As a follow-up to “Episode 12: Here Are My Words”, Fable and the Verbivore revisit the imitation exercises that they used previously with poetry to refine their voices on the prose side of writing. Embracing again the exciting and intimidating place of reading our own words, we set out to delve into different ways in which we can use this practice to help analyze and refine our writing styles.

Pulling from Stephen King’s On Writing, C. S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces, and Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life, we each took a different approach with our inspiration pieces which served to show how dynamic this exercise can be depending on what aspects of your writing you are hoping to explore.   

The Verbivore choose to use a story setting, description piece from Stephen King’s On Writing (Pg. 173-178), as a way to look at his stripped down writing style and simple word choices to delve further into her own writing structure and editing preferences.

Fable turned to the opening sequence from C. S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces (Pg. 3), to explore the emotional interest and intrigue of this piece while also accusing the gods of treating mortals as their playthings.

And lastly, Fable shares a second piece where she retells an anecdote from Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life (Pg. 85-88), that reads like a parable meant to illustrate the push and pull of the life of a creative.

We hope you enjoy the pieces that we share on this episode and would highly recommend this practice as a way to continue refining your own voice and analyzing what resonates with you as part of a given work of writing. We would also love for you to join us in this exercise as part of the 100 days project starting on April 7th and look forward to hearing what ideas and words you create. The hashtag we are using on Instagram is #imitatelikeawriter.

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore