I got the idea of copying from Benjamin McEvoy on YT, and apparently many famous historical figures have done the same (counting Benjamin Franklin among them).
Can't wait to do it when I'm retired (that is, when I finally have the time).
I really enjoyed this post. Thanks for sharing it!
I've taught writing for more than 30 years now, and you're right that this approach doesn't show up much in contemporary writing instruction. I could only think of a couple of places where I've seen it expressly posed as an option, and this despite the strategy being a part of rhetorical education reaching back to ancient Greece. It is still present, but pretty broadly diffused: some of us still strongly encourage students to read drafts aloud, which helps to slow us down and pay attention to individual wording, sentence rhythm, length, etc., for example. But as curricular expectations grew, we were encouraged to make reading and writing itself something to be done outside of shared class time. Honestly, I think AI may signal a return for us to a classroom focus on hands-on reading and writing practice. We'll see.
For my part, I teach a course on style, and I draw on Queneau's Exercises in Style for inspiration. I ask students to take a short piece of writing, and revise it multiple times, incorporating all sorts of different constraints, examining what effects those changes have, etc. In the second half of the course, I encourage them to engage in the same kind of analysis (of others' writing) that you do above with Mantel and Melville. I want them to be able to identify and understand those writerly choices, to see how they aggregate into what we think of as a writer's style. It's a fun course for me to teach, and many of my students seem to appreciate the approach of looking at 1 page closely rather than 100 pages quickly. It's not quite what you're describing here, but it's related, I think.
Sorry about the wall of text--I'd originally just planned on saying that, based on my experience, there's never just one "right thing to do," and that your post matches up with a lot of what I believe about how we (should) learn about writing. Thanks again for sharing your practice in such detail! -cgb
This is called copywork in Charlotte Mason education! Find yourself any homeschooler and I can almost guarantee they've heard of it ha. My kids have done it for many years.
Love all of this! I've been writing by hand a lot more over the past few years and have grown to really love that experience. There's something about a good fountain pen and a notebook!
I've been carrying around a tiny notebook and copying down poems and quotes that mean a lot to me in my free time and have encountered the same wonderful experience. Guess it's time to give first pages of books a try!
This piece reminded me of the almost mythical story about how Hunter S Thompson “re-typed entire novels like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby word-for-word just to absorb the rhythm and feel of great prose.”
That sounds right, like something that would help you become a better writer, but Thompson did a lot of drugs, so that probably helped more.
When I was young I decided to copy out the entire Bible by hand. I got my thickest notebook but after only a few chapters of Genesis the notebook was filled. It lead to me getting really interested in font and typography as a negotiation with the real estate on the page and not just aesthetics.
Copying by hand has been a wonderful exploration of this same real estate and how authors use it to convey more than just the abstractions of the words, like how you point out with Melville.
You may be familiar with this already but in light of this topic, you should check out Borges' "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote." It's a full-on chucklefest, and because it's Borges it also leaves you with a knotted brain and a mild headache.
That's one of my favorite Borges stories. This also calls to mind Tobias Wolff's Old School, which involves a student plagiarist who feels like the story really is his.
Inspired by Jack London, when I first started writing seriously, I did a lot of this, and found it tremendously helpful (or at least, I think it was—it's hard to draw such an inference). I still do copywork today, as an aspiring novelist, and just whenever I need to figure out a new form.
I read an article years ago about a novelist (this time a contemporary one!) who used this method to improve to the point of getting published. I bring her up because she used a certain strategy you might find helpful: she chose a novel that she would like her work-in-progress to resemble, and focused on hand-copying it every day before her writing session.
Anyways, best of luck of on the project. I hope to read it one day. If it's as thoughtful as your non-fiction, I'm sure it'll be lovely.
(P.S. part of me wonders if the most impactful part of copywork is that it forces you to bring a certain intense type of attention to the page, which makes reading like a writer inevitable).
The same idea has been to musical improvisation by transcribing music then playing them on their instrument. Jazz musicians and rock guitarists learn solos for their heroes. It, too, build taste, but it builds one's vocabulary and style.
The other way of learning is by analysis, looking for patterns and/or rules in the masters' work, then applying the patterns or rules. I find this to be drier than transcribing. To me analysis is good for being able to talk about someone's work, but it's not great for internalizing it. Analysis goes into the brain; transcribing goes directly into the heart.
If you want to add one more step to your process of learning from the masters, recite the words after you've written them out. Storytelling, like music, are oral traditions, and speaking and listening also help into getting the words into your heart.
Copying the masters is actually part of the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) curriculum used by a lot of homeschool groups and classical schools
I love writing story notes by hand. I feel a lot more connected to what I'm saying and what I want when I do that.
Pretty much any planning or notes for essays / stories / books etc go onto physical paper. I remember it better, and — like you — I feel like my voice comes out a lot more.
I have tried _writing_ writing a story on physical paper yet. Maybe one day.
Fascinating to see someone with such a similar experience to my own. I first started exploring writing, the thing that eventually became my life, by rewriting one piece manga and imitating the unfortunate events series as a kid.
I got the idea of copying from Benjamin McEvoy on YT, and apparently many famous historical figures have done the same (counting Benjamin Franklin among them).
Can't wait to do it when I'm retired (that is, when I finally have the time).
I really enjoyed this post. Thanks for sharing it!
I've taught writing for more than 30 years now, and you're right that this approach doesn't show up much in contemporary writing instruction. I could only think of a couple of places where I've seen it expressly posed as an option, and this despite the strategy being a part of rhetorical education reaching back to ancient Greece. It is still present, but pretty broadly diffused: some of us still strongly encourage students to read drafts aloud, which helps to slow us down and pay attention to individual wording, sentence rhythm, length, etc., for example. But as curricular expectations grew, we were encouraged to make reading and writing itself something to be done outside of shared class time. Honestly, I think AI may signal a return for us to a classroom focus on hands-on reading and writing practice. We'll see.
For my part, I teach a course on style, and I draw on Queneau's Exercises in Style for inspiration. I ask students to take a short piece of writing, and revise it multiple times, incorporating all sorts of different constraints, examining what effects those changes have, etc. In the second half of the course, I encourage them to engage in the same kind of analysis (of others' writing) that you do above with Mantel and Melville. I want them to be able to identify and understand those writerly choices, to see how they aggregate into what we think of as a writer's style. It's a fun course for me to teach, and many of my students seem to appreciate the approach of looking at 1 page closely rather than 100 pages quickly. It's not quite what you're describing here, but it's related, I think.
Sorry about the wall of text--I'd originally just planned on saying that, based on my experience, there's never just one "right thing to do," and that your post matches up with a lot of what I believe about how we (should) learn about writing. Thanks again for sharing your practice in such detail! -cgb
This is called copywork in Charlotte Mason education! Find yourself any homeschooler and I can almost guarantee they've heard of it ha. My kids have done it for many years.
Love all of this! I've been writing by hand a lot more over the past few years and have grown to really love that experience. There's something about a good fountain pen and a notebook!
I've been carrying around a tiny notebook and copying down poems and quotes that mean a lot to me in my free time and have encountered the same wonderful experience. Guess it's time to give first pages of books a try!
This piece reminded me of the almost mythical story about how Hunter S Thompson “re-typed entire novels like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby word-for-word just to absorb the rhythm and feel of great prose.”
That sounds right, like something that would help you become a better writer, but Thompson did a lot of drugs, so that probably helped more.
Copying prose usually ends up feeling like hypnosis after a while, like I'm being indoctrinated into their cult of style... but in a good way lol
When I was young I decided to copy out the entire Bible by hand. I got my thickest notebook but after only a few chapters of Genesis the notebook was filled. It lead to me getting really interested in font and typography as a negotiation with the real estate on the page and not just aesthetics.
Copying by hand has been a wonderful exploration of this same real estate and how authors use it to convey more than just the abstractions of the words, like how you point out with Melville.
You may be familiar with this already but in light of this topic, you should check out Borges' "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote." It's a full-on chucklefest, and because it's Borges it also leaves you with a knotted brain and a mild headache.
That's one of my favorite Borges stories. This also calls to mind Tobias Wolff's Old School, which involves a student plagiarist who feels like the story really is his.
Inspired by Jack London, when I first started writing seriously, I did a lot of this, and found it tremendously helpful (or at least, I think it was—it's hard to draw such an inference). I still do copywork today, as an aspiring novelist, and just whenever I need to figure out a new form.
I read an article years ago about a novelist (this time a contemporary one!) who used this method to improve to the point of getting published. I bring her up because she used a certain strategy you might find helpful: she chose a novel that she would like her work-in-progress to resemble, and focused on hand-copying it every day before her writing session.
Anyways, best of luck of on the project. I hope to read it one day. If it's as thoughtful as your non-fiction, I'm sure it'll be lovely.
(P.S. part of me wonders if the most impactful part of copywork is that it forces you to bring a certain intense type of attention to the page, which makes reading like a writer inevitable).
You should heck out how Benjamin Franklin learned to write he used this process with added elements!!
https://qz.com/914305/benjamin-franklin-wasnt-a-natural-talent-heres-how-he-taught-himself-to-write
The same idea has been to musical improvisation by transcribing music then playing them on their instrument. Jazz musicians and rock guitarists learn solos for their heroes. It, too, build taste, but it builds one's vocabulary and style.
The other way of learning is by analysis, looking for patterns and/or rules in the masters' work, then applying the patterns or rules. I find this to be drier than transcribing. To me analysis is good for being able to talk about someone's work, but it's not great for internalizing it. Analysis goes into the brain; transcribing goes directly into the heart.
If you want to add one more step to your process of learning from the masters, recite the words after you've written them out. Storytelling, like music, are oral traditions, and speaking and listening also help into getting the words into your heart.
Copying the masters is actually part of the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) curriculum used by a lot of homeschool groups and classical schools
I love writing story notes by hand. I feel a lot more connected to what I'm saying and what I want when I do that.
Pretty much any planning or notes for essays / stories / books etc go onto physical paper. I remember it better, and — like you — I feel like my voice comes out a lot more.
I have tried _writing_ writing a story on physical paper yet. Maybe one day.
Fascinating to see someone with such a similar experience to my own. I first started exploring writing, the thing that eventually became my life, by rewriting one piece manga and imitating the unfortunate events series as a kid.
Thank you for inspiration, I will try.