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.
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.
