10 Easy Exercises To Improve Your Writing

For the past 5 years, I’ve made a living off of freelancing and creating content on the internet. I’ve gone through and finished countless writing programs, exercises, and activities.

Here’s what I found:

You don’t need to go get a master’s degree to be great in writing. The key to improving your content is consistency and a conscious effort towards improvement. Every sentence in a paragraph and every line in a sentence should be scrutinized and edited. There’s no one way to write well, there’s only the constant effort to do better. 

The next piece you publish should be better than the last. 

In this article, we’ll uncover some of the practices that I’ve been doing on a daily basis and explaining how they can benefit you’re writing. 

10 Easy Exercises For Writing

Each of these exercises is a method that I’ve done before to improve my writing. I used these routines to develop my vocabulary, improve my grammar, and as justification for charging more per word. 

Exercise 1: Read 20 pages every day

It goes without saying that one of the best ways to improve your writing is simply by exposing yourself to other people’s work. 

Pick up a book and read 20 pages every day. Not only will this allow you to understand how established authors create compelling work but it will also expand your worldview and general knowledge.

Think about this: if the average book is around 200-240 pages, then you’ll be finishing one every 10-12 days. Imagine how many new ideas you’d have every week if you read 20 pages a day. 

Exercise 2: Learn 5 synonyms for every new word

Every time you figure out a new word, learn 5 synonyms and use each of them in a paragraph. Synonyms are important because they not only expand your vocabulary but also make your writing more interesting. They keep the reader entertained and help with the flow of the piece. 

Check out the last book you read and notice that they almost never use the same word on the same page twice. 

Exercise 3: Write 300 words in a journal every day

One of the best writing prompts out there are your own personal thoughts. Practice writing them down and keep them concise. It doesn’t have to be the best piece you’ve ever written – just let the words flow through you. This exercise should provide you with a better grasp of grammar and sentence structure. 

Exercise 4: Create 3 analogies for daily events

Get creative with your storytelling and write analogies for daily events. 3 analogies are the perfect number to be creative while also not drying the well too much. As I did this exercise, I really focused on generating creative analogies that still made sense.

Trust me, this translates well into your writing. 

Exercise 5: Writing a short fiction story in 15 minutes

If something interesting happened to you today, flex those brain muscles and create a story around it. Maybe you saw a basketball roll down the street and that got you thinking about all the cool places a basketball could take you – from the courts around your neighborhood to tens of thousands of screaming fans in an NBA arena.

Get creative and have fun with it. After a couple months, revisit your old work and see what you should have done differently and take note of changes. 

Exercise 6: Fill up grammar workbooks and read the dictionary

It won’t matter how good your story is if people can’t understand your writing. Good grammar and spelling is the bread and butter of great writing. Through grammar, you are able to provide information in a way that help’s the reader’s comprehension. Through spelling, you are able to convey the precise meaning behind the sentences from the writer to the audience.

Fill up a couple of pages in a grammar workbook every day and add 5 new words to your vocabulary. Eliminate clerical errors from your writing and provide a clear and concise message to your readers.

Exercise 7: Practice different forms of writing every week

There are 4 main types of writing styles, persuasive, narrative, expository, and descriptive. Here’s a quick breakdown:

1. Persuasive – when you’re trying to convince the reader to commit to a certain action
2. Narrative – when you’re entertaining the reader and telling them a story
3. Expository – when you’re informing a reader on events in a journalistic manner
4. Descriptive – when you’re describing imagery to create a clear picture in the reader’s mind. 

You’ll find a use for each of these different forms of writing as you progress throughout your career. Maximize your ability to engage the audience by learning and practicing these 4 major forms of writing.

Exercise 8: Copy articles from your favourite author

This is one of my favorite writing exercises to date.

Essentially, you take your favorite author’s blog posts or books and literally copy them word for word by hand.

Along the way, you should be conscious of sentence structures and how they frame situations.

You could take notes of the lines that struck you and identify the key points in a piece or chapter and study how these key points are explored.

Is there a pattern?

Does it go something like “1st Story => Explanation => 2nd Story => Explanation => Main Point”?

Is there a formula that keeps you engaged?

Copy their work and find out.

Exercise 9: Leave your writing projects alone for a couple of days

As a copywriter, I tend to stay in my head a lot. This means that I make neural connections that might not make sense outside of my brain. So, whenever I finish a piece or a certain piece of copy, I take a step back and leave it alone for at least 2 days.

I revisit it a couple of days later and ask the following questions:

1. Does it make sense?
2. Is it interesting?
3. Does it suit the target demographic?
4. What does it tell you to do?
5. Is it convincing?

If I can’t answer all of these questions, then it’s back to the drawing board

Exercise 10: Edit your old work

Lastly, spend an entire day just going over your past work – editing and revising. This does two things:

1. Serve as motivation for you to keep going after you see how far you’ve come.
2. Notice patterns and sentence structures that you might want to change.

Like the athlete and his obsession with game film, this exercise requires you to read over your old writing, formulate annotations for mistakes, create a strategy for improvement and execute.

You’ll surely come out a better writer after this.