Best Writing Exercises for Better Writing – A Brief Guide for Aspiring Writers

If you want to be a professional writer, there are several exercises that you can do to improve your writing. All of the exercises that we have mentioned below are writing exercises. But to polish your writing skills, you should pay equal if not more attention to reading as well.

By reading more, you will essentially be improving the tone, style, and overall feel of your writing.

Nonetheless, follow the exercises below to improve your writing.

First Things First – Develop a Learner’s Mindset

Before you start any of the writing exercises, it is essential for you to develop a learner’s mindset with the bigger picture in mind. Remember that it takes effort, hard work, and time to complete your first manuscript and move forward to publication.

Speaking of publication, check out this exemplary query letter formatting, as you need to know how to write query letters to pitch your manuscript to literary agents and get a deal with them, that is, if you want to traditionally publish your book. If you want to self-publish, you won’t have to pitch your book to any literary agent, but you can choose any of the available self-publication platforms to release your book to the online community of readers. 

Eavesdrop and Jot It Down

Another great exercise that you can do every day is to train your ears to listen and then actually write down the things that you hear in a notebook. On that note, it might be a great idea to carry a notebook with you at all times, especially if you are using public transport to get to school or work. 

As a writer, you are naturally a great observer. Writing is about exposing what is going on inside. Observing allows you to understand human nature better, which in turn helps with writing better characters. 

Benefits of Eavesdropping 

Now, before you start to question the moral aspects of eavesdropping, hear us out. The thing about spying and eavesdropping is that it allows you to catch human nature in its rawest and most vulnerable form.

Of course, you will be invading someone else’s personal space – even without their knowledge. Imagine how beautiful and authentic the characters will be, and you will be able to draw in their raw human forms. 

How to Eavesdrop

A great way to eavesdrop would be by visiting a public place, such as a coffee shop. If you want to get to know about some amazing gossip, you should preferably sit near a group of women friends. Write down the conversation you hear as you hear it. 

You could also casually follow people around when they are engrossed in talking. This way, you will be able to capture their words as well as body language and facial expressions. You can also observe the sort of clothes they wear and how they wear them. 

You can get a list of amazing and unique characters because every person out there has a different story to tell. The more you do people-watching, the more you get to know about the different characters and their mannerisms, which will allow you to improve your writing and come up with unique characters taken from real life. 

Write A Conversation with A Twist

Another exercise that you can do is to write a conversation – but remove the dialogue from it altogether. Here is the thing: we humans are unique beings, and more than ninety percent of all communication is essentially non-verbal.

You can think about various scenarios where two people meet and have an entire conversation while using the least amount of words. For instance, you could create a scenario where a man and woman meet on a blind date. They have two dates after that first date, and the total duration of their conversation is only half an hour.

Not only is this scenario an interesting aspect to write about, but think about all the gestures and facial expressions that you will be using while working on the conversation to show readers what happened. Good writing is essentially about showing more and telling less. 

Write Great Fanfiction

Just think about the endless possibilities that you could bring to an already-established story through fanfiction. If you don’t know where to start, you might want to start by reading other people’s fanfiction. This way, you will worry less about offending the original author and your own writing ability. 

The best part about writing fanfiction as an exercise is that you won’t have to worry about creating characters from scratch as you already have a wide range of characters available at your service. Also, you won’t have to worry about the settings of the story as everything has already been taken care of.

Rest assured, feel free to interweave your own creativity in the form of dialogue, plot twists, and tone of the story. 

Be Openly Vulnerable

It is important to mention here that through writing fan fiction, you will not only acquire new skills but also be comfortable being vulnerable with your writing style. You will become increasingly familiar with the source material that you choose to work on, and you will feel encouraged through the constructive feedback that you will receive from other fanfiction writers. 

So, it is a win-win situation for you as you will also have an encouraging community while you get to practice your writing skills in a relatively safe writing space. 

Write Captions for Pictures

This is another exercise that will help with polishing your writing, especially in terms of using fewer words to express more. You can choose any pictures that you can find on the Internet or in newspapers or magazines. Any sort of pictures can work – even pictures of animals and situations. 

By writing captions for photos, you will be essentially exercising your skills of preciseness and brevity. If you want to have more fun with this exercise, you might want to take a yearbook and write captions for each of the photos. Trust us – this exercise is not only useful but also fun, and you get to unleash your hidden humor and sarcasm.