4 Ways To Exercise Your Writing Muscles

In a previous post I mentioned that there are two main things a writer needs in order to improve: practice and feedback. Back then, I focused on feedback. But this time, we'll be looking at practice. How can a writer effectively hone their craft? While cranking out 150,000-word books one after the other promises that you will improve someday, it also means you would spend all that time and effort when the results of those books could've been much more satisfactory. Why attempt to cut down a tree with a blunt knife when a sharpened saw will be much more effective?

In that case, what are some efficient ways you can pick up on your flaws and weaknesses, improve on them, and get a chance to compare the 'before' and 'after'?

Writing Short Stories and Flash Fiction

For the longest time, I was plagued by a severe case of "unfinished works-in-progress." Tons of them just lay around while I had not an ounce of motivation or inspiration to continue. But then, I found short stories, and I fell in love.

The typical length for short stories is between 1,000 to 8,000 words, flash fiction is anything under a thousand, and there is even the magical species known as six-word stories, but you would be remiss to think that those numbers are all to them. Short stories are a medium that require a number of things from the author, and the most important of them is conciseness. Short stories do not permit fluff in any form, because you have to present a complete and consistent world, fleshed-out characters, and a plot of some kind in under 8,000 words. Challenging yourself in this manner means that you will more equipped—and a tad more willing—to sniff out and snip out filler content that bloats up lengthier fiction.

Another important thing short stories require is a shock factor. Something that will throw the readers off-guard: one at the beginning, and one at the end. The one at the beginning serves to hook your readers and draw them into the story, while the latter behaves much like the punch-line of a joke. It could be something that leaves your readers wanting more, something that ties up the story in dramatic fashion, or something that unveils the story's secret in one fell swoop, like a magician's party trick.

The length of such shorter writing mediums means that you get a quicker turnaround. They afford you the freedom to experiment with different genres, writing styles, and plots, and you don't have to spend more than a year to see the end. In fact, you can finish up a rough draft in about a week. When you write more and more stories like this, play around with different characters and settings, and come to more and more endings, your confidence and experience as a writer will only ever grow.

Therefore, whenever doubt or imposter syndrome comes creeping up on you, you can always look back on your previous works and remind yourself that yes, you can indeed write a book.

World Watching

There's a popular saying in the writing world that goes, "Write what you know." I certainly agree, because trying to write high school fantasy with vampires and werewolves, as someone whose teen years were eons apart from what was depicted on Tv, always left me feeling out of depth. However, this advice is not to be taken too literally either, or else books with high fantasy or daring science fiction may never have existed.

Writing what you know just means taking a page out of the world around you and affixing it to your book. What does a day in your life, or the life of someone you know, look like? What do people sound like when they're excited? When they're frustrated? Angry? What are the usual language quirks of those around you? Can you pick out the subtext in people's speech? Did something unusual happen near you today? What does your city smell like? What do people usually wear? What does your street look like, or what does the air feel like, on a terribly sunny day? What about when it rains or snows? Trees by the roadside are not safe from the onslaught either. Who knows? They might serve as the building blocks for a magical forest in your next high fantasy epic saga.

The author's greatest library is the world around them. While commuting or when out on a morning walk, carefully and greedily observe, inhale, assimilate. Take in anything and everything you can. If time or place permits, whip out your notepad and write it down. Before you realize it, you would have accumulated a treasure trove of descriptions, dialogues, and events. And then, you wouldn't have to think so hard before depicting a character's emotions.

Close Reading

Close reading is the nearest thing I can imagine to getting an up-close look at an author's brain and dissecting it piece by piece. And I believe this is a valuable skill for any writer.

With close reading, you're looking through every sentence, paragraph, and punctuation mark, and trying to reverse-engineer the author's thought process in every stroke. It lets you decipher what is being communicated, misunderstood, or even omitted by every detail, from the plot's meticulous structure to the character's smallest hesitation; from the start of the paragraph to the seemingly insignificant choice of words.

Such knowledge will inform you of the minor details that make the big picture work. What makes the words flow. The words or expressions that evoked a particular emotion in you. It will also tell you of the aspects that didn't work. Things that irked you. Things you would do differently. Over time, you will forge your own path amidst the chaos, and that will become the subconscious that guides your hand when writing.

If you'd like to learn more about this in detail, check out Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer: A Guide For People Who Love Books And For Those Who Want To Write Them. It's an amazing book. It took me on a journey I was almost unwilling to end.

Free Writing

Although I was never able to stick to it, freewriting is a quick practice tool that can get your gears running. I first came across it on Tim Clare's Couch To 80k Writing Boot Camp. In a free write, as the name implies, you're free to write whatever you like however you like, without prompt or direction. With a ten-minute timer, a pen, and a piece of paper (or whatever electronic device you prefer), the world is your oyster.

You could start off with a list of objects or names or descriptive words, but you have one task and one task only—to keep your pen moving. Your mission is to pump out those words and ideas and concepts you didn't even realize you had. Perhaps, what you wind up with at the end of the exercise could form the basis of a short story or supplement any full-length novel you're working on.

Know of any other ways writers can flex their muscles and ignite their creativity? Drop them in the comments! Until next time, fellow writers.

Your friendly neighborhood editor,

Chiedozi.