Gaining The Skills Of Your Favorite Writer… Fast!

Modeling is a way to "represent" a real thing in a more convenient or smaller or different way. When modeling your favorite author, the idea is to imagine yourself being as much like them as possible, in order to borrow their skills and creativity.

Many people over the years have used this sort of imagery – including our ancestors who would put on the skin of a bear, a wolf, a lion, etc. in order to experience the strengths of those creatures. The effectiveness of this sort of modeling has a huge body of anecdotal proof.

One more recent famous example is experiments done in Bulgaria in the 70's. In those experiments, people were able to quickly learn how to paint or play musical instruments by modeling famous artists and musicians, using a similar technique to what's outlined below. This is the most effective method I've ever come across to boost your writing and get to breakthroughs in creativity…

There's a set of instructions to follow here – give them a quick read through and then go ahead and move through the steps without having to go back and forth from reading to visualizing/modeling.

First let's set the ground rules. If you begin to feel uncomfortable at any time – stop. You will be doing a gentle, internal process that involves your imagination. You are and will remain in total control of your internal processes… on to the steps.

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Get yourself into a comfortable position and relax. Take a few deep breaths and Relax… let the stress and tension flow out of your body right now and… slow down for a couple minutes… Imagine yourself in front of the writer who you admire the most – see them right there in front of you.

Now, brighten the image – like it's a sunny day or the room lights grew brighter. Make your image of them larger and clearer and keep going until it gets to feel more "real".

Ask the author's permission to model them, so you can both improve your writing and get some creative ideas. Then ask them to turn around. Imagine yourself getting airy, wispy like fog and – just like slipping on a suit, imagine yourself walking into their body and put them on!

Move around and experience through all their senses. Make it up! Go into as much detail as you are comfortable with. I like to make sure my eyes are aligned through their eyes, that I am hearing through their ears, and feeling with their hands.

Start Writing As Them!

Write down what you are imagining-experiencing in some detail as to how things look, sound and feel. Then smoothly move into writing about your subject while you still imagine you are writing from inside their body. Let this inspire you to receive absolutely new information.

As always, write as fast as you can and no editing! A tip is to focus on keeping conscious track of 3-5 things while you are writing. For instance, if you can keep track of how your fingers feel on the keyboard, and the taste in your mouth and the sounds in the room (all at once and as continuously as possible) while you are writing, it really helps to overwhelm your internal editor.

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** If all this seems like it's just not possible, just go ahead and fake it.

Imagine it as best you can and you will get the benefit of the experience. Also, going deeper into a relaxed state and closing your eyes will help your visualizations become clearer.

It helps having Mozart or Vivaldi playing as well…

** If you are not getting a clear picture – it's normal. There's always going to be a significant difference in the qualities of an image that you visualize compared to what you see out of your eyeballs. It's a built in way for you to tell imagination from reality!

That distinction is important to both our ancestors survival and our social contract with society. It's a key in keeping the fellows in the white coats from taking you away for electric shock treatments! Enough on that…

As another and really exciting way to deepen your connection to your story, you can write exactly from your characters "point of view". Put them on and then let them write their thoughts and dialogue… Many authors talk of how they just suddenly were transcribing the characters story – they just had to copy it down.

Have fun with this and let me know how it goes!