- What's up my friend, Abbie here and welcome back to #AskAbbie where I answer your writing questions and help you make your story matter. Today's question comes from Jasleen. "Hey Abbie. "How do you make your writing immersive, "so that the reader and audience "feels like they're right
there with the characters," for example, "describing internal conflict "so that the reader or
audience fully empathizes, "describing settings
and characters vividly, "but not in purple prose, "writing a character's thoughts
and feelings, et cetera. "I tend to be too
on-the-nose or too abstract "and I can't seem to get a good balance "on immersive writing. "I hope this makes
sense, thank you so much, "you're a writing lifesaver!!" There is a fine line between purple prose and beige prose. By definition, purple prose means overly extravagant, ornamental, or flowery text that makes a sentence
too dramatic or fancy and beige pros by contrast is a sentence that is
brief and to the point, has a simple structure,
and few figures of speech. However, I suggest that you
can find a happy medium, a balance between these two things so that you're not getting
too flowery and ostentatious with your writing and you're also not
making it too on-the-nose like you were saying,
too simple, too bland and lacking color and lacking character. And the way to do this, the way to find this balance
between those two things and make your writing immersive, make your descriptions feel immersive and include your character's
internal conflict is not to focus on your own writing style or crafting the sentence, but to focus on the character's
voice above all else. And this is a piece of writing
advice that changed my life and it was something that
kind of just dawned on me. I don't think that I heard it anywhere, but I have said it ever
since it clicked for me is that when you're writing
from a character's perspective, you are writing their
voice, not your voice. So don't even think of it so
much as your writing style or you're trying to write
an immersive description. Think of it more from the
perspective of the character, like the character who
is telling this story is trying to write this
immersive description. They are conveying their
perception of the events, how they see it through the
lens of their own beliefs, personality, and internal conflict. So what are some thoughts that this character would actually have, how would they perceive the
events that are happening? And this is a great moment to really sink into
their character's voice, which, by the way, I made a
whole video on character voice you can check out right here. Just some really good tips for finding your character's voice. But ultimately, it's about understanding
who they are, right, their personality, their beliefs, what's happened to them up
until this point in their life, how do they see the world,
how do they see themselves, and how would they describe
what's happening to them based on all of that? So ask yourself a better question. That is always the answer to everything is asking yourself a better question. Instead of asking yourself,
"How should I describe this," ask yourself, "How does
this character see it?" Overly descriptive
sentences are hard to read and therefore, hard for your
reader to visualize quickly. They can't see your story happening like a movie in their mind if they're stuck trying to understand what you're even trying to say because you're using so
many descriptive, flowery, extravagant words to describe it. You want your reading experience to be effortless and enjoyable. So let's look at a few
examples of beige pros versus purple pros versus immersive
character-based descriptions. And I'm going to use my own
writing for the examples here because that way I can
butcher it as much as I want for the sake of our examples. So only one of these examples is going to be the immersive
character-based descriptions. The actual excerpt from my book will only be one of the examples. The other two will be
beige and purple, 'kay? So this first one is taken
from a scene in my book, 100 Days of Sunlight, the moment when Tessa and
Weston have a disagreement over the flowers that he's brought her. And if you know the story, you know what's scene I'm talking about. If you haven't read it, you should, but that's besides the point. So at this point in the book, Tessa is pretty much fed up with Weston, but this is kinda the moment
where she starts to let him in, she starts to break down her walls a bit. Before I read the actual excerpt, I'm going to read you a beige
prose example of this excerpt and a purple prose example. So I actually went through and kinda butchered these
excerpts and rewrote them to show you what beige pros looks like, what purple pros looks like, and what the immersive character-based, character voice descriptions
I'm talking about, what that looks like. So let's jump into it. First, beige pros example. "I'm ready for your dictation, Tessa. "I sit down at her desk
and open her laptop. "There's a moment of silence
and I can tell she is angry. "I type in her computer password and wait. "When Tessa doesn't say
anything, I turn to look at her. "She has moved from her
seat on the edge of the bed, "but now she looks mad enough
to throw something at me." Blah, blah. So boring, so stale. None of Weston's voice
shines through at all and on top of it, I'm telling
more than I'm showing. Okay, Tessa is angry, but
how does Weston see that, how do he perceive that? This example is obviously
lacking color, description, and all of the elements
that make a scene immersive. But we also don't wanna get so descriptive that we step into purple prose like this. "I'm ready for your dictation, Tessa. "I sit down at her glossy
white desk and open her laptop. "The following silence
is overwhelmingly long "and deafeningly quiet. "Tessa's anger is like a
palpable force of nature, "radiating through the room "and becoming an insurmountable
obstacle to conversation "as I type in her computer password "and wait for her inevitable response. "When I turn slightly to look
over my shoulder at Tessa, "I'm not surprised to find her
frozen in place on her bed, "her cheeks are flushed, an
infuriating shade of pink "and her fingers are curled "around the white linen bedsheets "as she silently contemplates
the numerous punishments "she would like me to suffer "for being so stubborn about the flowers." So purple, it's painful,
it's literally painful. Plus, there is no Weston voice
in that paragraph at all. That's what I mean when I'm talking about
focusing on character voice above all else because sometimes character voice calls for fewer right
words and more color, more mess, more spice. So now let me read you the
actual excerpt from the scene. "I'm ready for your dictation, Tessa. "I sit down at her desk
and open her laptop. "A deathly silence falls. "I can practically feel the volcano "rumbling underneath me,
getting ready to erupt. "I log into her computer
with that weird password, "openeverydoor325 and wait. "She's pissed, I can tell, "but I don't know how much "until I turn around and look at her. "She hasn't moved from her
seat on the edge of the bed. "Her cheeks are flushed pink "and her fingers curl
around the twisted blankets "until her knuckles whiten. "For a second, "I wonder if she's going
to throw something at me, "probably not, "since it would disrupt
the perfect feng shui "of her bedroom. "She doesn't throw anything,
but she does explode, "with poetry." So right away, you can probably see how that description hits all the points we talked about, character voice, showing not telling, we see what Weston sees, we see what he is perceiving
about Tessa's body language, her reaction. Also, the volcano thing
is a recurring metaphor that happens throughout the book because the first time they meet, it's quite an explosive argument. Okay, let's look at another example. We're gonna go to Tessa's voice this time. So we're gonna jump
halfway through the book to kind of the midpoint of the story when Tessa is starting to realize that she has feelings for Weston. First we have the beige pros. "If he's so good looking, I say, "why doesn't he have a girlfriend? "Grandma hesitates, then
replies, "perhaps he does." "The thought makes me feel envious, "but it's unlikely Weston
does have a girlfriend. "She wouldn't want him coming
over to see me all the time, "even though our relationship is platonic, "that is, I always
thought it was platonic, "but now I don't know. "I feel things for Weston
that I've never felt before. "I think I might be falling for him." No, just no. On the flip side, let's
look at some purple prose. "If he's so good looking, I say, "why doesn't he have a girlfriend? "Grandma hesitates for a
minute before replying, "perhaps he does." "The twinge of envy I feel
is imperceptibly small, "but impossible to ignore. "I contemplate it for a long moment "and eventually come to the conclusion "that Weston most likely
does not have a girlfriend. "After all, he spends
so much time over here "and no girlfriend, however long-suffering "and virtuously forgiving,
would spare him day after day, "even if Weston and I "are nothing more than platonic friends. "But in the secret caverns of my thoughts, "a battle rages between
intellectual reasoning "and emotional impulse. "The former insists "that I have no romantic
feelings for Weston, "but the latter argues with
a language of sensitivity "and a depth of emotion
too infinite for words." (chuckles) Oh my God. It's so snuffy and formal and annoying and not immersive at all and also not Tessa's voice. Like, I mean, she's kinda lyrical and poetic, but not like that. And now the actual excerpt from the book. "If he's so good-looking, I say, "why doesn't he have a girlfriend? "Grandma hesitates for a
minute before replying, "perhaps he does." "I feel a twinge of envy,
small and prickling in my gut "when I consider the possibility. "Weston can't have a girlfriend. "She wouldn't spare him to
come over here all the time "and she would dump him "if she knew he was seeing another girl, "regardless of how platonic
our relationship is, but is it? "I didn't think I liked Weston "and my brain still insists that I don't, "but my body suggests otherwise. "My heart flutters in my chest "like a firefly trapped in a Mason jar. "My cheeks warm with a blood
rush when I talk about him "and my hands still do
that tingling thing, "like they did when he was
sitting next to me on the couch. "I didn't think I liked Weston,
but now I'm not so sure." Simpler, to the point, but
not without feeling or color. Lots of body language, some overthinking, but most importantly, it is
in keeping with Tessa's voice. So bottom line. Don't strive to make every
description in your book spectacular and colorful. Instead, strive to make
your reader feel something. You want to immerse them in
the character's perspective, so much so that they forget
they're even reading a book. And another great way to
practice character voice is to just write practice pages. Just sink into your character's voice by writing something that maybe, it doesn't even belong in the book, maybe it's like a journal entry from that character's
perspective or just anything, any scene that comes to mind just to kind of try your hand at it and sink into their voice. And the more you do this, it's
really a matter of practice and time, time, time. The more you write in
this character's voice, the more you will feel like
you are becoming that character and you see things the
way that they see things. And that might be different than the way you, the author sees things. And that's the cool thing about writing is that we can explore
these different perspectives and these different
perceptions of reality. Also, definitely check out that video that I mentioned before
all about character voice, my top tips for mastering character voice, I think you'll get a
lot out of that video. But hopefully that answers your question and gives you some good
examples to go off of. And of course, if you guys wanna read
100 Days of Sunlight and you haven't yet, you can click the link
below and grab your copy. It's the best way to
support what I'm doing. Another great way to
support what I'm doing is to go to my Patreon, which is where you can sign up to ask questions for this show. So there are two ways to
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if you liked this video and be sure to subscribe to this channel if you haven't already because I post writing videos
every Wednesday and Saturday and I would love to have
you here in the community. Until next week my friend, rock on. I've seen posts on Pinterest
and different places that's like, "Questions to ask yourself
about your magic system" and there's like a ton of questions. And a lot of times I'm like, "Well really, "you don't need to know everything here. "You don't need to know the
answer to all of these questions "and the reader certainly
doesn't need to know "the answer to all of those questions." So try to narrow down...
