Being a Better Writer: Writing Exercises for Character Viewpoints · 8:14pm Jul 17th, 2018
Welcome back, readers! And welcome to Tuesday! As you probably guessed, I had work shift yesterday, and as low as hours have been lately, there was no way I wasn’t taking it.
Just gotta make it to the end of August. The end of August.
Anyway, you guys aren’t here to hear about how close to the edge a writer’s life is. You’re here to hear about how it can be you at the edge!
I’m only sort of joking. Anyway, you’re here today for Being a Better Writer, and today we’ve got another request topic to tackle. Which, if you’ve glanced at the title above, you already know of: writing exercises.
Okay. I’ll give you all a minute to think on that one, and then I’m going to change the game. And again, if you saw the title, you’ve already guessed how that’s going to change.
I won’t be offering a comprehensive breakdown of dozens of writing exercises. Because, honestly, it’s easy to find writing exercises. Just type “good writing exercises” into Google and you’re bound to find hundreds. My offering, in that respect, of retreading the same ground? Not so useful.
However … that doesn’t mean I have nothing to offer. I’m not going to retread a bunch of exercises you’ll find elsewhere, but I will go over some of the exercises I did in college, as a young writer in creative writing classes, and discuss what made them stand out and why I still remember them today.
Sure, it’ll be a bit unconventional for a BaBW post, but I’m allowed to do that. It’s my site, and I answer to me. So, looking back, here are several challenges and exercises that helped me improve at my craft: what they were, what they each entailed, and how they helped me get better.
Let’s rock.
My God, I don't know if I have the patience to do that for two days, much less two weeks.
Well, I don't have the time to do these, but they are definitely worth keeping in mind. I particularly like 2 because it is a great approach for spicing up what would be a boring scene if you played it straight, and 3 is also a good way for someone who is bad at showing to force themselves to learn how to write those kinds of long descriptions so they have that tool in their toolbox when they need it.
I'm keeping this BaBW open in a new tab for a while, preferably until I get around to trying some of these (possibly modified to fit my free time). Prose is probably my weakest skill as a writer by a wide margin.