An Unorthodox Way To Improve Your Writing
Lesson from Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter S. Thompson had an unorthodox method for improving his writing:
He would copy the work of his favorite writers.
"If you type out somebody's work, you learn a lot. Basically it's music."
Thompson famously typed out passages by:
• William Faulkner
• Ernest Hemingway
• F. Scott Fitzgerald
"I wanted to learn from the best, and that was one way to do it."
He even typed out all of The Great Gatsby word for word…
Have you ever tried this method?
I've written out parts of The Great Gatsby by hand.
You really do get a feel for the rhythm of the writing.
Want to go deeper? There are 2 ways I can help you:
I will try that.
Yes! This is a helpful way to get a feel for someone's voice and different writing styles. I haven't tried it very much, but I did find that handwriting it gives a much better feel than typing and I'll second a recommendation for trying it at least once. I think Ursula K. Le Guin also mentioned something similar in Steering the Craft, but I can't remember exactly.