Making Descriptions More Specific (Reader Question)
Jason, an Iraq war veteran, wrote in with this question: "Often when I begin to write, I write with broad generalizations. What techniques can I use to make my sentences more descriptive, with details to make my story entertaining?"
I responded: "When I'm trying to hone a description, I stop and ask myself questions to challenge my own recall. I have a hard time describing characters' physical responses, for example, so my questions are often along the lines of, 'What does a person do when he's nervous? He can fidget. He can pace the room. He can start to call someone and then change his mind.'
"Then when I'm out, I pay attention to how I know what people are feeling. So I might be sitting in a doctor's office and notice, 'That guy's nervous. How do I know that he's nervous? What details can I take back with me?' (Of course, in the interest of being a decent human being, you can't do this all the time. I think of it as an exercise in being more awake, not more detached.)
"When I write from memories, it helps to re-read letters or journal entries from the period, or even to look through books about the place (preferably with pictures). My journals may not be very detailed, but they evoke memories, and with them, sensory details.
"In your writing, I would ask the most naïve questions possible, to get to those sensory cues that evoke the situation for a reader (and that in life we absorb subconsciously): What sounds evoke the scene for you? What smells? What images? What physical responses did you have? Are there concrete images of war you can pull up? What images of Iraq?
"If you're able to freewrite, that might also help your subconscious recall details. When you have enough material, choose the details that are most evocative, that will have the most meaning for your reader, or that have a kind of symbolism. And hopefully through freewriting you'll pull up specific details only someone who was there would have access to -- the kinds of details that paradoxically make writing feel universal."
What other techniques can we use to add sensory detail to our stories? There are many ways to approach this problem, so please offer advice and suggestions below.
If I am looking to put in details about how someone acts, I find it helpful to watch children. For example, what does someone do when they need to use a restroom? Well, children will often start by asking to go, then they will lock their knees together, maybe cross their feet, lock their jaw in place, hold their breath or breathe funny, bend their knees and stick their butt out, hold themselves, and so on. For an adult, I just have to include one or two of these actions and I have created the desired effect.
I would love to see what everyone else does.
I think one of the best ways to work on character descriptions is to watch people. Notice the way they use their hands when they talk, or how close they stand to people. Notice how they eat their food, how they act when they think no one is looking. Even the way a person walks can give you clues about their character. I try to make these details present in the story without making a laundry list of them and without pushing them in the reader’s face.
Sometimes character is most “specifically” alive for us as readers, when it happens in glimpses. I think it was a technique that Conrad used very powerfully. Nice article though. We are a group of students who also discuss the craft of writing for anyone interested in these issues.
Nice Job Ginny
Thanks for the comments so far–it’s a great idea to watch people, and especially children…I hadn’t heard that before. And thanks for the Conrad tip.
Look forward to hearing more suggestions.
Best,
Ginny
Although watching other people live is an excellent way to crystalize realism into your writing, self-injection is also an excellent technique. One injects oneself into the situation so a natural response or description occurs. One knows what one’s self would like to know, experience, or feel and this is replicated for the reader. Seldom do we cheat ourselves so when “Me” is the direct audience in your creative process you will give the majority of the readers who have the same desires as you a very clear, discernible, satisfying picture!
I keep reminding myself of Sherlock Holmes’s complaint to Dr. Watson. “You see, but you don’t observe.” Observing is a conscious act, a job, a course of study. Sherlock admitted he had to work to perfect his technique. Lucky for him he was fictional. Not so easy for me. I’m impressed that Dr. A. Conan Doyle learned it so well from his medical mentor, Dr. Bell.
My bugbear is HOW to describe what I observe so that I’ve captured it and the reader ’sees’ it. Any suggestions how to observe and set it down accurately?
Coffee shops I have found are the best to look how people act. Sometimes I sit with my laptop and pick a few people out and watch how they act, talk, read, drink. It’s great for variety and have used a number persons for descriptions in characters of a book I’m working on.