how do you write things like character and setting? I'm no expert but here are some answers - by Sleepy (part 1)
this is not a professional-sounding, nicely formatted post. I'm just going to talk.
INTRODUCTORY SETTINGS:
in your introduction to a setting, it's tempting to either go all out and describe everything visible to give the reader a very detailed experience. it's also tempting to keep it vague to encourage the reader to image things themselves (and because interesting description is hard).
I prefer to go for a middle-ground.
when a character is interacting with a setting that they are familiar with but not the reader, don't have the character think about or visualize something that they wouldn't normally just for the sake of description. instead, have the character interact with the environment.
The Wayfarer’s smelled like wood and wine. Lexi loved it. The lighting was dim, warm, and the walls were paneled a rich cherry. Large lounges sprawled out on either side of the entry hall, but Lexi took them straight through to a desk further down. The man behind it was polishing an antique pistol, his scruffy, gray beard obscuring his face until he look up.
here we have our protagonist entering a place she's familiar with. she mentions a couple things to describe it because she's coming here from some place she doesn't really like, and this in a sanctuary. she notices the setting because she enjoys it, and the reader gets a quick feel for it without needing to be dumped with description.
your characters can notice things in place they're familiar with, especially if it's of the absently appreciating variety. they wander into the kitchen and nearly trip over the footstool that's there for their younger sibling, so they place it back beside the sink and turn to check the fridge. they walk briskly down the street to their favorite coffee shop, avoiding the pothole puddles full of rainwater and ducking around that low-hanging sign the owner of that shop is never going to fix. the more a character interacts with an environment, the more the reader can visualize, and the less they feel like you're just explaining things to them.
flashbacks to particular events can absolutely work if there is something in the current time that triggers a memory. random flashbacks are jarring and should be avoided.
when your character is meeting a setting for the first time, take into account how observant this particular character is, then describe accordingly.
Ree's house smelled like lavender and lemonade.
Aiden breathed in with the slowest breaths he could make himself take, which still sounded like he was hyperventilating. He stood in front of the closed door, shivering and feeling like he was intruding on a private party. From the complete quiet, the house appeared to be empty besides the two of them and he still felt like he was intruding. The entryway was open and to his left was a living room that looked, well, lived in. On the right, a small dining room led to the kitchen. He could just see granite counter tops from where he hadn't ventured from the welcome mat. In front of him, stairs curved upward and a door to the left of them led somewhere else, a basement maybe.
Ree had flung her boots off in an easy, practiced fashion, hanging her coat on a hook and tossing her hat into a basket beneath. She turned back to him with an expectant expression, hands already reaching for his coat which wasn't even unzipped. Aiden fumbled at it with trembling hands, tugging it off his shoulders with a minor struggle. Ree didn't remark on his clumsy hopping to get his own boots off. As soon as he'd successfully placed them beside hers, she was taking his arm and leading him further into the house.
They slipped through the living room and Aiden glimpsed a small room with a washing machine before Ree directed him into the bathroom adjacent. It was spaced out enough that he didn't feel claustrophobic.
Aiden, as a character, is very aware of his surroundings and takes note of inconsequential things because he doesn't like being taken by surprise. He sets the layout of the house in his head because it's the first time he's been here and he's taking it all in.
here's an outdoor description:
Emily nodded and everybody followed after her in the direction Antonio indicated. They headed north, further into the glade and up several short hills, turning sharply when the trees seemed to crowd them together. Mike saw Jayden taking careful notice of their surroundings, and he realized that the forest was only getting denser as they went on. Above their heads, the trees bent over a little, forming a green tunnel beneath their branches. It became clear that they weren’t just in some random glade, but that the trees themselves seemed to be creating a path forward. Faint symbols faded in and out of sight, blending in with the bark so he could only see them out of the corner of his eye. Mike got the feeling that this forest had been protected for a very long time.
this group are exploring and need to be perceptive of their surroundings so they don't get lost. the description happens naturally.
NOTE: when you start writing descriptions of things, they often sound clunky and too obvious, or full of extraneous adjectives. and probably it is how it sounds. it probably isn't very good. but that's because you've just started. you have to keep writing clunky, excessively descriptive scene settings before you can figure out what to trim and what actually helps the reader understand the scene. it's much easier to learn to cut back than to learn to add more. (it might be the opposite for you, but in general, it's easier to have more to work with than less.)
IN-SCENE SETTINGS:
moving on to small, one or two sentence descriptions to fill out a scene. always mention things that the characters are going to bring up in conversation. if character a says "and what about that letter, then? you're not bothered by that?" and the reader has no idea that character b was holding and crumpling it as they stood, they have to redesign their image of the scene.
you can reverse describe things, sure. something is brought up and then gets described, but if you're halfway into a scene and are finally mentioning that the characters have moved from upstairs to the street outside, that's very confusing.
“Erin, did you just get home?” Zan asked her with sleep in his voice, one arm up over his face as he blinked in the hazy candlelight of the front room.
She shrugged her bag off her shoulder onto the stones, the soft huff of its landing sounding louder in the midnight quiet. The rest of the house was silent, save for the crackle of the fire beyond both of them. Zan adjusted to the light and peered at her questioningly, seeming so much younger than his confident, daytime self.
“Why are you awake?” Erin nudged her bag along the floor until it met the others and added to their bag stash in the corner. “I’m fine. I just needed to do something.”
I mention the essentials of how things look right away. the house is lit by candlelight and the fire in the hearth, it's midnight, this place is at least semi-lived in because of the bag stash. it also includes small character notes about Zan's youth.
Bellamy watched as Sage rubbed her knee absentmindedly. His co-leader was currently perched on a wobbly stool with one leg bent underneath her while her fingers ran over the dangling one in a rhythmic pattern. Concentration shone on her face; their plans to reorganize and expand the camp were producing one headache after another and Bellamy was so close to just giving up altogether. It was only because Sage remained resolute about the necessity of reorganization before the weather started to change like the leaves were beginning to that kept him focused.
Autumn was a pretty season, Bellamy had decided, but a dangerous one. The animals around them were restless and moving, it seemed to always rain exactly when they were in the middle of a project and it was far too easy to underestimate the temperature. It was still quite warm, with nights only starting to cool off, but Bellamy knew they only had a few weeks before that cool would be a coldness that didn't fade. He wanted them to be ready, and right now, they just weren't.
Fingers snapped in front of him, startling him to attention. Sage leaned forward in her seat to peer at him with an unamused expression. "You didn’t hear any of that," her voice accused him.
character introspection! an excellent marriage of description - of both scene and character. here we're getting a peek at: the time of year, what the characters in the scene have been doing before the scene started, the emotions of the pov character and the inclusion of callbacks to circumstances earlier in the story.
characters also take notice of things that relate to them, specifically. so for instance, if your character is very sensitive to sounds:
Footsteps appear on the outskirts of his hearing, but Liu Sang figures he’ll open his eyes once they approach the door of the room. The window is open and he can feel a slight breeze tiptoe forward. He shivers slightly, pulling at the blankets. The movement awakens more aches, and when he pulls his knees up a little it brings his whole body into sharp focus.
or if they're sensitive to smells:
Ree tilted her head back, presumably staring at the ceiling. The room was quiet and smelled of grapefruit and honey, an odd combination that somehow worked perfectly together. Aiden breathed in more deeply to let the calming scent fill his lungs.
this is a great transition to talk about character but this post got rather long so this concludes part 1. part 2 about how to describe characters will follow.
