Why Bother With Writing Exercises?

Exercise for the Body

We all know exercise is good for the body. It helps muscle tone, keeps fat from taking over, and increases your stamina. It also makes you feel energized. 

I'm sure there are many writers who exercise several days a week, if not every day. Writer A says he wouldn't miss his morning jog for anything. Writer B says she never misses her three days a week yoga class. Writer C swims laps five days a week.

Do Writers A, B, and C go home and do a writing exercise? Or do they start in on whatever writing project they're working on or are about to begin? Writer A says he doesn't need those basic writing exercises. He's been writing for 20 years. Writer B throws her hands up and says she doesn't have extra time to do writing exercises. Writer C says she sees no reason to spend time doing silly writing exercises. 

All three of those writers pay attention to exercising their bodies, but do they exercise their writing self? Do they work out their writing muscles? What can writing exercises do for them? 

Writing exercises do a lot for those who practice them:

• They warm up a writer for some serious writing later.
• They stir up memories that we can write about some other time.
• They make us think along different lines.
• They flex our brains rather than our limbs.
• They open doorways to new writing topics.
• They make you think.
• They let you use your subconscious.

A ten-minute freewrite from a random word prompt is a great warm-up exercise. It also reaches deep into the recesses of your mind as you type nonstop, no thinking, letting the words flow for the full ten minutes. You may end up with gibberish, but you could find something new to write about. Many Random Word freewrite exercises in my online critique group have been the basis for a fiction story or a personal essay or a short memoir piece. Open a book, let your finger land on a word and begin your ten minutes.

Practicing dialogue is a great writing exercise. Pick a situation and hold a conversation between two or more people. Pay attention to things like making the conversation sound normal, not stilted or too formal. Use tags without adding adverbs. Let your dialogue say it all. Practice writing dialogue for a short time now and then, so that it will become an easy task when you're writing a story.

Write about color without naming the color. This is a great exercise in using descriptive phrases. Try a paragraph for each of several colors. 

Write a paragraph filled with cliches. Then rewrite it changing the cliches to something original. It's so easy to use a cliche, but do it often and you become a lazy writer. This exercise can make you more aware of cliches so you're less likely to use them in your writing.

Write a paragraph with 5-word sentences. It's boring. Now rewrite it varying the sentence length. You'll have a far more interesting piece of writing.

Write about a childhood memory for ten or 15 minutes. Use all the writing skills you have perfected to make the memory interesting; add a sense of place, your feelings, and whatever else will make the memory come alive.

There are many more writing exercises. Use a search engine to find more. Start your writing each day with one short exercise. It's only ten minutes out of your writing time, and as time goes on, you'll reap the benefits.

I'm an advocate of toning your body, but I also urge writers to exercise their mind and writing skills.