Is Deliberate Practice Good for Writers?
Photo by Hadis Malekie on Unsplash
What do I mean by deliberate practice? I mean the skills that go into writing: dialogue, setting, character building, elegant description, showing emotion, scene development, and so on. It might be copying passages from a particular book to break down how the author did what they did on the page.
In short, it’s practicing the elements of craft in short bursts, without trying to develop it into a story or novel. (Obviously, poetry, nonfiction, and scriptwriting have their own elements for deliberate practice, some of which are similar to fiction, some very different).
Musicians practice scales, over and over. Baseball players practice hitting the ball, over and over. Basketball players practice shooting hoops, over and over. Painters study brushwork, anatomy, and color theory. Photographers shoot the same subject, using different lighting and lenses. Ballet dancers do a hundred pliés at the barre.
But writers? It seems that although we could do deliberate practice, we rarely do so outside of a formal writing course. We’re expected to read… and then produce something original… and then keep editing it until it reaches a “good enough” state to be published.
We tend to simply plunge in and learn by doing, in other words.
Nothing wrong with that. We can get better at certain things by concentrating on them within the story we’re currently working on. If we know we’re weak on dialogue, we can focus on making it better in specific scenes. Lots of writers work this way, just hashing it out and hoping to improve.
We often don’t want to take the time to practice – we want to hop straight to the book, to publication – but it pays off huge dividends in terms of the time it takes to become a good writer.
Writing a story, novel, or any long narrative form is a complex beast. The more you understand about how the parts fit together well (outside of considerations like plot), the more tools you have at your disposal for telling the story in the best way.
You are developing technique, which is just as important for a writer as for any art form. It allows you to practice without the pressure of “performing.” No one will read this. You can play and experiment. You might even come up with new ideas for your story in progress, or your next book, but that’s not the goal.
Deliberate practice can be good to do between projects, or when you feel blocked, or like you have no new ideas. It can also be a great warmup for your regular writing session.
Don’t think of it as drudgery, or a chore to get through before you can do your “real” writing. Keeping in mind the spirit of play and experimentation, and keeping your practice sessions short, are key.
You can come up with your own exercises, but I find it easiest to start with prepared exercises from a book you can dip into whenever you need to. Some of my favorites are:
Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer’s Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers and How to Be a Writer: Building Your Creative Skills Through Practice and Play, both by Barbara Baig. You can also view some of her Mastery Path lessons here.
What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers, by Anne Bernays & Pamela Painter.
The Fire in Fiction: Passion, Purpose, and Techniques to Make Your Novel Great, by Donald Maass. I like this one because he ties the exercises into your work-in-progress, allowing you to deepen what is already happening (or could happen) in your novel.
Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, by Janet Burroway. The classic text used in a lot of college-level creative writing courses.
Writing Fiction: The Practical Guide from New York's Acclaimed Creative Writing School, by Gotham Writers’ Workshop.
Whether you’re a “pantser” or a solid outliner, you can benefit from trying out exercises in these books to improve your writing.
Do you do deliberate writing practice? Use exercises as inspiration? What are your favorite books with craft-focused writing exercises? Let us know in the comments!
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