Writing exercises

I read this post about writing as a craft and melannen's response to it, and well. The first link to me makes me rage, because I am not a huge fan of the "writing is such a mythical process" and the "you either got it or you don't~~~" and I'm just old and I keep waving my canes at the kids on the lawn ok?

But melannen is awesome and her tips are awesome, so that inspired me to write some tips of my own. I know that I'm thinking about writing all the time (even at... work...) and that some of the exercises I do are such second nature to me now. I even go about my dreams in a writerly way!

So here are some of the exericses that I do to improve my writing, in no particular order.

1) Analysing your kinks, and writing out your favourite versions
2) Analysing your reactions to media - what works for you, and why?
2a) writing out quotes lists

I'm a very emotional person. So my favourite kinks and favourite scene draw out such reactions in me that even surprise myself! So I have the habit of analysing my kinks and how I react to media. What made me happy? Happy enough that I would clap my hands? What made me rage? Did I want to walk out? It didn't take much thinking to wonder if I could replicate those seal-clappy moments in my fic, and avoid the rage stomping type of things.

I put quotes as a subset because it's one thing to react to events, but another to react to writing enough that you think about replicating it in your writing. Only two authors have driven me to write down quotes.

To me, it's similiar to learning how the masters play music in order to perform in a similiar or same way. The reactions is about the mood, and the quotes are about the technique.


3) Thinking about writing. E.g. mulling over the story in the train.
4) Observation, and maybe writing it out (writing sketches)
5) Writing down lists of things that you like. E.g. I want to work the sound of thunder rattling glass into a story

These three are about working on writing on the go, especially when you have a busy schedule that doesn't let you do anything else. A lot of these don't even need anything more than pen and paper (or a phone in this digital age).

Quick lists are the key for my inspiration in that I can be inspired by anything, notice where my inspiration comes from, or in some cases revisit something that inspired me but I didn't have time then to expand.


6) Shopping for characters/doll makers
7) Learning the difference between observation and visualisation, and practising the latter more, esp with fantasy/sci-fi stories

These are a bit more deliberate, but also about inspiration and making the jump to actual things that would appear in novels. E.g. How does clothing reflect character? How do I turn the image in my head into something workable and doesn't change geography/the laws of physics (unless that's the point).


8) Practise writing starting lines: hooks, setting the scene, giving yourself a springboard to write
9) Figuring out where your natural stopping points are. Writing over them
10) Idea of puppy pound and learning how to write with the idea that nothing is sacred, and to cut without feeling pain
11) Finding out what annoys you. E.g. blank pages are my nemesis

These are a bit more on the writing technique itself, but they are on very different points of writing technique.


Edit: I found this too, and YES YES YES this is completely what writing consciously is all about: http://lightgetsin.dreamwidth.org/326659.html