Photo by Roland Tanglao
By nature, human beings are creatures of habit. We stick to what we’re good at it and we like to do what we've always done.
Habit is defined as “a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.’”And habits are hard for us to give up. That’s why it’s so difficult for us to make a major lifestyle change—it breaks us out of our comfort zone.
For writers, though, habit can be particularly detrimental.
Get Uncomfortable
As writers, we often want to write what we’re comfortable writing. We want to write what we always write. We want to write like we've written before.
However, readers don’t like reading the same old style, written by the same old author. They want something new, fresh, unique, different, and exciting.
Habit makes our writing boring and predictable. Writing requires a set of rules, a formula that must be followed. But it’s boring if every piece of writing follows the same formula. Writers need to find new equations for new pieces of writing. If you remain in your comfort zone, you will not go any further.
How to Write Out of Your Comfort Zone
So, how do you break out of your comfort zone and write something that you’ve never done before? By buckling down, gritting our teeth and forcing ourselves to do the opposite of what we normally do.
If your characters are always male, make them female. If you write about characters that can’t stand each other, write about characters that fall in love. If you write adult books, try writing childrens’ books. If you prefer writing non-fiction, try your hand at fiction. And if you can’t think of any way to break out of your comfort zone, ask friends to suggest something new or take inspiration from genres that you never write, or authors that write in styles that are the complete opposite of yours.
Breaking a habit is difficult and unpleasant, but it breaks mental boundaries, and who knows? You might even enjoy it, or fall in love with what you find. You might find a new style of writing that is perfect for you, or it might make you realize how amazing your usual style actually is.
Do you ever try to write outside of your comfort zone?
PRACTICE
Write for fifteen minutes in a way that you have never written before and is completely outside your comfort zone.
When you’re finished, post your practice in the comments, and be sure to comment on your fellow writers’ practices.
Castle Burr, a human castle, ‘twas not at all as Greybo imagined. Nay, human handiwork was miserable at best for they made terrible masons. The castle was
only a mite better than the shanties they passed in the streets. Greybo, with his company, waited for the gate to open, so they could be movin’ into the courtyard. His horse shifted this way and that way, waitin’ to be on the move again. Far be it from a dwarf’s comfort, ridin’ on an over-sized pony. Only for his hopes to be bringin’ an army with him, a human one, did he do thusly. This blasted king, he was a pompous one. Greybo was thinkin’ if he be findin’ help, ‘twould not be from this blunderin’ fool.
“Come on, ye blasted humans. Slower than milkin’ a sloth.” His three dwarven
companions chuckled.
At last, the portcullis clanged opened. What a racket human goods made. Of little wonder they not be livin’ long as dwarfs. Harsh as the outside world is, how be it they survive with their half-hearted tools, homes, and castles. They ne’er
be a staple in history.
Nigh the stables, the dwarfs tied their mares. Greybo had an audience with this very king a time before, when humans had first settled in the valley; the valley he and his fellow dwarfs had tamed. Alas, selfishness and stupidity shall rule
this neighboring world, Greybo thought. Albeit he thought himself correct, the
lack of goodness in the king proved the greater. Hail ye, Lord Tethuan Rhakor
the Worthless. He hoped he’d control his temper, and not be lopin’ the king’s
head off.
“Lord Rhakor awaits thee. Mind thee thy manners, dwarf,” the
guard talked down to him. Greybo, he not be likin’ that. A swift boot to his
leg and a good knockin’ in his mouth woulda’ shut him up right. Perhaps later.
They entered the keep. Greybo lolled about the wide corridor, noticin’ a lack of
tapestries upon the walls. Dah! Boring, who decorated this dunghole? “This
castle be needin’ the touch of a woman. May the Lady have mercy!” ‘Twas but a shadow of days gone.
Greybo knelt afore the throne, albeit withholding his strain. The king, his hair
uncombed, his beard ‘aclump, and the air about him drunk with rum, sat
thereupon. If the castle be a dung heap, Lord Rhakor sure be the king of it.
“Greetings, Lord Tethuan.” Greybo choked, for the words stuck in his throat.
“Lord Rhakor,” a guardsman corrected with disdain.
Leanin’ his head on his hand, the king spoke, “What dost thou want, dwarf?” His agitation was as clear as him bein’ drunk.
“Certainly, ye’ve noticed the increase in orcs and goblin raids of late. How many villagers have ye lost to these raids? How many more do ye stand to lose? Me kin in the north be facin’ liken odds, two-fold. Prophets be speakin’ of dark times. I fear there may be some truth to it.”
“Bah! Prophets press their fears of these things ‘til kingdom come. A few peasants have been killed with the increasing raids, nothing I shall concern myself with. These walls,” he spread his arms wide and shifted from side to side, “will not be scaled. Now, what dost thou want?”
Greybo wanted to be barin ’ his teeth at him, but he held them fast. Was his plight truly perilous enough to be askin’ help from this whelp? “Me kin sent to us for help, they’ve been under siege for many a fortnight. An army of orcs and goblins, aye, workin’ as one. Ye know the likes of orcs and goblins not to be bandin’ together, save they be havin’ an intelligent and powerful hand behind them. Me kin are in danger, milord. I be comin’ to ask ye to spare any ye might.” Greybo loosed his hand from his hip and looked into the king’s very eyes. “As we speak, an army of dwarfs from my own clan march to the Spinespear Mountains. Lord Rhakor, the King on High calls to ye, will ye answer him?”
I love this!! A fun approach and a very enjoyable read! Great stuff.
The dialogue has a nice rhythm to it.
Rhythm is good. I’d didn’t really think about rhythm. but if it is there it is awesome. Rhythm helps the reader flow over the passage quickly, and have to glance back less.
Thanks for point out it was there.
Nicely said.
This is a very good article, Shoshana. I’ve written in various genres: poetry, contemporary and historical fiction, romance, children’s. I’ve never written a murder mystery or western. The thing is, genres I never write in I never would write in, so why practice? (Says old stick-in-the-mud. 🙂 )
All right. Here’s my version of “Frontier Justice.”
From his spot in the loft of the barn, Gallager took aim through a knothole in the old wood, careful to keep the rifle barrel mostly hidden. He had his former partner in his sights as Jesse rode up to the saloon. Before Jesse could dismount, Gallager pulled the trigger and Jesse fell in a heap on the ground beside his horse. He could see folks jerk and start to look around but no one had noticed where the shot came from.
Gallager smiled. Now he’d get the whole stash of gold from their bank heist – and he’d get the girl. Oh, yeah, he’d shed enough crocodile tears at the funeral that no one would suspect him of the murder. Everyone knew they were pals. And then he’d present himself as one of the most sympathetic guys Francie ever saw. He’d make himself so helpful to the grieving widow that she couldn’t help leaning on him. Then, after a respectable time had passed…
Gallager chuckled and stashed the rifle in the hay beside him. He’d come back for it later. For now he’d best mingle innocently with the crowd gathered and speculate along with them as to who’d done this cowardly deed.
He had one foot on the hayloft ladder, starting to climb down, but as he swung his other foot over, it snagged on a piece of wire and Gallager lost his balance. He felt a crazy falling sensation, then a bone-shaking thump as he hit the dirt floor below.
The last thought that passed through his mind before he lost consciousness was some verse from the Bible that his mother had quoted when he was a kid at home. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that also shall he reap.”
Attention! Fughoss to the flight deck!
Fughoss rolled off Mutwomp with a groan. It wasn’t that he cared much about cutting short his tryst with the dirty Flagellian, although he had to admit it had been satisfactory while it lasted. It was more the irritation of knowing that his recent promotion to Sundershock Superintendent had had basically had no effect on his essential subservience to the Higher Being. It was unavoidable – his time was never his own. It didn’t matter where he was or what he was doing, whether skulking down a shockshaft, or shooting up floxbait under cover of doing a maintenance run, or fucking a Flagellian slugwhore in what he considered to be his free time and his own bunk. No, if the Higher Being needed you, it made no difference if you were a slave or a slavemeister, because all shipdwellers must answer first and foremost to the call of the UberLord.
Now, Fughoss!
The voice in his noseshell set up a reverberation through his cranium that was both painful and pleasurable. For the fifth time that evenday he stuck his forefinger into his nostril and poked around fiercely. If he shoved it up there really hard, he could just feel the smooth end of the shell, indented inwards and slippery as slate. He knew that from that point it reached back and split into two arms, one of which snaked through his nasal passages to eventually implant itself in his cochlea, the other which extended like the swamp tentacle of a Jewjock jabberpus into the deepest recesses of his hippocampus. But despite all his attempts, he could not hook a fingernail around the end of the shell. He didn’t even know what he would do, what he could do, if he succeeded.
Hurry the fuck up, Fughoss.
Now the voice had lost all of its stridency. It was matter of fact, a low purr like the ship’s dwellcat, an animal that prowled the lower decks in the mornight and wrapped its silky flanks around the ankles of the shore crew. Shore duty novitiates, not forewarned by their squad members (who waited with baited breath for the outcome, stifling snickers with filthy leather gauntleted fists) would reach down, intrigued by the shine of the dwellcat’s fur in the green blinking lights of the docking sunshuttles.
The dwellcat’s fangs were long, barbed and yellow. They sank deep into the pale virgin flesh of the noviates’ palms.
The tone of the piece fascinates, as well as the world of dwellcats, shockshaft and fluxbait. Whatever they are, they leave the imagination to weave together something from the action.
Welcome Shoshana! Wonderful that at 14 you’re already a writing veteran. 🙂 I remember being that age, recently immigrated to the US, writing a novel and thinking there is nothing better on this planet than to be able to write. I couldn’t wait to get home from school…
Do I ever write out of my comfort zone? All the time, and yet I’m discovering that all of my stories have a common underlying theme, a search, a quest. But I don’t think it’s about genre—you can find all sorts of unknown and “uncomfortable” places within the same genre. I think good writing by definition is “outside of the comfort zone” precisely because that’s what makes it good writing.
Man.
This Guest Post utterly blew my mind. To read a Writing Prompt that was this logical and clear thinking, is amazing, especially considering it is by a 14 year old. I know 60-year old academics (ie professors) who don’t have this much commonsense and logic and rationality. Anyway.
(Though by the way there is a typo. I bet nobody but me so far noticed this? LOL)
Read that 2nd sentence again.
“We stick to what we’re good at it and we like to do what we’ve always done.”
Aaaaanyway
This exercise was tough for me – as I’ve been (creative) writing, professionally (and amateur-ly, ie in my spare time, on spec, for nothing 🙂 for 20 years.
So I’ve pretty much tried everything.
It is therefore almost impossible for me to “do the opposite” (like Costanza in Seinfeld, right? LOL)
ie – I’ve already `done the opposite’…
I’ve done it Every Which Way but (and also including) Loose.
(I don’t even know what that means.)
ie –
I’ve written both male and female characters (and even weird asexual and trisexual alien characters – eg in sci fi)
I’ve written in every major Genre… and, I’ve also written hybrid-genre works (ie made up new Genres.).
I’ve written fiction, and non-fiction, and hybrids of the two.
I’ve written adults – and childrens – and `hybrid’ – books, films, TV, picture books, non-picture books, poetry, etc etc etc.
It sucks, but – the only way for me to “do the opposite” is: NOT TO WRITE
LOL
So it;s hard to work out what the opposite would ever be, in my case.
Anyway it took me a while (like 5 mins of serious soul-searching, thorough list-making, brainstorming, random thought-thinking, etc) to try and think of – in my case – what could possibly be: “the opposite”…
(ie There is nothing that `obviously leaps to mind’…)
But – Here is one approach: (Just to look at – fiction)
Usually – (lets call it a `habit’) any given piece of my (fiction) writing (whether film, novel, short story etc) has
A Premise (e.g.: )
A Theme(s) – e.g. “99% of Hollywood film execs are retards, I can scientifically & mathematically prove it.”
Character(s) – human or animal or even inanimate (I wrote a story about an atom once)
1) A Structure – eg
(1) Someone – has (2) a Problem – and (3) makes a Sacrifice, and (4) either the problem is solved – or not.
2) A Plot – eg Cause & Effect (over time)
3) Dialog (well, unless it’s a silent movie)
4) A Style – word choices
5) A POV – (ie – bio-socio-cultural-political-moral-ethical, philosophical)
6) A Voice – eg my writing Voice (see: all the above 2 things ie esp. Style & POV)
So, `THE OPPOSITE’ would be: to write a piece that has *none* of those things.
But, Jesus – that would just be like: a roomful of monkeys with a typewriter.
Just a buncha random words.
ie – Why bother?
The only thing I can think of – so far – is this:
When I write, I am trying to `make my point/have my effect’ (on: the intended reader) with the greatest power, and in the quickest time, possible. (Doesn’t everyone?)
So, kind of like Hemingway – for a long time Ive been trying to WRITE SIMPLE.
(you can call that a `habit’, I guess, bit it’s not really a habit if you HAVE TO DO IT,
ie would you call: Going To Work And Getting My Job Done — a “habit”? LOL).
ie That kinda just seems silly and ridiculous all at once.
So anyway, one thing I usually avoid is long words. I try and make use of the simplest words I can. In fact long words, and especially Fantasy fiction where not only are the words long – they are kinda made up eg: “Chisraithwythe and Nimnomnup deftly used the foresworn singing-sword of Rondorastiagothiman to exhilpate the Noradnakathaniwrestopea”
That stuff is super-frustrating – as I don’t know what the hell the person is talking about. ie I am a very busy man, I just dont have time to learn all this made-up crap about some other (fantasy/fictional) culture.
So, here’s my exercise,
I’m gonna use the longest words I can find, and say – basically and intentionally – nothing:
Honorificabilitudinitatibus Floccinaucinihilipilification Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk Aequeosalinocalcalinoceraceoaluminosocupreovitriolic.
By the way these are real words, and they cam from here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/shortcuts/2013/jun/04/longest-words-english-what-they-mean
And by the way, so what the above sentence means is:
“The state of being able to receive honours – The habit of regarding something as unimportant – The fear of using long words – A lung disease caused by the inhalation of silica dust – The symbolic thunderclap associated with the fall of Adam and Eve; as imagined by James Joyce – A technical description of the waters at Bath spa.”
And now, unfortunately, (one of my habits, in life) I am going to make sense of it. (ie I always tend to try and make sense of everything, or else realize that what I am trying to decode is `arbitrary linguistic gibberish’ and walk away – like much academic Literary Criticism, LOL. See: Literary Darwinism for the opposite of that.)
Anyway here is what the above random collection of 6 long and obscure words actually means:
1) The state of being able to receive honours
(Hey – This applies to me. I’ve won awards for my writing. See also: Symbolic Capital, by Pierre Bourdieu, here http://storyality.wordpress.com/creative-practice-theory/)
2) The habit of regarding something as unimportant
Well – ok – This has the word `habit’ in it. And this writing exercise is all about breaking your writing habits. (Like I have been whinging, it’s hard when you don’t have any habits, ie – I already have “tried everything”… pretty much… unless anyone has any good suggestions for me? ie I may be missing something, like the article says: ask a friend. PS – Will you be my friend?)
3) The fear of using long words
Wow, this is bang on topic. Except I dont exactly have a FEAR of long words, I just think they are s stupid waste of time, ie Why use a long word when you can use a short one? Efficiency. (My ancestors were German. ie “Everysink is in order, ja??”)
4) A lung disease caused by the inhalation of silica dust
This seems pretty random and obscure to me. I wonder how common this disease is. Should I be concerned about it? I was a pack a day smoker for 10 years. I often think about lungs, and lung problems. Anyway, thats depressing so lets stop thinking about it.
5) The symbolic thunderclap associated with the fall of Adam and Eve; as imagined by James Joyce.
Christ. Well Joyce is supposed to be the greatest writer ever, I’ve read `Ulysses’ and `Portrait’ and sure its ok, but Flann OBriens The Third Policeman is way better (and is actually very funny)
6) A technical description of the waters at Bath spa.”
I guess Bath means: Shakespeare’s old stomping grounds… right? Anyway. Who knows. Or really cares.
Anyway that’s my writing exercise.
Rather than use logic, and have a point, I just grabbedthe 6 longest words I could find quickly and slapped them together in a meaningless, arbitrary list and then did what HUmans have a predisposition to do (see: Literary Darwinism) – try and make sense of that crap. ie Try and see the order in the chaos.
I didn’t find any real order per se, but there were random things that referred to other random things and by coincidence the word “habit” also popped up.
Also, by coincidence there was a thing about `negativity towards using long words’, which was exactly my point…
Hmmm
So thanks Joe B and Shoshanna (wow, what a name, are you African American? Just curious.)
I actually learned some stuff I can use in my thesis!
ie: http://storyality.wordpress.com/
Thanks again
JT
Here is my second attempt. With the first I found I drifted back into my
comfort zone.
As the purple sky shook and trembled before their eyes, and the roaring
grew in force, Katin and Leander sought shelter under the lacy branches of a giant fern. From there they watched a herd of centaurs gallop across a sky lightening into lilac, shouting, their voices raised in panic.
The countryside quietened after everything had fled or sought shelter.
“What ungodly creature has Nature inflicted on us now?” Katin drew
closer to her companion.
Leander searched the sky through narrowed eyes, his hands tightening
around his flint-headed spear. “It’s the melding of the ages,” he murmured.
The bulk of a giant spaceship filled the sky. Rays of lights shout from it as its doors opened and let out little craft that proceeded to buzz excitedly round the mother ship.
One headed straight for them, landed, and opened its doors. Bearded men in sandals and flowing robes emerged.
“Fear us not, my brethren,” said the leader as he walked towards them. He bowed before Leander, and paused, looking closer at Katin. A smile spread across his face. “And sister’n.”
Leander grabbed Katin’s arm and dragged her away with him into the surrounding bush.
“What bothers you, my beloved?” she protested, breathless, when they
were far away enough to stop.
“Zombies! Did you not see their sightless eyes? They’re the devil’s creatures,
humans without souls.”
“Blessed you be for saving us from Satan’s clutches.” She rested her
head on his chest and embraced him, the warmth of their bodies merging them
into one.
That night a man emerged from a cave and furtively set forth, clutching his possessions close to him.
“I’ll deliver you to safety, my dearest one,” he whispered quietly.
He felt a stirring inside him, and knew Katin had heard.
14 years old? I’m so impressed. Fantastic, fresh ideas. It was wonderful to read. Thank you so much!
Way to take hold of your dreams right away, Shoshana. I was just beginning to think about a writing career when I was fourteen, and I’m still kind of in the thinking process.
Sometimes I feel trapped inside of my own writing, and trying new and not necessarily comfortable things sounds like the thing to help me break free.