An exercize in improving your craft

For today's blog I'm going to teach you something that I've been doing to improve my craft. I have been reading many top selling/well written books and I'll take an opening paragraph or a particular scene and write one of my characters in to the scene. I try to keep as near as possible to the tone and feel of the scene without stealing the exact wording.

What this does is forces me to try to write as well as some of these top authors. It really gets me thinking about the way the scene is put together, the purpose of each word and the mood that is conveyed with those words.

Think about when you were in school and you had to write a limerick in English class. You were being introduced to a new style of writing. It is the same concept here. Take three or four really great openings to novels and see how they make you feel, how do they suck you in to the story and how can you do that with your own characters.

Of course, I'm not telling you to share this anywhere or to pass the writing off as your own, but rather, look at this as an exercise. It truly is. I have grown substantially as a writer simply by doing this with the intro of every book I read.

Your Coach for the Journey, Tiffany Colter