Writing Exercises

Marketing. Pitching. Tracking down potential clients. Project completion. Book-keeping.

A freelance writing career involves juggling many different priorities, few of which have much to do with the creative process of writing new content. Even when we set aside time for education and development, what subjects do we spend our time on? Learning SEO strategies? Keeping up-to-date on news and advancements in our field? Rarely, if ever, does dedicating study time to improving writing skills get the attention it deserves.

Writing is not a skill that you achieve and then forget about. Nor is it exclusively refined on the job (although this does help a lot). Writing needs conscious, well-thought-out practice. And so, to help you start this journey of continual writing development, I’m going to share three writing exercises that I regularly use to stay at the top of my game.

1 - Summarizing a summary

Task - Find a substantial article on a topic not associated with your field of expertise. Give it a read and try to produce a reasonably detailed five-sentence summary of the content. When you’re happy with these five sentences, try to cut the summary down to four sentences. Continue to progressively reduce the summary down to three sentences, then two, and then one.

Goal - I love this exercise as it forces me to practice a skill that tends to stress me out during project work - being concise. Consider the strategies you employ to condense the information at each stage of this task. How do you keep the article's essence with fewer and fewer words available to use? On completing this exercise, reflect on each stage and consider the value that each level of detail brings to creating a meaningful summary. Think about how this can be applied to your work. In what situations would using a long-form or short-form summary be beneficial? How can you use this knowledge to influence your approach to projects going forward?

2 - Explain a practical process

Task - Choose a practical task with multiple steps. This could be something professional (for instance, in the healthcare sector, you could choose to explain how to take blood) or something personal (such as making an espresso in the morning). In a numbered list, describe the process of completing this practical task.

Goal - This exercise aims to develop writing clarity and the use of descriptive language. Creating clear instructions without the use of visuals can present interesting challenges. Looking back on your work, consider what assumptions you have made about your audiences’ technical knowledge. Is their understanding of the terms and directions used the same as yours? Can you identify any potential pitfalls or misunderstandings your audience may fall into? The next time you need to describe a process for a project you are working on, think about the lessons learned from this exercise.

3 - Keyword tree

Task - Choose a subject on which to base an article. Again, this could be a professional or personal interest. Begin by choosing a keyword or phrase that defines your topic (for instance, if writing about how to make coffee with an espresso machine, you may select “espresso machine”). From here, begin to draw branches from this keyword to other useful or important phrases. Repeat this step with the new phrases to create a large tree diagram structure. Consider including paraphrasing, descriptors, or associated concepts (an example of this is included below).

Goal - Those familiar with Search Engine Optimization may recognize this exercise as a useful first step to take when mapping out potential keywords in their research process. In this scenario, we’re not so much thinking about terms that are search engine friendly, but rather, we are trying to explore how to introduce variety and interest into the language we use when writing. Are there any words or phrases that you may not have instinctively used when writing this article without the help of a keyword tree? Have any concepts or ideas come up that could provide an interesting alternative focus for a piece of work on the topic? Consider how using a keyword tree can help spark creativity for your next project.

So those are three simple writing exercises that can easily fit into any busy freelancer’s schedule. Do you have any tips or tricks for sharpening your writing skills? Please feel free to let me know!