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Written by Jeffery Stevenson
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Saturday, 18 December 2004 |
As a youngster, I found myself involved in lots of sports--everything from football to diving to tennis. I went through lots of different training routines, and aside from my own personal fitness, there wasn't much need for those types of training regimens after school. At least, not until I started writing again. With my writing, I had interesting concepts...I had fairly well-defined characters...I had a good grasp of where the story was headed...I had problems getting it all down on paper. Oh, I'd push on to get it done, but it took time...a lot of time. I knew if I wanted to make a career out of writing some day, I'd need to be able to step up when needed to take on deadlines. I needed some practice.
I started by working on my writing discipline. I set aside time each day to do nothing but write...but after a few months, I still struggled. Sentences seemed to linger on forever, and a couple hours of writing might net me a paragraph or two. It was like going to the gym for a few hours each day and wandering around aimlessly while trying to figure out the best machine to tackle next. I decided it was time to develop a better way to train and hone my writing abilities, so I developed some basic writing speed drills, which I adapted from some of the old track and field training the coaches used to help get me in shape when I was younger.
30-minute all-out drill:
This drill focuses on keeping the creative thoughts flowing. It helps you go from concept to written story pages as quickly as possible. First, you'll need a way to generate random people, places, things, or writing prompts. I use the LifeJournal program, which can do this, but there's also the Writer's Digest daily writing prompts, random encyclopedia pages from Wikipedia, or you could just write words on scraps of paper and toss them in a bucket. Next, you'll need a stopwatch or a timer of some kind (another built-in feature of LifeJournal, but there are also freeware programs out there like Egg Timer and Timeleft).
Now, you'll need to establish a measurable metric to gauge your "speed." In track, it's distance over time (like running the 100 yard dash in 10.6 seconds)...in writing, you could establish a measure of words or pages over time. I keep to pages because I switch between comic scripting, prose, and screenwriting, and it's just easier to count for each one (for prose one page is approximately 250 words). To start with, you'll need to establish your initial rate and determine any inconsistencies in your technique/form. Spend three days where you pick a random subject and just write for 30 minutes and then document the number of pages completed in that time. It doesn't need to be an entire story; it can be just a scene (fight scene, characters interacting, an ending, or just a beginning) or whatever...you just need to focus on writing as many pages as you can in 30 minutes. If you have trouble starting and find yourself staring at the blank page...cheat! "The word today is 'Paris.' Paris is a city in France. It's the home of the Eiffel Tower and..." You automatically know the word and what it is, so write those down to break the blank page jitters. And be sure to let your writing flow quickly and naturally...it's okay to write poorly for this. Repeat that sentence...it's okay to write poorly for this. In fact, it's important to let your most common misspellings and grammatical errors show up.
Either now or later on in the day, go back through what you wrote and revise it. Look for misspellings, grammar problems, lack of clarity, "loose" storytelling that doesn't seem to go from point-to-point fluidly, etc. If you have trouble identifying these things, find someone to help you...a writing mentor, a teacher at your school, a friend that works as an English teacher, or the like. Jot down notes on any problems that occur multiple times. After your first three days, find out your average page rate (mine started at about 3/4 page in 30 minutes and grew to 1 page every 20-25 minutes, and my goal for the end of the year is to close in on an average of 1 page every 15 minutes). Now, go through your notes and find the top 5 problems you had (if you have more than 5, pick the 5 you think are the biggest problems for you...if less than 5, double up the worst offenders for your list) and assign those to a specific day of the week (leaving two days open). Set aside time to write for 30 minutes each day (Monday-Sunday), and about an hour or two at the end of the week to go through your writing to identify the most commonly occurring problems again (to keep your "problem" list up to date). Now, pick a random topic, and write using the timer. On days with problems listed, write the problem on an index card and place it on your keyboard so you keep it fresh in your mind. While you burn through writing for that day, make sure you focus on that problem and try to eliminate it from your writing. On the days without problems, just write as fast as you can. The goal is to keep at it every day until you reach a page rate you want to be at with as few problems occurring as possible.
Sprint the straights/jog the curves:
This drill easily incorporates with any writing you're currently working on. Just write 3 pages as you normally would, but when you get to the 4th, burn through it as fast as you possibly can. Then resume your normal pace for 3 more pages and repeat the writing sprint on the 4th page. After you finish your draft, go back to those sprint pages and write down the errors you find with them (again, looking for the most common ones to focus on). After a month or so of this, it will start to feel "easier"...switch it up to do 3 pages normal and 2 pages sprinting. Then 2 and 2, 3 and 3, and so on.
Speed Synopses/Outlines:
Okay, this one I didn't adapt from my track-and-field days...I borrowed it from artists. Many artists do quick, rough thumbnails of their pages, so that when they get to the page to draw, they can focus on the drawing. So, I always start a story with a quick synopsis and a rough outline...sometimes this can take a while, so I decided it was a good candidate for practice (at the time of this column, I'd just started this drill a few months ago). Just take some of your existing story ideas you're working on (or planning on working on in the future) and use them in this practice. I use the time set aside for the all-out speed drills for these, so I try to get a rough synopsis for a single issue done in under 30 minutes (and revise it as necessary later on noting any problems for later drills). The next day, I convert that synopsis into a quick outline for the script...just a one-line description of what's on each page. The day after that, I'll expand even further to include quick, one-line descriptions for each panel on each page. This gets in some good practice on structuring a story, and as a side benefit, it leaves you with outlines that make it easy for you to jump into your other stories when you're ready to write them.
Resistance drills:
After 2 or 3 months of drillwork, you'll start to feel a little more comfortable with them. You'll probably also start to hit a plateau. Well, the best way to break down a stalled training routine is to switch gears. Do something different. One thing I did was spend a week writing all of my speed drills backwards. For comic script, I wrote the last panel first, then went to the previous until I hit panel 1 and then on to the page before that. Another good resistance drill is to take a genre/subject that either bores you to tears or you absolutely despise and write nothing but that for a week.
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And that's all there is to it. Some people out there might be thinking, "It's just writing, so why put so much effort into training for it? You've been writing since you were a little kid anyways." And they have a point...most people started writing at a young age. Most people also learned to run before they ever learned how to read or write. Does that mean they can hop onto a track and compete against highly trained college or Olympic-level athletes? I mean...it's just running after all.
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