The Copywork Challenge
Copywork is the practice of typing out another writer's work, word by word, as they wrote it. Isn't that copyright infringement, though? Why would you want to do that?
You're, of course, not copying their story to publish it as your own. The goal is to get a feel for how the author works and become a better writer yourself.
For centuries, writers used copywork to learn to write well. Hunter S. Thompson typed out The Great Gatsby in its entirety to practice writing that he greatly admired. Jack London copied the works of Rudyard Kipling. Benjamin Franklin also used copywork to improve his writing.
When you copy another writer's work, you really get to internalise the patterns they use in their prose. You get a much better feel for how they construct sentences and structure their arguments compared to just reading them.
Copying fiction is even more valuable. The best stories immerse you completely in their world when you're reading them. The writing becomes practically invisible. As a result, you miss a lot of the cool things the writer did when reading them.
By typing out the story word by word, you learn how the writer structures their scenes. You'll see how they weave description and action together.
The goal isn't to perfectly imitate a single writer's style — that would be impossible anyway. But as you copy the work of various authors, elements of what makes their writing great will seep through to your style.
Musicians start learning by playing their favourite songs — just listening isn't enough. Artists paint studies of their favourite pieces — looking at a painting isn't enough.
When you want to learn from your favourite writers, do some copywork — just reading their work isn't enough.
The Copywork Challenge
This week, I want to challenge you to copy 1,000 words from a work by your favourite writer. It may be a short story, chapter from a book, essay or blog post.
It should take you about 30 minutes or so to get it done.
Take note of all the little things you will discover about their writing that you would otherwise miss completely when just reading through.
I set up a challenge in Writing Analytics if you'd like to join:
https://app.writinganalytics.co/challenge/6475b5d3e7b6ddfbda1472a9
Let's do some copywork together!