Quick Tips for Writing Descriptions
⟢ PICK THREE DETAILS MAXIMUM! your reader doesn't need to know every piece of furniture. Give them the broken clock on the mantle, the smell of cigarettes embedded in the couch, the water stain on the ceiling shaped like Italy. Their brain will fill in the rest. You're not writing an insurance inventory!!!
⟢ Use the senses people forget. Everyone does sight and sound, but what about: the metallic taste of fear, the way humidity makes your clothes stick, the phantom itch of being watched, that gross feeling when you touch something unexpectedly wet. GET WEIRD WITH IT
⟢ MOTION IN YOUR DESCRIPTIONS!! (Please?) don't just tell me the curtains are blue, tell me they're "shuddering in the AC blast" or "hanging limp like they've given up." Static description is a sleep aid. Make things MOVE
⟢ Your narrator's voice should COLOR everything! A depressed character won't describe the sunset as "beautiful mauve and amber streaking across the sky," they'll think "the sun's dying again, doing its whole performance art thing with the clouds"
⟢ Stop with the mirror descriptions! :( "She looked in the mirror and saw her auburn hair and green eyes" NO. Banned. Forbidden. Find literally any other way. Have another character notice. Show through action. Slip details in naturally. The mirror thing is lazy and we all know it
⟢ Similes and metaphors: COMMIT OR DON'T DO IT! "like" is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. "Her anger was like a storm" is BORING. "Her anger rolled in with the methodical inevitability of a hurricane, and he was standing in a trailer park in Florida" now we're TALKING
