How to Deliberately Practice Writing
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
From my experiences with basketball and dance, you have to do a lot of deliberate practice to improve. Two or three-a-day gym workouts, hell-week dance rehearsals were the minimum.
I found the best people would break down a specific move — like a layup or a whack (from the whacking dance style) — to micro-movements. And, they would practice those movements hundreds (probably thousands) of times until they were perfect, slowly combining each smaller movement until they could do the perfect layup or whack. And, as a result, have the best form.
I’ve been trying to find a way to replicate that level of deliberate practice to my writing.
I’m starting with an old-school method — copywork.
I got the idea from Bryan, my fiancé (I feel like we can start calling him Bryan now) after he shared with me author, Scott Young’s blog post about Benjamin Franklin’s method for improving his writing:
“I fell far short in elegance of expression, in method and in perspicuity, of which he convinced me by several instances. I saw the justice of his remark, and thence grew more attentive to the manner in writing, and determined to endeavor at improvement.
About this time I met with an odd volume of The Spectator — I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it…With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them.”
-The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Franklin’s copywork exercise:
Read an essay he admires.
Make notes on each sentence, indicating the particular sentiment.
Look at the notes and try to replicate the essay in his own words.
Compare his version to the original essay.
Revise and improve his version.
I decided to give it a try, but more like author Steven Pressfield’s exercise, and using work from Joan Didion, Cixin Liu, and Haruki Murakami.
My method:
Find a chapter or passage I love (and wished I would’ve written).
Read the passage carefully 2–3 times, making notes in the margin about why I like particular phrases and word choices.
Without looking at the passage, handwrite the text word-for-word from memory. Do this until I’m able to memorize the passage.
Using my notes, create my version of the passage.
Compare my version with the original.
Revise and take notes on how to improve.
What I’m learning (so far)
How to be more attentive: After doing this a few times, you can tell the level of precision great writers have with their tense, tone, and word choice. I think I’m slowly learning how to bring this level of care into my writing.
Thinking (and feeling) like a great writer: When you slow down reading, more images appear — the writing becomes more vivid. And there’s a sensation you get when you’re handwriting their passages down; you’re copying, but you’re also learning how to think like they are about sentence and paragraph structure.
Why didn’t I do this in school?: I loved English class and really, all classes that required some form of essay writing. But there wasn’t any deliberate practice. You learned through reading and trial and error, which wasn’t enough.
The power of imitating: I still remember when I practiced the double-crossover over and over again when I was a kid so I could dribble like Allen Iverson. Basketball and dance, but also every sport and creative skill, require you to learn from others.
It’s a long process, but worth it — I’m excited to deliberately practice my writing more and learn more about the craft.
