A Shortcut to Improved Writing Skills

 

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Are you someone who feels that becoming a great writer takes years of training and experience? Do you think that there is no shortcut to greatness--or even to written competency? Well, think again.

Copywriter and journalist Simon Townley believes that there is, indeed, a shortcut to developing your writing skills and/or assuming a particular writing style--it’s called imitation.

Imitating Great Writing--Word for Word

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it is also (according to Townley) the way to strengthen your writing skills.

Townley suggests that you take a piece of text that you admire--this can come from some text by your favorite author, from a piece of prose that has struck your fancy, or from a piece of advertising copy--and write it out by hand, word for word, on a piece of paper. Then write it out by hand again. And again. Keep writing the text until, says Townley, “it seems like it’s part of you.”

Though this seems absurdly robotic and much too easy, Townley says that this is a shortcut to improved writing skills that really works. But why and how can imitating--copying, actually-- another’s written text make you a better writer?

Well, Townley says,

“It’s great way…to learn the rhetorical tricks and techniques used by master writers, or to get a feel for how they express their ideas using a unique voice. This technique won’t necessarily give you full conscious awareness of the writing techniques being used in the original. But you will learn the lessons on a deeper level."

Makes sense to me. I’m so intrigued by Townley’s suggestion that I plan to try it myself and see if it really works. Have you ever tried this or a similar shortcut to improved writing skills and what were the results?