This quick course will help you establish a powerful writing habit: copying the greats.

There is something magical about copying. Simply by writing out another author's sentences, and then adjusting them, altering them, one's own artistic brain seems to be stretched, tested, strengthened.

This is exercise three.

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Do you ever have intense weather where you are? I grew up in London, and I remember with great fondness the strong winds that would whirl through the city, bowing the trees. I can also remember the amazing humidity of Taiwan, although I'm maybe less fond of that experience. Here in East Tennessee, the weather is usually pleasant, and the spring is full of flowers, both in the dogwood trees and the wild flowers in my back garden. We also get strong storms, and the summers and winters can be cruel.

I would recommend just picking one type of intense weather in your area, one that you would like to write about.

All right. Now think of ten things that this weather affected. Don't write full sentences yet. Just list these things, or create a mind map. Try to vary these ten effects in terms of severity and importance (some can be small, minor impacts; some can be big). Let yourself imagine how the weather affects other people in your area -- don't be constrained to your own house, your own life.

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My example: when the leaves fall in my area, it's like a deluge. The huge tall oaks release the last of their leaves in late Autumn, and those leaves just fill up the gutters, cover the lawns, coat the streets.

So I might write:

Leaves falling — slippery on steps — dogs’ feet sinking — neat piles at the edge of gardens — gutters overflowing — rotting mess wedged against the edge of an old garage — slush soft sound under car wheels — old grandmother across the road unwilling to go out.

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All right. It's now time to write a paragraph. But we are going to have help. We are going to describe that intense weather, and we are also going to borrow some sentence patterns from Charles Dickens.

Here is the opening of Dickens's novel, Bleak House.

“Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little ’prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds."

Take some of those sentences, and copy their structure for your paragraph. Replace "fog" and the details of London with your chosen weather and your local area.

For example

"YOUR CHOICE OF WEATHER everywhere. YOUR CHOICE OF WEATHER here, where it ___; YOUR CHOICE OF WEATHER THERE, where it ___."

Here is the start of my attempt:

Leaves everywhere. November cold and breezy and the falling leaves. Leaves dying in enormous numbers, heavy and wet with rain, where they fill gutters and clog drains. Leaves gathering in a dense, slippery roll against the side wall of the Hutchinsons' house. A heavy covering of leaves obscuring back decks and porches, where it...

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Don't overthink -- write a quick paragraph! Use two or three sentence patterns from Dickens -- the rest can be in your own style.

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Let me know how this one works for you. Share your thoughts below.

Day Three : How’s your weather? [Copy the Greats]

This course is only available for enrolled students only.

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