September 28, 2020

Learning through mimicry

When I learn anything, mimicry is important. It’s the whole theory behind role models and heroes – you can’t be what you can’t see, right? When I was learning golf, I copied players that were better than me. When I was learning how to be a designer, I did the same. I also did this with cooking: Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, Luke Nguyen, Rick Stein. So, why should writing be any different? Here comes my dirty little secret? I copy great writers, word-for-word.

Yes, that’s right, I have a folder on my computer full of text files with great writer’s words, but I write them. My heroes are all there: Oliver Jeffers, Roald Dahl, Les Murray, Caroline Magerl, Stephen Michael King, Isobelle Carmody, Mem Fox, everyone. Writing is as much an intellectual activity as it is a physical one. While I read voraciously for intellectual training, voraciously copying helps re-enforce how it feels to write a good story. Where does the punctuation land? How many syllables in a line? How does it feel to end a chapter at a cliffhanger? It’s only when you feel it that you get a better sense of what you like and don’t like about writing and style. You can choose what to take into your work and what to leave behind.

I’ve been doing this for years, and it’s been so transformative that it’s one of the first things I tell anyone who asks me how to become a better writer – do what anyone who’s learning will do – copy what you love, word-for-word, until you feel it in your bones, until it gets into your muscle memory. It’s surprising what your fingers will do, automatically, when you begin to write for yourself. So go forth and become a copycat, just feel it, then watch what happens.

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