Five Exercises to Make Writing Easier (and More Fun)
Writing is hard. At times it’s brutally hard. The sense of awe and dread that comes from staring at the cursor as it blinks defiantly on a blank page intimidates even seasoned writers. It’s a well established fact of human psychology that we avoid situations that feel overwhelming or difficult. If you find yourself avoiding writing because it feels too hard, but somewhere deep down you still want to write, try these exercises.
1. Genre Swap Your Favorite Story
Take a story you love and approach it from a different angle. Instead of Luke Skywalker being a farm-boy-turned-chosen-one, write him as a novice gumshoe who’s trying to figure out the clues to who killed his family. Rewrite The Fellowship of the Ring as a high-school drama. Decide what would happen if To Kill A Mockingbird had taken a turn towards psychological thriller and Boo Radley had been as dangerous as the children first surmised.
Obviously, you can’t go on and sell this work as a wholly original creation, but writing the flesh of a story when the skeleton is already sturdy is a great way spark creativity and get yourself going. And who knows, you may come up with something that you can further develop into your own original novel.
2. Play mini-games as you write
Challenge yourself to write a whole page (or maybe even a whole chapter) without referring to the protagonist by the same identifier twice. Hide a secret message in the work by ensuring the first word of each paragraph comes together into a sentence. Use every letter of the alphabet at least once on each page. None of these games will make for great writing, but it can give your brain something to focus on to help you relax into writing and get words on the page. Your first draft will be rough anyway, so it doesn’t hurt to gamify the process if that gets you through to the finish line.
3. Log out of social media (and then clear all cookies)
Social media represents a huge productivity killer in many workplaces. It’s true for a lot of writers too. Writing is work, and when you consistently lose focus to check the latest posts or see how well your tweet is performing, it takes time and mental effort to get back on track. For me, part of the problem is that I’m signed in all the time across all my devices. Usually just the added step of needing to sign in again is enough to encourage me not to waste that time. And if your browser automatically logs in for you with a saved password, you can clear the cookies.
4. Join a critique group
Every writer needs and editor, every editor needs a reader, and every reader needs a writer. It’s the literary circle of life. Joining a critique group will expose you to more parts of the circle as you offer feedback to others and receive feedback in return. Just as a road trip in the car alone is boring and tedious compared to a road trip with a few good friends in the car, the writing journey is much worse when you don’t have others along for the ride with you.
5. Write some short-form content
Depending on who you ask, you’ll probably get different answers about what the best part of writing is, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t like the sweet, sweet dopamine hit that comes from finishing a project. If the work you’re writing is long and feels daunting, take some breaks from it to write something quick and easy. Bonus points if the short-form content ties into the larger work in some way. If you’re writing fiction, maybe do some world building and write a song, a fable, or an excerpt from an “in-universe” history book. The shorter content will help boost your creativity, provide you with extra motivation to keep writing, and can be completed with less investment of time, which means you get more regular bumps of the “feel-good” hormone.
There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging the difficulty of writing, but it’s important we never inflate writing into an insurmountable task. Whatever project you’re working on, you can finish it. It won’t defeat you unless you allow it to. I believe in you.
