One exercise to improve writing is to practice empathy. It can be practised by looking at a story that you are familiar with and rewriting a section of it from the point of view of a character other than the main characters involved. If you are feeling particularly adventurous, you might try from the point of view of a pet!
That doesn’t mean that your story has to be about animals. There is Black Beauty, which is a very human story and is narrated by the horse, and then, of course, you have purely animal stories like Watership Down.
The story of Paddington Bear is told by the bear himself, even though he's the only animal in the story.
The point is that taking yourself out of the writer role, I’m
becoming more emotionally involved in the story, which is a valuable exercise in
itself, and it helps to develop an understanding of the emotional states of the
people you are writing about.
An alternative exercise would be to take a familiar story, for instance one of Jesus' stories, and write
about it but from the point of view of 1 of the disciples, maybe Thomas.
Perhaps an episode from Star Trek from Ohura’s perspective. The possibilities
are endless, and one possible spin-off is a short story for yourself.
Whatever you decide, the actual exercise will enrich your
future writing.
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