5 Ways to Write Better Descriptions for Creative Writers

hey guys it's Ellen Brock novel editor I hope you're all doing really really well today we are going to talk about how to write better descriptions so in the last couple videos we've talked about writing better paragraphs and writing better sentences in general and today we are going to dig more specifically into descriptions this is actually going to be a two-part video it was getting kind of long so I decided to split it up so we're going to talk about five ways to write better descriptions today and then in the next video we'll talk about five more ways to write better descriptions number one don't micromanage the reader's imagination probably the most common problem with amateur descriptions is just holding too tightly on the reader's imagination so trying just way too hard to get the reader's picture in their head to be exactly like the picture that's in your head as the writer it might seem counter-intuitive but the more we try to get the reader to see things exactly the way we see them the harder it can be for the reader to actually create a visual in their head so often what we're trying to do is bring across all these my new shell this little um nuanced detail of exactly what it looks like so that the reader can see how amazing and great this image is but it overwhelms the reader and they actually just don't retain any of that information at all or maybe they retain a little bit of it but they aren't able to really form a clear overall picture of what you're trying to describe for example let's say we're writing a story where a character comes upon a field with mountains we have this beautiful Vivid image in our mind of exactly what this looks like we could be very specific about what we want the reader to see the field had slight slopes and neat medium length grass with orange patches towards the back of the field was a stretch of trees mostly orange and yellow behind that were dark green pine trees to the left of the trees was a small village in a rectangle formation the roofs were a mix of blue tiles and straw and the far distance was a mountain range there was grass on the mountains that looked almost blue in front of the mountains was a thin low-hanging fog that hovered mostly on the right side the sky was a deep purple with bands of pink and Peach near the horizon here we see some very common forms of over describing that are prevalent in amateur writing unnecessary or excessive information about the positions and directions of objects towards the back behind to the left in the far distance in front on the right too many colors orange grass orange and yellow trees dark green trees roofs of blue grass that looks blue a sky that looks purple pink and Peach it's obviously okay to use colors and directional words sometimes we just want to make sure that we're not over doing it and that we're not holding so tight on the reader that we're putting a big burden on them to sift through all of this information more importantly all that information tends to not add up to anything it doesn't lend itself to a cohesive image or a clear concept of what you're trying to describe it's almost always better to pick out a few details that really support an overall image and help to give the reader something conceptually that they can imagine rather than trying to manage the exact details of what they're imagining here is a description of the city from the road by cormit McCarthy the city was mostly burned no sign of Life cars in the street caked with Ash everything covered with Ash and dust fossil tracks in the dried sludge a corpse in a doorway dried to leather this description gives us a clear overall understanding of what this city looks like does it mean that my vision is exactly the same as yours almost definitely not we're probably all going to imagine this scene differently from each other at least somewhat differently from each other but does it really matter how tall the buildings are or if the corpse is on the left or the right side or what color the cars are in the street probably not what's more important is that we get a few key details that distills what could be a complicated and difficult to imagine scene into something that's simple and easy to visualize it's also a good thing to keep in mind that a lot of readers really enjoy being actively involved in the visualization process so rather than being spoon fed exactly what everything looks like a lot of readers really enjoy uh sort of adding their own interpretation onto things it's almost like participating in the storytelling process they get to sort of be involved in creating the story by not having every detail just directly given to them this does not mean that all of your descriptions need to be this sparse you can still use longer and more detailed or complex descriptions look at this description from the divine secrets of the yaya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells inside the cabin was dark and cozy with old Knotty Pine paneling that gave off a Golden Glow even on the darkest Northwest days a kitchen one sizeable bedroom and one great room lined in Windows and glass doors that opened out onto a deck comprised the building along one wall in the great room were photos of May Sorensen and her family Sitta felt welcomed by the site of books and overstuffed chairs in the jigsaw puzzle of Venice that was still set up on a small table in the corner while there are plenty of Rich details here they aren't trying to force us to see things in exactly the way the author is envisioning there's pine paneling but we're not told exactly where it is or how tall it is along one wall in the great room were photos but we're not told which wall it is or its exact orientation to the rest of the house yet we still have plenty of information with which to visualize this cabin there are details without being restrictive and importantly even if we don't remember the specific details we will still get the overall sense of what this cabin looks like warm and cozy if you really struggle with including excessive amounts of detail or unnecessary detail or just sort of micromanaging the reader's imagination one trick that might help is to conceptualize the story as if the narrator or the character is remembering something rather than looking at it in this moment so when we remember something that happened in the past if we're telling a story to a friend about something that happened to us we tend to focus on those details that really mattered that really set the scene or were relevant to the point of the story we don't tend to include the exact height of trees or which building was on the right versus the left side and things things that just don't add anything to the story of course if those details added to the story we would remember them and we would include them in this story so that trick can kind of help for some writers if if you're someone who's really struggling to figure out is this a an odd level of detail or an unrealistic level of detail you might ask yourself would the narrator or the character remember this detail from this event is it something that they would explain or include when telling the story to a friend of course there will be situations where a character unreasonably fixates on a specific uh detail or a color or the orientation of of a building or a landscape normally in that case though it makes logical sense we know either the character has a personal reason to be particularly invested in this um particular detail or maybe they're hyper fixating on that detail as sort of an avoidance strategies you know maybe they're experiencing emotional distress so they're hyper fixating on you know the shape of a bookshelf or something but we normally know when that makes sense in most cases we know that a character wouldn't really pay attention to that detail or that if they were telling the story those details aren't something that would seem relevant or important to them so that's just a little trick you can try if this is something that you really struggle with but I do encourage you to try to loosen the reins a little bit if you're the type of writer who feels that you really want to manage what exactly the reader is visualizing it's it's nice to give the reader a little breathing room so they can participate in in the storytelling process and creating the visual it'll also help a lot with their memory and their retention of what those visuals are are supposed to be what they represent and and what they actually mean for the story number two give visual readers something to work with those somewhat less common than over describing under describing can also be a common problem for amateur writers sometimes they might be under describing just certain things for example maybe they never describe what characters look like or they never describe locations for other writers they might just under describe all the time so everything is equally under described there are a few different reasons that this can happen some writers just don't have a Mind's Eye so they don't visualize um in their in their head they don't have a picture in their head of what things look like that can make it a lot more difficult to describe things on the page some writers just don't find the visual details um interesting so they they are more interested in action and dialogue they don't care what the readers the readers they don't care what the characters look like they don't care what the locations look like it's just not of interest to them some writers really struggle because their imagination is so vivid that they can have a hard time differentiating between what's in their head and what they've actually put on the page so they might um almost it's almost as if they've rehearsed their story so many times it's so Crystal Clear to them in their head they can have a hard time seeing when they haven't actually put those descriptions on the page itself so that the reader can understand them I want to be clear that I'm not talking about a sparse writing style it's completely fine if you don't want to use long descriptions or even medium length descriptions if that's not something that suits your style or your story take for example this sparse description from Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton Elena with gray haired in 60 a strong woman with a practical no-nonsense error this is simple direct and to the point there's no problem whatsoever with using this kind of simple direct descriptions what I'm talking about are descriptions that are so sparse that they create a barrier for enjoyment for a more visually minded readers so a lot of readers really care about the visuals they really want to know what the characters look like and what the locations look like and if you don't provide enough information for them to create a visual image the barrier for enjoyment for that type of reader can be so high that they might just pass over your book entirely they might not be able to fully engage with or fully enjoy the story so for the purpose of expanding the target market satisfying a large number of readers I think it's important to include just enough visual details that those more visually minded readers can really enjoy your book to the to the greatest possible capacity um so again you can be quite sparse with your descriptions quite direct with your descriptions but I would encourage you to include enough that you can satisfy those more visually minded readers so if you think that you might be struggling with this problem of under describing one clue might be that you're really struggling to reach a novel length um in your word count even though maybe you have a lot of scenes 30 scenes 40 scenes 50 scenes but you're not reaching novel length that can often be a good sign that you're under describing so there's just a lot of missing not missing but a lot of opportunity for additional words that you're not using and so you end up with a very short more more of a novella length than a novel length another clue could be beta readers or critique Partners telling you that they have a hard time visualizing what you're writing or they have a hard time comprehending what the characters look like um that can though sometimes actually be a symptom of the opposite problem of over describing because like I mentioned sometimes when you over describe it actually makes it harder to visualize and harder to understand um what things look like and it can make it harder to create in an image or a picture in the reader's head so that could go either way um with that said in my experience under describers usually know who they are they tend to be pretty aware that they're under describing as opposed to over describers who I often don't realize that they're over describing so if you are under describing what can you do about it one option is to research just like visual artists use reference photos you can always use images to help you out this is especially helpful if you're not a visual person or you don't have a Mind's Eye this doesn't necessarily mean pulling an image and just directly using exactly what you see rather you can look at a lot of images to find inspiration picking out the elements that really work for the toner Vibe you're shooting for or even elements that would just be interesting to include with this method you can intentionally and purposefully rather than relying on intuition inject the visual details into the story another potential approach is to focus on the tone or the vibe so if you don't particularly care about what the visuals are for example the visual doesn't actually impact the scene so maybe if two characters talking the location is irrelevant ultimately to the conversation doesn't matter where they are we could then choose a location that sort of mirrors or enhances the tone or the vibe of the conversation so if it's a very stressful conversation maybe they're in a really busy Subway so there's all these people pushing around them and it's very you know bustling and all these people are like a whirlwind of colors around them that can enhance that sense of stress that's coming from the conversation if we have two characters that are maybe flirty and you want to describe one of the characters in a way that's very attractive um maybe they're in a more upscale location or a really cute location maybe there's you know a flowering tree you know something very sweet and pleasant so we can use um what we already know about the scene to add descriptions that enhance the feel and the meaning of the scene if we're the type of writer who maybe struggles to have an inherent visual to go along with the scenes in the first place if you really struggle to differentiate what's in your head with what's on the page the best thing that you can try to do is to shut off your imagination to shut off your mind's eye and to try to read literally what's on the page and only what's on the page this can be really difficult to do but it can be a skill that you can practice and learn over time it can be very helpful to take a break for a month or two months before you read for this purpose so that you are less replaying what you already know about your story and more able to really look at what's actually on the page sometimes we can over rehearse our stories in our heads so we sort of play them out and we know exactly what they look like because we've played them out so many times in that case it can sometimes help to do some sort of strange things like read the book backwards so read the last scene through to the first scene or or even read the chapters in a random order so that we kind of break a little bit from how we normally imagine the story that can help us to sort of see where we're not including descriptions with all all of that said I don't want anyone to feel like they need to include lengthy descriptions if they don't want to I would just recommend that you include enough descriptions to satisfy readers who are more visually minded because it will really improve the marketability of your book it will widen the audience it'll help more people to really enjoy the story that you're telling number three avoid meaningless lists of descriptions in my previous video on paragraphs I talked about the importance of having a sort of point or intention behind the paragraph something that you're trying to bring across that sort of is the glue that holds the paragraph together that same concept can be very helpful with descriptions with a lot of amateur writers can tend to do is to create lists of descriptions that don't have an overall meaning or don't create a cohesive overall image and just sort of end up being a random list of descriptors for example we might describe a character like this Elizabeth had shoulder length brown hair medium-sized eyes a soft nose strong cheekbones and pink lips she was slightly tall and wore a long blue dress this doesn't actually tell us anything about Elizabeth most likely the only memorable thing we're going to take away from this description is that she's tall even if we could evoke a photographic quality image of Elizabeth in our minds we still don't know anything about her or the meaning of this description within the context of the scene or story depending on the context and the point of view of the novel is being told in Elizabeth being tall with strong cheekbones could be intimidating or it could be attractive but with a list of features without interpretation or implication we're not given enough information to actually learn anything about Elizabeth often when it comes to descriptions amateur writers will create lists of descriptors that are essentially meaningless within the context of the story not only is it difficult for readers to remember these long lists of descriptions they also don't mean anything they don't create a cohesive overall image so it may it might be difficult for more visually oriented writers to think in these terms because they might be thinking well the point of a visual description is the visual but the meaning behind those visual descriptions the cohesive idea that they're bringing across is more important than the individual details so what we want to do is try to either pick out one or two details three details whatever that that best brings across the overall point this will make it more memorable it'll also make that point more obvious or we can still have a variety of different details as long as they're all sort of supporting the same points so they're all sort of pointing in the same direction take for example this description of Vivi Walker from the divine secrets of the yaya Sisterhood at 67 she was still fit from playing tennis twice a week she'd put on five pounds and she tried to quit smoking but she still could have passed for a much younger woman her legs though not tan were muscular and strong her subtly colored ash blonde hair was cut in a French Bob and over it she wore an expensive black straw hat of the best weave which she had bought 35 years ago she wore linen shorts a crisp white blouse and Tennis Shoes her jewelry consisted of a single 24 karat gold bracelet her wedding ring and a pair of tiny diamond earrings this was her summer uniform and had been since anybody in Sandler could remember all of these descriptions of Vivir are pointing in the same direction Baby cares a lot about her appearance the excessive details subtly colored ash blonde hair cut in a French Bob expensive black Straw Hat are the best weave a crisp white blouse actually helped to convey just how particular she is about her appearance the cohesive message behind the visual makes the details a bit more memorable the readers are still unlikely to remember more than a couple of them specifically what's more important is that if you were to only remember one or two details or even no details at all the sum of those details the message the writer is trying to send about who Vivi is as a person is still memorable and creates a lasting and specific impression of the character for example let's look at this character description from White Oleander by Janet Fitch a thin woman with over bright eyes and the nervous gestures of a frightened bird kids smile too widely in her red lipstick as she darted here and there looking at the design examining Pages stopping to read type over my mother's shoulder and pointing out Corrections describing her as a frightened bird gives us an immediate and meaningful sense of who this person is there's also a Harmony in the description as thinness and bright eyes are also bird-like attributes as is the description of her darting here and there there's a sense of cohesion and purpose behind these descriptions when you're writing or editing your descriptions try to keep in mind what message are you trying to send what tone are you trying to set what are you trying to convey about this thing that you're describing and are the descriptions you're giving in support of that idea number four be conscious of what you're emphasizing it's important that we are able to put emphasis on the right elements and the right descriptions in our novels writers need to be able to manage the reader's attention we need to be able to to direct that attention towards the most important elements it's difficult to do that if we're putting emphasis on things that don't need emphasis you might have experienced this before in a movie or a book where a lot of emphasis or attention was put on an object or a character and then that thing never became relevant again and maybe you were left kind of wondering you know why did we spend four paragraphs describing this vase if this base is totally irrelevant to the overall story we always want to avoid over emphasizing elements that are irrelevant but equally important we also want to be able to put emphasis on the things that really need emphasis we want to de-emphasize those things that aren't important and emphasize the things that are important in the amount of detail in our descriptions can help us in doing that for example let's look at this description from Jurassic Park this is our first encounter with a dinosaur in the book but the characters don't yet know about the dinosaurs so in this scene a little girl Tina thinks she's encountering a lizard the lizard stood up on its hind legs balancing on its thick tail and stared at her standing like that it was almost a foot tall dark green with brown Stripes along its back its tiny front legs ended in Little Lizard fingers that wiggled in the air the lizard cocked its head as it looked at her Tina thought it was cute sort of like a big salamander she raised her hand and wiggled her fingers back the lizard wasn't frightened it came toward her walking upright on its hind legs it was hardly bigger than a chicken and like a chicken it bobbed its head as it walked Tina thought it would make a wonderful pet she noticed that the lizard left three toe tracks that look exactly like bird tracks in some ways we might feel like this description violates a lot of the things we've talked about in this video it's very specific contains more detail than we necessarily need to understand or visualize the situation and the description is pretty lengthy but these details are relevant to the story later on when the characters attempt to identify the lizard which of course is a dinosaur so it can't be identified this information especially the coloring and the size is used to narrow down a possible lizard match and to eventually rule out that match the three toes specifically are integral to differentiating the dinosaur from native lizards the fact that it stands on his hind legs is another clue that comes into play later on the key to making these detailed descriptions work so that they create emphasis is that we can't put that same level of detail onto everything we have to reserve the higher level of detail for the things that we truly want to emphasize some writers might worry that if they put too much emphasis on something that they make it too obvious that that thing is relevant so for example they might feel that you know in this scene from Jurassic Park why make it so obvious that there's something about this lizard that this lizard is significant but in this scene and often in in fiction in film as well as in novels um we're not really trying to hide that this thing is relevant so the reader already knows that this is a book about dinosaurs they're already assuming that this lizard is a dinosaur it's not a secret it's not a surprise if you have something that is genuinely better as a Twist that you genuinely genuinely want to be a surprise of course you might choose to reduce emphasis on it to sort of hide that fact a little bit but in many cases we actually don't need to hide that something is significant because it's not really part of it um the tension in this scene for example comes from the fact that the reader knows that this little girl's interacting with the dinosaur that's what gives tension to the scene if we had no idea we just thought it was a lizard uh we'd probably be thinking this scene is kind of boring and not very interesting so in many cases we don't really want to hide that things are relevant or that this thing is unusual or creepy or something to pay attention to in many cases we're better off drawing attention to those things rather than trying to hide it and have it be a surprise later on and maybe in the future I'll make a video talking specifically about this when when you would want something to be a surprise versus when we just want to be clear about um what's a threat or or what something to pay attention to so another way that we can create emphasis is by being extremely specific so like we talked about earlier in this video people don't tend to remember very specific details about things so when they do remember really specific details we know that it's something that was really important to the character or something really familiar to the character here's a nice overt example from Darkly dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsey the small dirt road was barely visible you almost had to know it was there but I knew I had been there before the road ran for two and a half miles twisting three times through the Sawgrass through the trees alongside a small Canal deep into the Swap and into a clearing Dexter overtly States his familiarity with the location you almost had to know it was there but I knew and then emphasizes his familiarity with specific details about the road the road ran for two and a half miles twisting three times through the Sawgrass through the trees alongside a small Canal deep into the swamp and into a clearing this level of detail emphasizes just how familiar Dexter is with this road something vital to keep in mind is that for certain things to have emphasis we can't put the same level of descriptions on everything we have to make decisions about which things really need that extra description and that extra emphasis if everything is described in depth then nothing is going to stand out number five don't forget the non-visual descriptions though some writers like I mentioned earlier don't have a Mind's Eye the majority of writers do really focus on the visuals they're very invested and interested in the visual elements of their story however this can some sometimes lead to forgetting that we have five senses not just sight so we also can have sounds and smells sometimes taste and Sensations I think are something that should be used often to help the reader to sort of Step into the shoes of the character to sort of embody the character to feel a greater sense of presence within the scene here's an example of physical Sensation from Jurassic Park and then without warning the lizard jumped up onto her outstretched hand Tina could feel its little toes pinching the skin of her palm and she felt the surprising weight of the animal's body pressing her arm down the sensation of its little toes pinching the skin of her palm and the weight of the animal's body pressing her arm down are physical Sensations that we can imagine experiencing it helps us to feel more as if we're living through that experience alongside the character let's look at another example this time the use of scent this is from the road they cross the broken asphalt apron and found the tank for the pumps the cap was gone and the man dropped to his elbows to smell the pipe but the odor of gas was only a rumor faint and stale the description the odor of gas was only a rumored faint and stale is really evocative while many readers love Imagining the visuals these non-visual sensory details can often do an even better job of bringing us into the moment with the character sometimes even a lack of sensation can be used to good effect for example here's a description from the divine secrets of the Yaya's Sisterhood City struck out in the rain along the Lake Trail then deep into the rainforest where the canopy of trees was so thick she could not feel the rain the darkness and quietness both comforted her and frightened her she felt like a child might feel in a dim silent Cathedral here the lack of sensation of the rain and the lack of sound is significant to her experience in fact it almost replaces visual descriptions entirely but it still does a great job of conveying the experience and helping us to empathize with Sitta often these non-visual sensory descriptions are missing from amateur writing while it's technically sufficient to just write it was hot outside it's a lot more immersive for the reader if you can write about the taste of sweat in the character's mouth or the feeling of the heat radiating off the blacktop these extra sensory details really helped the reader to feel as if they're embodying the characters if they're part of the scene and that can really improve their connection to what's going on and it can improve their overall interest and immersion in the story so that is all I have for today I really hope that you found these five tips helpful again this is part one of two parts I will be back with five more tips in the next video if you want to help support the channel I have a patreon a cheat sheet will go up for this video after the second part so that I can include all 10 tips together in one cheat sheet but that will go on patreon um later when I get that video up um right now there's some q and A's on there we have a Discord Channel and there are some cheat sheets from older videos up as well if that's something that interests you I will be back with part two in the near future and in the meantime happy writing guys

Channel: Ellen Brock

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Id: kHnJdWNUfus

Length: 28min 28sec (1708 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 12 2023