Evon Davis

Here’s a fun writing exercise for breaking out of old, constricting habits in your writing and taking a fresh approach.  This exercise is taken from Manuscript Makeover by Elizabeth Lyon:

1) Choose an excerpt from a piece of writing you like.

2) Type slowly, word for word, thinking about the author’s word choices and sentence construction, feeling the patterns and rhythms in your fingers, and imprinting them in your body-mind.  Don’t type like a robot, copying mindlessly.  Connect with the author’s writing in a deep-listening way.  Copying excerpts is a technique that will help you break restrictions and allow you to experience, through muscle memory and new patterns of thinking, many different styles.  When you return to your own manuscript, it can be as if you have gained coaches looking over your shoulder, making suggestions.

3) While studying the author’s word choices, sentence structure, character description, setting, movement, emotional expression, style, or any other element of the writing, begin to write something of your own, using the excerpt as a guide.  If you feel you can do better than the author, don’t hold back!