How I Use Copywork to Deconstruct Scenes
Scene Analysis: "People We Meet on Vacation" by Emily Henry
What is Copywork?
I love copywork. In my opinion, it’s the easiest way to learn craft, without spending hundreds (or thousands depending on what a book-whore you are) on craft books. Plus, it’s been proven to work by people far better and greater than us.
For those of you who don’t know what copywork is, let’s get technical.
Copywork is the practice of copying the work of an established writer word for word.
This doesn’t just help improve your grammar skills (which it totally can), but helps you learn the style, structure, and techniques used by published authors that you already love and respect.
But Isn’t Copywork Stealing?
The common concern many people (including me) have when they first learn about copywork is that by mimicking someone else, it takes away your own voice and your originality. But every writer learned by picking up a book, reading it, and mimicking. Just ask Stephen King.
“At some point I began to write my own stories. Imitation preceded creation; I would copy Combat Casey comic word for word in my Blue Horse tablet, sometimes adding my own descriptions where they seemed appropriate.” — Stephen King, On Writing
Famous Copywork Advocates
Benjamin Franklin used copywork to teach himself logic and persuasion by rewriting essays from The Spectator.
Hunter S. Thompson famously typed out The Great Gatsby and A Farewell to Arms just to feel what it felt like to write a masterpiece.
Jack London would spend hours a day copying Rudyard Kipling’s writing by hand.
In Their Own Words
“But on the whole, though I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and happier man than I otherwise should have been had I not attempted it; as those who aim at perfect writing by imitating the engraved copies, their hand is mended by the endevour, and is tolerable while it continues fair and legible” — Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
“If you type out somebody’s work, you learn a lot about it. Amazingly, it’s like music. And from typing out parts of Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald – these were writers that were very big in my life and the lives of the people around me – so yeah, I wanted to learn from the best, I guess.” — Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
My Copywork Method
Copywork is pretty simple, as I’ve already established. You simply pick a book you like and write it out word for word.
Longhand is best, but typing is fine.
But, since I’m an overachiever (and former teacher), I take it a bit further.
Choose a scene you want to copy.
Copy the scene word for word.
Re-write the scene from memory.
Compare your re-write to the original.
Jot down your takeaways (techniques you picked up, etc.).
Apply what you’ve learned.
Simple, right?
Copywork Exercise
This year, in my journey to improve my story craft and become a better writer, I decided to practice copywork more consistently. To start out the year, I picked a scene from the book People We Meet on Vacation, mainly because, like many of you, I’m guessing, I just finished watching the netflix release and I loved it. So of course, I had to buy the book and pick it for my first story craft analysis.
What follows is the original scene that I copied from the book, “People We Meet on Vacation,” along with my (attempted) re-write from memory. Disclaimer: My version stinks. It’s definitely not Emily Henry worthy writing. But then if it were, I wouldn’t be here doing copywork, I’d be on the best seller list writing Emily Henry type books.
If you’d like to follow along and see my copywork exercise and the takeaways, feel free to subscribe!
