Ernest Hemingway's Favorite Writing Exercise

An aspiring writer once asked Ernest Hemingway, “How can a writer train himself?”

Hemingway shared an exercise for sharpening a writer's observational skills so they can vividly describe their experiences on paper. This exercise can be broken down into three-steps and gives us a fantastic way to practice “show, don’t tell” in our writing.

Here's the full text of Hemingway's article "Monologue to the Maestro".

The three steps are:

  1. Observe
  2. Practice Empathy
  3. Repeat