The first phase in my re-dedication to massively improving my writing ability is to start practicing again. I invented my series of practice methods about 10 years ago (from 2007-2011 was my most intense years of practice), so I’m re-using some old drills, using new ones, and being very analytical about how I improve. I’ll be sharing both what I used to do and what I’m doing now in the next few blog posts.
Today is about my first phase of my current intentional practice.
First, what is intentional practice?
The most useful and most useless advice you can get about writing is “just write a lot.” Because, it’s true, if you don’t write a lot, you can’t get better at writing. And if you’re kinda new at it and you don’t have the “magical million words” that supposedly “makes you good”, then you do need to put in the brute force effort of stringing words together.
But if you’re trying to get much better much faster, blindly writing won’t do it. Writing isn’t just one thing - it’s a lot of decisions that you’re making simultaneously while drafting, a lot of different skills that you’re using at one time. If you don’t have those individual skills refined, then your ability to write is always going to be hindered by your weakest skills.
A lot of complex skills are like this: music, martial arts, etc. Those of course are two areas that I underwent extensive training, so when I was first trying to improve my writing ability, I used a lot of the practice concepts that I learned from those arenas.
So, intentional practice is noting your weak areas and intentionally taking steps to improve them.
The problem of intentional practice and writing
It’s easy to intentionally practice in music because the skills are easily defined (theory, dexterity, scales, breath control, tone, intonation, interpretation, etc). The same with martial arts (striking, grappling, leverages, pressure points, weapons, etc.)
It’s less clear with writing.
Yes, there are some general concepts that everyone agrees upon as being important. But the wonderful thing about writing is that there is so much variation in how it can be done. One person’s purple prose can be another person’s sweeping descriptions that carry them off into a new world. One person’s overly-complex info dump can be another person’s ideal worldbuilding.
Beyond that, there aren’t always a lot of systemized ways of improving these things. I’ve read a bunch of writing books, took a writing class, hired a developmental editor…and nobody has a “this is what you should do” checklist of ways to practice. So when I say I “invented” it, it’s not that I came up with all the drills that I’ll talk about, but I did try to organize them into a system based on my past training AND the intervening ten years of working in education where I focus on how people learn and improve.
My current “step 1.”
The first step is to identify your weak areas. I kinda know what they are, but if I’m going to be intentional, I need to be systematic. So my current step 1 is to reread Heart and Soul Fist and Spirits of Summer and analyze them. I’ve organized the analysis into three major areas with subcategories.
PLOT, with the subcategories of “Tension” and “Pacing.’
CHARACTER, with the subcategories of “Dialog” “Mannerisms” and “Descriptions”
SETTING, with the subcategories of “Descriptions” “Worldbuilding”
And THEME (which will be its own post later).
Then, I’m reading Heart and Soul Fist chapter by chapter and taking notes on what I did well and what needed improvement, just any general thoughts I have. Then I score myself in those categories, on a scale of 1-4 (based on the latest thinking in Mastery and Equity Grading that I’m a massive believer in).
1 = Not proficient
2 = Approaching proficiency
3 = Proficient
4 = Mastery
I mark all my scores down and then average them out (which, averaging isn’t really that useful in grading theory these days, but I’m curious to see what the ultimate average of the averages will be at the end of the book and if it matches with how I feel about it.) Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like.
A chapter scorecard.
I’m then recording all these scores into a master table.
The overall record of scores.
Once I’m done that, I’ll do the same for Spirits of Summer and compare all the scores and see if A) I improved from one book to the next and B) what areas are my weakest and what I need to practice on.
Next time, I’ll detail some other things I’m doing (like the Hyperbolic Write Chamber) and talk about my routines in the past. If you have any specific questions, though, let me know!
Study Questions:
Have you ever intentionally practiced anything? What area was it? What lessons did you gain from it?
In general, how do you feel about claims that people need to “write a million words” or “spend 10,000 hours” to become an expert at something?