Writing Exercise

[readilygrey]

I found an interesting writing exercise. Here's how it works.

1. Find a well-written, descriptive paragraph in a book.

2. Re-write it badly! Replace specific words with general ones, change showing into telling, etc. The goal is not to have grammatical errors, but to make it boring.

3. Exchange your paragraph with another writer but don't show them the original. Re-write each others "fixing" all the blandness.

4. Compare your version to the original. ;D

It's supposed to help writers recognize where they can strengthen their own writing. Also, it sounds like fun

[scribbliz]

sounds interesting; how long would you have to re-write each time?

[readilygrey]

Aug 15, 2012 21:47:55 GMT -5 scribbliz said:

sounds interesting; how long would you have to re-write each time?

I don't think it matters. I'm going to do my best to post one tomorrow.

[Freedom]

Excellent! I'll bet this will be funny, too, as well as fun!

Can't wait!

[readilygrey]

This was harder than I thought it was going to be. I need to do this more, lol. One thing that seemed to help was casting judgments instead of letting the reader make up her own mind.



I looked at my office, thinking about words indicating it was dirty but none of the words were good enough. It was unimpressive—a desk, a chair, a filing cabinet; a window gave an unpleasant view of a sleazy store and another that was disreputable and closed. A bad smell came from the closed store below. It was a restaurant and I didn’t know how long it had been closed but I imagined it had bugs.