Rendezvous With Writing
A Small Writing Exercise
In The Art of Fiction by John Gardner (Knoph Doubleday, 2010), Gardner proposes a writing exercise for when you want to improve your writing skills. He says forget whatever story you’re working on for a while and concentrate on something small, on one element, an exchange of dialogue for instance, or a description of a building. A specific assignment he gives is to write a short description of a barn as seen through the eyes of a grieving father, but you aren’t allowed to use the words death or grief. To convey the father’s emotion, you have to use concrete details. Not, “It was a rainy day,” but “Rain fell in punishing, quarter-sized drops and pocked the newly turned garden soil adjacent to the barn.”
