| This technique helped me become a better writer. Get a cheep spiral notebook and a nice pen. Then collect some example writings that represent the best writing style you aspire to. I prefer short stories and essays, but for larger examples (novels) you can focus on single chapters. Every day spend about 1/2 hour copying the example writing by hand into the spiral notebook. When you are done copying about two pages into your spiral notebook review the pages and identify different writing techniques. I used this technique to learn copywriting so I identified different persuasion techniques including what’s the catch addresses or Promise. However, you could also use this same technique to become a better novelist. So maybe you identify alliteration, irony, foreshadowing, etc. Why does this work? This have been studies on the powerful learning effect of writing notes by hand. The technique I described follows the same principals. By copying great writing by hand you are engaging multiple senses at one time. You are feeding your conscious and subconscious mind rich example writing that will help you improve your own writing. Anyway, this worked for me. Good luck. |
Learning works through synthesis of material, which is the main takeaway from the writing studies you mentioned, however when copying writing no synthesis occurs. Also these studies were recently duplicated and results did not match the original conclusion.