learn wordsmithing from other writers

 

write like a bird flies

Most writers have a list of established writers whose work they admire. We wish we could write as beautifully as the writers on our personal list of heroes. Maybe we wish we could create dialogue as witty, sharp, sparse and memorable as one writer. Or create descriptions as lyrical and entrancing as another. Perhaps we desire to be able explain simply and effectively the machinations of the human heart or the mysteries of physics at last making obvious to the rest of humanity the truth of it all in the sublime way our mentor writer does.

Of course we don’t want to be a copycat of or mimic of another writer but… we wish we were as proficient with words as they are. And there is a way we can learn from other writers, pick up some of their skill set and make it our own.

Art is not something that is created in a vacuum.  For hundreds, probably thousands of years visual artists have learned their art by studying under masters and copying the master’s work. We have all seen the student artists in museums sitting before a masterpiece with their canvas and paints trying to reproduce the original. Picasso learned cubism from Braque. Van Gogh’s style was influenced by Japanese woodblock prints. Modigliani was influenced by African art. They all incorporated aspects of others' work in their work.

There is a drill that can help writers incorporate aspects of another’s style into their own work. Find a paragraph or a few sentences that you admire from another writer’s work. Now re-write that text but change every word into another word - but a word of the same type: verb for verb, noun for noun, adjective for adjective, etc. When you are done you will have reproduced the original text in structure but not specifics. This sounds easier than it is. As you do this, you will unconsciously begin to assimilate nuances of their style. You will have learned ways of using words just as artists learn ways of manipulating a brush.

In Ann Whitford Paul’s book Writing Picture Books, she has a similar drill. She tells the reader to copy over the text of picture books. It’s a great drill. It gets you deeper inside the text than reading it can. I do it all the time. The drill I suggested above just goes one step further. It’s not consciously trying to write like someone else it’s just a deep dive into the mechanics of their style.