Description: 5 Times When You Should (and 4 Times When You Shouldnât) Rely on Description
⯠⯠5 Times When You Should (Probably) Use Description âź âź
#1: Use Description to Make Introspection More Engaging. Poorly assembled introspection is boring, explores the obvious, and takes readers forever to cull. Progressive introspection isnât about what has already happened, itâs about what might happen in the future. Use description to ponder what a character fears (or hopes) will happen next. Donât hesitate to ask tough, specific questions: What are the consequences of a characterâs actions? What are the consequences of her inaction? Introspection risks dulling a sceneâs immediacy. But it can also enhance readersâ investment in finding answers to stated, understated, and unstated problems.
How to Write Excellent Introspection (September C. Fawkes)
The 5 Types of Lines We Use to Craft Stories (and How to Use Them to Reveal Character) (September C. Fawkes)
#2: Use Description to Explore the Unknown. Nudging reader interest in the right direction permits writers to finally use the senses, to use readersâ innate curiosity, and to pull from all of those folders and documents of secondary or tertiary research. Did an explorer character finally crest a rocky hillock and settle her gaze upon a depression of wild conifers, each one flickering a shade of green different than the next? Is a butler sneaking a forbidden glimpse of all the fancily dressed ladies and gentlemen of a regional ball? Does a near-miss on the street corner, paired with the smell of burnt rubber, flash forward a bad memory?
Vivid Story Setting Description: Examples and Insights (Now Novel)
Description Checklists and Tip Sheets (One Stop for Writers)
Description Thesaurus Collection (One Stop for Writers)
How to Frame Scenes Like a Filmmaker (Kristen Kiefer)
Descriptive and Sensory Detail in Narrative Writing (.pdf) (Chandler-Gilbert Community College)
#3: Use Description to Bewitch the Reader. Depending on the writing style and the writing perspective, description can enable the writer to gift readers different details about different characters that collectively contribute to the greater, unfolding narrative.
If you describe a tense encounter with selective detail, then you can make a play at increasing the tension (the reader isnât sure what will happen next). If you reveal different information that explores different perspectives from different characters, then you might encourage the reader to play detective (the reader isnât sure who to trust). Description and detail can serve as meaningful points of differentiation â of voice, experience, knowledge, familiarity, or perspective. Whether as nervous ticks, comments about clothing preference, poorly timed gestures of affection, or perhaps the refusal to acknowledge any of these (or other) markers of personhood or identity.
How to Describe: Writing Clear Places and Characters (Now Novel)
Novel Settings: 7 Tips to Get Setting Description Right (Now Novel)
Defining Place (ahb writes)
How to Make Your Description More Vivid (Writing Questions Answered)
#4: Use Description to Bewitch a Character. Writing in first-person perspective allows writers to offer readers the chance to experience a storyâs events as the characters experience them. To successfully maneuver this perspective in a way that makes the most of its opportunity, incorporate details that arenât what they seem.
The senses inform, yes, but they also misinform. Most of human recognition is based on snaring one or two particulars, relating those particulars to what is known (or presumed), and assigning meaning to those presumptions. Certainty is not the absence of a blunder; certainty is a blunderâs fated precursor.
Conflict Thesaurus (One Stop for Writers)
25 Things You Should Know About Narrative Point-Of-View (Chuck Wendig: Terrible Minds)
Using Nuance and the Implication of Movement to Tell a Story (ahb writes)
#5: Use Description to Encourage Readers to Infer More Than They Realize. Sometimes, referring to the shadow of a thing is more powerful than expending the energy to describe the thing itself. Sometimes, articulating the function a thing serves will grant readers permission to conjure their own version of what the thing itself looks like. This means using more than the standard five senses in your writing. Can you describe what itâs like for a character to lose her sense of balance? Can you describe what itâs like for a character to have forgotten something important that his partner told him that morning? The writer, in each of these scenarios, articulates the value and weight of certain clues and puzzle pieces, over and above the value and weight of solving the whole enigma.
Direct Characterization: 6 Tips for Precise Description (Now Novel)
Indirect Characterization: Revealing Characters Subtly (Now Novel)
How Being Subtle Can Improve Your Descriptions (All Write - Fiction Advice)
How Fiction Writers Can Improve the Quality of Their Prose (Kristen Kiefer)
⯠⯠4 Times When You (Probably) Shouldnât Use Description âź âź
#1: Donât Use Description to Rush Into a Scene. Donât push a detailed explanation of the surrounding environs on the reader the instant a character, or the reader, steps into the scene. Introduce the setting or surrounding context, yes, but donât rush in if itâs not absolutely critical to the characterâs well-being or sense of self. Avoid this approach unless youâre working with distance-related transportation and/or sudden or jarring (disorientating) scenarios. Why? (a) Because excess description fogs the viewfinder. (b) Because excess description deprioritizes whatâs truly important.
Entering a new scene means establishing new goals, large or small, for the character or story dynamics. Rushing into description means potentially ignoring the sceneâs tone, sidestepping the charactersâ needs, or muting readersâ anticipation for what the scene can or should deliver. Take it easy. Be concise, if possible. Then, gradually, build on what youâve offered readers. Donât throw in everything at once.
How to Write Descriptions and Create a Sense of Place (Jericho Writers)
#2: Donât Use Description to Take Up Space. If you have too much dialogue, or too much action, or too much summarizing, and youâve conspired with your inner critic to toss in a bunch of descriptive detail, then your problem isnât one of description (or a lack thereof), your problem is one of a broader, more systemic dilemma of overloaded and unbalanced storytelling. Beware the false equivalency of identifying (a) where description can go and (b) the purpose description can serve.
As the writer, you are welcome, if not wholly encouraged, to introduce a paragraph or two to explore a scene, but donât use description as an excuse to âdo something elseâ on the page. Description should be purposeful. Or, to be more precise, description should add an emotional, compatible, lived-in dimension to a scene.
When âTellingâ is Okay (Writing Questions Answered)
Words for Skin Tone & How to Describe Skin Color (Writing With Color)
Words to Describe Hair (Writing With Color)
#3: Donât Use Description to Layer the Intensity. Successive description doesnât always have the effect many think it does when it comes to scenes or events of high emotional tumult. When a difficult or powerful scene arrives, itâs not uncommon for a readerâs pulse to flare up and for anticipation to quickly follow. In other words, if the author dabbles for too long, then readers are apt (tempted) to skip ahead.
Good suspense fiction relies on simple (effective) language. Compelling action storytelling is brief (and to the point). Immersive character dramas pick their moments (very carefully). Acute attention to diction and syntax makes for a better marker of scenic intensity than a preponderance of verbiage.
6 Secrets to Creating and Sustaining Suspense (Writerâs Digest)
Picking the Right Details (September C. Fawkes)
The Linguistics of Horror (velatrill; eldest oyster)
Opening Lines for A Story (Great, Effective & Bad Examples) (Jericho Writers)
How to Make Your Descriptions Less Boring (The Literary Architect)
How to Write Better Smut (chaoschaoswriting; ahb writes)
#4: Donât Use Description to Embellish Dialogue (Tags). On a trickier note, donât fall too deep in love with those lists of â250 Ways to Say Saidâ or â125 Words to Describe a Characterâs Voiceâ or what-have-you. To a point, those articles can work as delightful little thesauri, but very few of them provide genuine instruction on how to use the list of terms they provide. Dialogue shouldnât be a crutch, nor should any descriptive text that might accompany it.
Often, these lists contain descriptors for behavior, or descriptors for behavioral or emotional intent (attitude), insofar as they purport to explore any characterâs physical voice. Would you really describe someoneâs voice as âadmiring,â or âegotistical,â or âsensationalâ? You might, but you probably shouldnât. These words donât empirically convey shifts in tone, tempo, inflection, depth, volume, and so forth. A helpful cheat for beginners is to go with actionable sounds or utterances the human mouth can reasonably make or to stick with easily identifiable transitive verbs, like âcough,â âbark,â âchirp,â or âaskâ.
One functional workaround is to explore the ambiance underlying a characterâs âegotistical gaze,â or the tonal implication that accompanies her âgrand, egotistical gestures,â or on othersâ response to his âpenchant for sensationalism.â A critical focus on using the correct language frees up the opportunity to include gestures, reactions, and other, more inimitable expressions. Clarity makes a bigger difference than you may realize: Not so much, âhe spoke indignantly,â but rather, âhe added, indignant.â
4 Ways to Unlock Your Characterâs Unique Voice (The Novel Smithy)
11 Doâs and Don'ts of Writing Dialogue (The Novel Smithy)
Quantity and Quality of Dialogue (Writing Questions Answered)
Avoiding Repetition With Dialogue Tags (Writing Questions Answered)
titsay
discoholicmusic
vaporwave
tangentwithtanner
pixelskylines
