like “Thought” or “Felt”
Write in deep-3rd or 1st person without any filter words. Make a character’s opinions and emotions obvious through the way things are being described without explicitly saying what they’re thinking or feeling. If you struggle with this, it might be easier to start in first person – write as a diary entry or even a Tumblr post from that person’s perspective – and then try it in 3rd person after you’ve had a bit of practice.
Set Yourself a Specific Goal, and Write a Drabble to Achieve it
When I wrote “Happy Ending,” my entire goal was to write something that was highly descriptive in the most viscerally gross way possible. When I wrote “Mothman,” it was an exercise in writing something sexualized without explicitly being sexual, in the most disturbing way possible.
This is an exercise in word choice. It’s an excuse to bust out your thesaurus, not to sound fancy, but to nail a specific meaning. It’s also an exercise in choosing what details to focus on and which to exclude.
One way to approach this exercise is to describe something common and mundane that you’ve experienced, and write it in several different ways. Let’s say, eating a sandwich. How can you make eating a sandwich sound sexy? How can you make it sound disgusting? Which details do you focus on, and which do you omit? What words do you use to evoke the meaning you’re looking for?
I hope these writing exercises give you some inspiration on things to try out to flex your creative wings a bit!
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