From the article: Add Description to Your Writing
Description is key to evocative fiction, but even seasoned writers struggle sometimes to get a description just right. Do you have tips to share? Let us hear it!
Grandfather Clock
- I remember reading so many of the "classic" novels and pages of description before they get to the story itself. My newly released novel Demon's Daughter (Bruce Blanchard) is based on the premise of Mr. Stephen King that: in the description of a room you include a grandfather's clock, make sure you make use of the grandfather's clock in the story. Otherwise, leave it out! Description in the novel is sparse and pointed. Too much description is like brief departures from the body of the story. The best description has to gel, blend in, and if not, consider those brilliant pieces of description as extraneous.
- —Darkenwulf
My checklist
- I have to keep a checklist for everything to stay organized. My favorite checklist of mine is when I'm writing description. Before I start I imagine that my character and I are blind and are feeling the scene out with taste, touch, hearing, and smell. The checklist has questions such as: Smell the air, is it crisp like fall or soggy with humidity like summer? Do you hear animals? Can you taste anything? Feel a wall. Can you tell by the texture where your setting is? is it rural or urban?
- —Guest Kay
Adding to the word count
- Avoid writing fiction like a travelogue. I find street-by-street identification a sign the writer wanted to add words not descriptive content that moves the plot. In addition, detailed description of mechanical or electronic objects (such as explaining html code, or how a drill works) is often a boring exercise in building word count. As a reader, I scan through or over these examples, which may mean I‘ll miss some plot item, but not be bogged down by arduous description.
- —Guest Larry Schliessmann
Whole New World
- A friend and fellow writer once told me, "It's a whole new world you've created." He continued with something to the effect of "Everything is new, different. Let the reader see and experience it. The more you put into the details, the more real and alive it will seem." I have since realized that no matter what, when, or where I am writing about, there is the potential that the setting will be a whole new world to some readers - they will not be able to relate to it on their own. The details and descriptions are the necessary components in bringing the story alive and making it real to the reader. Also from that conversation is that a story is just the visible tip of an iceberg. The better the author knows the whole of the iceberg, the more defined they can make the tip appear. It's all in the details and descriptions of the world you are creating or relating. rgarrettwilson.com
- —R.GarrettWilson
Writing Descriptions
- I had a writing teacher a few years ago that tried to teach all in the class the importance of description in writing. If I remember what I learned from her I have no trouble with being descriptive with the stories and things I choose to write. I have had several people read my work and they always comment on the way the descriptions have drawn them into the time and place. Since that time I have tried to share ways of being descriptive. I keep an index card on the bulletin board above my desk with the highlights that make a good story. It is very important to draw the reader into the time and place as they read so they feel a part of the emerging scenes. Description and details are very important. The reader must be able to see, smell, touch, taste, and hear the scene you are painting on the page with words. This is very easy to accomplish if you can manage to put yourself into the story. Imagine the way you feel as you gaze upon the landscape or as things happen around you
- —Guest Sunni