I think you're right, repetition isn't necessarily going to improve anything. But I don't recommend special exercises, just write more stories, however, focus on the craft - the words themselves and how they work together, not sales, or tropes, or copy and paste formulas.
Ways to push your craft...
First, recognize that writing isn't a business. It's Art.
So to begin with, study. Read and watch movies, television...with an eye for structure. Why did they use that camera angle, that music, the timing of both. How does word usage affect mood? How does the flow of dialog affect pacing? How many levels is the scene working on? Stuff like that. Handmaid's Tale is a Masterclass in visual storytelling, the writing is amazing too. Youtube has a lot of video essayist that do nothing but film analysis. One of the best is
Every Frame a Painting. Most of the tools work in multiple mediums, even camera angle theory can be applied to books.
The real key is rewriting. I've known lots of people who claim to write at their optimal best in a single pass - I think this is just silly. When I write a song, if I'm lucky, the lyrics flow, but even then I have to make them work with the melody, with the singer (what key?), which has to work with the beat and rhythm. To make matters worse, I have lots of instruments to choose from to convey all of it. I have to put in the work to make the song the best it can be, and all of that's after I figure out my vision for the song - which may not be obvious in the beginning. Creative ideas can change during the artistic process.
Writing is the same way. We put down the idea, the
'what' of it all. But how's the emotion working? Okay? Maybe? Are you ugly crying? Can you write something sad enough to cry over? If not, you have some work to do. If you can't write deeply enough to trigger yourself, you're not being honest in your writing.
And honesty is the foundation for deeper writing, because the best writing is vulnerable writing. It engenders empathy, which is directly responsible for creating engagement.
When you go back through your works, look to pacing, the rhythm of the prose, arcs, foreshadowing and metaphors, both descriptive and thematic. Good writing manipulates the reader, takes them places and makes them think, challenges them - entertains them. So when we re-write, we strengthen these things, build on ideas, delete others. We re-frame scenes to emphasize perspective or emotion. We choose words carefully to achieve these ends. Strong verbs are not always the best. Passive is sometimes the stronger choice. We only understand what's in our toolbox by using them, and, we also have to remember that every tool is situationally specific; generalizations only work with theory.
And like music, theory only takes us to the edge of the possible. I don't think we ever stop learning, but to be really great at this, you have to feel your way through - you have to jump into the unknown and be willing to accept utter failure as just another building block - another tool.
