How do I use writing techniques more purposefully?

Question

What are some exercises, tools, or lessons that serve the purpose of identifying the stylistic elements of my writing to facilitate practicing incorporating those elements as part of my writing technique? I'm asking specifically in terms of common literary techniques such as metaphor, dialogue, assonance, etc. and am interested in creative ways I can pinpoint them in my own writing and determine how their use impacts the piece overall. I am open to personal workflows that you have kind of outlined for yourself, high school English lessons you remember, high school English lessons you teach or even just apps/websites you've found to be helpful.

The goal is to use this information to drive my writing in a more intentional way. I am very out of practice with my writing; I've had trouble even keeping up with regular journal entries. As I'm purposefully ending my writers' block I am trying to give myself concrete tasks and workflows for producing the best version of my writing with as little editing as possible because it's been so hard to get to that stage in the process.

Answer 1

My first advice for better writing is always more reading; reading material that is in the same stylistic family, in terms of content/genre but also and more importantly technique, as what you want to be producing makes your own writing better. By better I mean more in line with the material you're working from/toward. Even writers who I find somewhat distasteful, and those who's stories I really don't enjoy, (sometimes, but far from always, the same author) contribute to my technique.

Given that you said you're starting from a place of not writing begin by setting yourself writing time and/or word count goals. It doesn't matter what you produce to start with (even if you're just creating pages filled with the word "pudding") just that you are producing something steadily. Generally your brain won't put up with much pointless repetition before it comes up with something novel to put down on the page. Once you are past the block and have an output you can look at what it is and the stylistic and technical elements of it.

Then it's time for self-reflection; start reading your own work with an eye to what works for you in it. Look at what techniques you've used in the material you really like. Use a school level English language guide where you're not sure of what you're looking at, assuming you really want to put specific names to things.

Regardless keep those passages somewhere you can read them regularly to remind yourself of what you're aiming to reproduce. You can also do that with passages you love and find inspirational to your technique from other writers. Reading some or all of this before you start a new writing session puts it front of your mind while you're working.