Four Basic Exercises to Improve Writing Skill

This article discusses four basic writing exercises to improve your writing skill because question like "how can I improve my writing skill?" is important to be answered, especially for bloggers. Why is it important? Some people spent time in front of their notebooks and knew nothing to write. It's not that they didn't know how to write but had no idea of what to write about. This can even happen to professional writers. When I was in my master's program, I saw my professor sat in front of his laptop and the keyboard didn't sound. He had written many books and articles and knowing that confused me of what I was seeing. He told me that even a professional public speaker would sit in silence if there is nothing in his mind to say. It happens to writers as well.

There are two difficulties that people often deal with in their writing. The first difficulty deals with the lack of idea and the second difficulty relates to the lack of skill. Professional writers usually experience the first difficulty and novice writers often face the second one. While professional writers are skillful in writing but they sometimes have no idea to write, novice writers have ideas in their mind but they don't know how to transform those ideas into text.

Since the first difficulty deals with ideas, it can be overcome by reading, discussion, and observation. These three practices are helpful to generate ideas. However, because the second difficulty is related to the writing skill, there is no other way to overcome the difficulty but writing exercises. Only continuous exercises can make someone skillful in something, including writing.

Exercising your writing skill is not like exercising your punch. Push-ups can strengthen your punch. It means that to strengthen your punch, you can do different exercises than punching a sandbag. To be a skillful writer, you need to do writing exercises. It means that only by writing regularly does your writing skill improve.

Four basic practices to improve your writing skill

In this article, we have outlined several writing exercises that can help you improve your writing skill. Theories or writing are also important to help you write a good text. We will address the theories of writing in another day. Today, we only briefly discuss the basic writing exercises that we believe will help many novice writers.

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1.Writing short jokes on social media

One of the most important items to remember in writing is that every piece of text has its social function. People didn't write jokes because they knew the jokes. They wrote jokes because they wanted to entertain the readers.

Social media like Facebook is a good place to start since you don't have to write long there. You may know some jokes but try to write them to create a psychological effect (feel funny) to the readers. Choose jokes that are not potentially offending others.

The jokes should be written clearly. Don't cut the plot and don't abbreviate the words. For example, try to write a complete "because" rather than "coz". Know when to use commas and when to use full stops. Use a comma when you want to sign a pause and use a full stop at the end of each sentence.

If the jokes are well written, people will like them and comment it either by "ha ha ha…" or laughing emoji. This is very basic but this will tell you if you have written the jokes "correctly". Don't be bothered with the "how to write a joke". Just follow your "instinct" for we have our ways to tell something. Make sure that you read your jokes before you click the sending button.

2.Writing diary

A diary is usually used to remind us of what we have done or experienced in the past or what we plan to do in the future. A diary is a text that is read by the writer himself. Writing a diary is a good practice to help you monitor your writing progress.

Try to write about an event. Describe the event by writing down what you see, what you hear, and what you feel about it. This is a basic exercise in writing a descriptive text (a text that functions to describe things, people, places, or events). The next day, read the diary again and find out whether you have missed certain details in your diary. Don't be hesitate to rewrite the diary, add missing details, or remove unnecessary details. The more you write your diary, the more your writing skill improves.

Related Article: Introduction to Writing

3.Paraphrasing quotes

Recently, we have so many "wise people" on social media. We can find quotes here and there. This is a good time for you to practice writing your own wise words. If you think you are not wise enough, don't worry, you can paraphrase other people's quotes.

For example, you can paraphrase Rumi's or Buddha's. Read a quote and try to understand the meaning. Then, write "the meaning" by using your words. For example, an original quote may sound like this "I am neither this hair nor this skin, I am the soul within" and the paraphrased version may sound like this "I am the soul behind this hair and skin that you adore every day." Post it on social media and look at how your friends react to it.

4.Commenting on posts

Writing in the comment section, either on social media or in this article is a very good to exercise your "authorial voice". Many people wrote useless comments on social media and many comments had led people to fight. Now, you can try to write what you think about an article or a status. Write the comment as a response to what you have read. Make sure that you write them without leaving any questions in the readers' minds. Don't assume that they will understand the idea that you offer through the comment; they don't unless you make it clear.

There are at least two basic requirements to writing practice: self-feedback and peer feedback. In writing a diary, you read your writing by yourself and try to improve it based on the feedback generated by the interaction between you and your text. In the other three exercises, you have real readers that will give you feedback although you don't ask them. Of course, many of them may give not respond to you as you expect but certainly, some of them will. Look at the effect that your text brings to people by observing their responses. Their responses are mirrors reflecting the quality of your text.