Are Writing Exercises Useful?

Like you, I've gotten the most use out of just writing the story and learning that way. I've tried writing exercises...they're kind of fun sometimes, but for the most part I don't feel they've actually HELPED me or taught me anything I didn't already know. In fact, working on writing exercises just makes me think I'm wasting time I could be spending writing the actual stories.

I think there are some exercises that can help one with things like plotting and characterization--figuring out who their characters are, their motivations, and how it all ties together in a story--but as for learning the technical aspects of writing, I haven't found anything useful. The best learning for me is to just try it in the story and see if it works.

I learned how to write a novel, serial, novella, etc., not through writing exercises, but by sitting down and writing it. That's all I can honestly say.

I'm sure others will disagree; this is just my own experience talking.

I think that most of my non-novel writing is fodder and practice for what comes later. Role playing with fanfic characters or whole new ones gets the juices going because you're looking at new situations someone else set up. You can also see the other person(s) errors and by those, improve what you do.

I do like the occasional writing exercise, just for the heck of it, but mostly I don't have time to do that and write other stuff. I don't think they necessarily help with my novel either. Although I also journal almost every day and that has nothing to do with my novel either, but I think it keeps that brain "muscle" lubricated and activated.

I think writing exercises are really helpful if you're writing a memoir, or if you're bringing aspects of your own life into the novel and you want to bring the event further into focus.

But heck, anything that keeps us writing (unless it's keeping us from the writing we're actually supposed to be working on!) has to be useful.

I tend to mess with exercises when I find a part of my style that's bothering me or doesn't seem to work right. For example, I might dig out a plotting exercise if I'm having trouble fitting a character into a story or figuring out where that story might go next, but that's about it. I see them as tools more than anything else, and it takes a fair jog for me to get that particular toolbox out. Like Heron, I've found that RPGs actually have some nice tools built into them, and creating a character or setting up an adventure has actually helped me more than some writing exercises.

I'll tell you my 2 cents---

I always do writing exercises. I almost never do them based on a novel I'm writing, as I like to write those out one word at a time as I'm in the seat doing it...but I do writing exercises all the time. I was in a group for years...we did 10-minute timed exercises. We'd toss out a prompt-either a word, a phrase, an object, a picture, or whatever-set the timer and WRITE. After the 10 minutes were up, we'd go around the table and read our stuff out loud. Sometimes it was crap...other times it was award winning stuff. (it was actually one of these timed pieces that I later edited and had published in Canada's national paper...didn't win awards, but it was a prestigious publication.)

Do writing exercises when you have free time...immediate creativity exercises like this are fabulous for flexing the muscles we will later use to write the novel that is in us.

Think of these exercises as calisthenics.

There's only one exercise I do and enjoy. I take my characters out of the story and put them in a random room to talk. It's always fun and it gives me a better feel of their personalities.

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The most useful exercises that I've done were part of a class that I took. Each week we focused on a different aspect: dialog, description, back story, etc.. We were allowed 100 or 200 words depending on the drill. Then the class went through everybody's work line by line. It was brutal sometimes, but seeing what I and my classmates did right and wrong really helped. I also learned that you can say a lot with only 100 words.

I benefit from exercises, particularly from those dealing with sensory description, which I tend not to include naturally. I also learn from changing my POV, getting deeper into characters and making their voices more distinct. I am a sort of writing drudge, a person who learns the story only as I write it. Sometimes exercises help.

I'm not a believer in exercises, as such. Any fiction I write, I want to sell for money.

That said, I have set other people to doing writerly exercises.

But I always set exercises that work within an on-going WIP.

So if I send folks to do a 'visualization' exercise, they do it with a chapter they're working on, not some place, time and characters I've picked out of the air.
Ideally, one comes out of the exercise with new and exciting words to use in the WIP as well as a better understanding.

May I sugest that Colvin, (whom I have not read,) may possibly be conflating the process of excellent 'performance' with the process of 'creation'.

I am quite certain Horowitz practiced and practiced and essayed again and again to get the closing notes of Moonlight Sonata just right. I do not think Beethovan twiddled out ten or a dozen leitmotifs on the theme of moonlight as a warmup to composition.
Both are masters. One benefits from 'practice'. The other doesn't.

I hate formal writing exercises, but I still find them useful (I hate any exercises really, I'm a lazy sod). But I've discovered they are most useful when done with other people. When I'm by myself at home, I tend to pick the easy or fun exercises, rather than the challenging ones I could really need (told you I'm lazy!). Also, as GWPP mentions:

GirlWithPoisonPen said:

It was brutal sometimes, but seeing what I and my classmates did right and wrong really helped.

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I learn even more when I share exercises with others, as we'll find different ways of answering the same questions. And by taking turns in choosing which exercise to do, I'm forced out of my comfort zone, which is where the learning takes place.

Of course, writing exercises doesn't have to be all formal, like those little suggestions at the end of chapters in how-to-write books. Sometimes I'll copy down the first page of a few favorite books, just to get a feel of how different writers start a story. Or I'll write down a good dialog in order to analyse how it's done. And sometimes it's just about reading as a writer, reading for tone and voice, reading for techniques and tricks, reading for structure and framework and character or world building.

And not least: sometimes a writing exercise is simply to rewrite a section over and over again until it finally reads the way you want it to read, just like a basketball player will keep hitting the basket until she perfects the shot.

I'm also not a fan of writing exercises because that's a proven distracts my creativity from working on the present MIP--especially if I'm hitting a rough patch in the writing.

That said, if that's the same article I read some time ago, what I took away from it is that what you do, you have to do with purpose and keep doing it until you acheive that purpose consistently. Whether it's through formal or informal exercise or actually doing the job, it's the purposeful focus and follow-through that's important.

So, while I don't do writing exercises, there's always something I'm endeavoring to accomplish with every piece that I write. I might have to write scenes several times, but they're by-gum right by the time I move on.

I make up my own writing exercises. I've gone through textbooks and tried their stuff, but it is inherently boring to correct the punctuation on a badly written paragraph about the Hope Diamond or some other drivel.
What I do is set aside an hour or two every night to just write whatever comes out. Sometimes I'll challenge myself like "tonight I will not use the word was or tonight I cannot use any word more than once.
Tonight I cannot stop typing for twenty-five minutes no matter what.
It's not so much an exercise anymore as it is entertaining. Some of the shit that comes out of my head that I would most likely never put into a novel is some of the most fun things I've ever written. And, some day there may be a place for them in some story or another.
Another is roleplaying. Tonight I am Alfred Hitchcock or Hunter S. Thompson.
Tonight I am Charles Manson.
Does it all help? Sure it does. The sewer of consciousness must be allowed to flow lest it become constipated.

As a rebellious teenager, I'm morally opposed to writing exercises, but when I'm forced to do them, I like them more often than not.

My favorite exercise is when you write the opposite of your WIP. So if it's lyrical, you write it real down to earth. If it's heavy on description, you go light. If it's fantasy, you write...real world stuff. That's fun.

I do them as a way of getting to know my characters. Write a letter from your character's point of view or imagine your character eating a meal with someone. Things like that, and sometimes it's very helpful.

tehuti88 said:

Like you, I've gotten the most use out of just writing the story and learning that way. I've tried writing exercises...they're kind of fun sometimes, but for the most part I don't feel they've actually HELPED me or taught me anything I didn't already know. In fact, working on writing exercises just makes me think I'm wasting time I could be spending writing the actual stories.

I think there are some exercises that can help one with things like plotting and characterization--figuring out who their characters are, their motivations, and how it all ties together in a story--but as for learning the technical aspects of writing, I haven't found anything useful. The best learning for me is to just try it in the story and see if it works.

I learned how to write a novel, serial, novella, etc., not through writing exercises, but by sitting down and writing it. That's all I can honestly say.

I'm sure others will disagree; this is just my own experience talking.

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For a story idea, no, I've never used a prompt for that purpose.

To practice skills and bang something out in a certain boundary of rules in a short amount of time, I find them invaluable.

IF you find the right ones. There are some stinkers out there that I think were written by 5th grade English teachers. "Write about your summer vacation." Yeah, that's inspiring.

Here's one:

Write a story about words, without the letters W, O, R, D or S. Also, throw a dead hooker in there somewhere.