How to Write Better Descriptions and Make Your Writing Style Shine

we're sisters best friends and authors on a mission to help you stoke your creative fire and live the life of your dreams we believe that purpose fuels passion and that creativity is your secret weapon for Mass construction there's never been a better time to bless the world with your dream realized you're listening to the Kate and Abby show what's up guys welcome back to another episode of the Kate and Abby show today we're talking all about writing better descriptions so do you feel like your descriptions are lacking like they fall flat sometimes and you're not sure how to make them more colorful and creative that's what we're discussing in this episode we're going to unpack this whole topic and show you some really creative and psychologically proven techniques to make your descriptions better more creative more immersive and to convey the emotion that you're trying to illustrate through your descriptions so lots to talk about when it comes to description but Kate and I have broken this topic down into three major pillars first we're going to be talking about the interpretation of how your character sees the world then we're going to be talking about character voice and personality bringing that into your descriptions and we're also going to talk about describing characters so describing the physical appearance of characters which can be a really tricky thing to do sometimes so we're going to kind of cover this topic from different angles and give you guys side by side comparisons actual written examples of descriptions flat versions and then more creative versions so you can kind of see side by side the contrast so super excited to get into this episode and before we get started we have to thank our sponsors who are you guys who are the ones who support this show keep it going keep it free of interruptions and we so appreciate your support so if you get value out of this podcast go to patreon.com the Kate and Abby show also on our patreon community you can get access to monthly live hangout sessions with me and Kate it's like a small group creative organic discussion that we all get together and discuss books and some of our behind the scenes writing projects and the future episodes of the podcast so lots of yeah this actually was an episode that um someone in the group in the circle had recommended that we do this episode and so we're like yeah you know we should do that and chat about it and then came up with this episode so it's it's a fun environment where we get to talk in a more direct way with you guys do q a have back and forth dialogue about what you guys would like to see and what would best serve you in this format in this show yeah so lots of um great discussions happen in the monthly Hangouts so if you want access to those you can you can get access by joining our patreon at any level and the patreon directly goes to supporting this show and keeping it alive and free of interruptions okay let's get into it let's get into the first section of this topic so to me the biggest thing that comes up when I think about descriptions and writing descriptions is first there's no like right or wrong writing style obviously so everyone's descriptions will sound different but the important rule of thumb to remember is not like how can I make this more colorful with my language that I'm using and you know more complicated words or complex sentence structure it's not about that really what it's about is your character's interpretation of the world so you're not describing things as they are you're describing how your character sees it and this I feel is like the golden rule of any immersive description this is what makes you feel like you're actually in the shoes of the character experiencing the world as they experience it right and it doesn't matter if you're writing first person or third person you should still be filtering everything that your character sees through the lens of the point of view character so whether you're narrating from a first person perspective or a third person perspective you're still gonna have like a point of view character that the story is focusing on the most and they're kind of the one who's seeing the world and interpreting it as they see it so it's kind of like a basic rule of psychology that like how we feel about things changes the way we see things and none of us really has a fully objective view of reality or anything it's our perceptions that create our reality so instead of asking yourself what does this thing look like when describing something visual instead ask yourself how does my character perceive this based on their beliefs and attitude right I feel like that's a good starting point definitely and it's the same it's this is the exact reason why if you asked let's say you went somewhere with a group of friends and you asked each one of them afterwards to describe the events of the day or describe an experience you had each person would describe it differently and not because they experienced something different but because their perception as a unique human being a unique individual is reflected in how they perceive things that that's it's going to change how they perceive things so that there's that individuality that you want to bring to your characters so like Abby's saying it's not so much what is it it's what does my character perceive it to be because of their unique lens that's been developed over time by their experiences their flaws their strengths their weaknesses right yeah exactly they're not really in a active Observer of how things are they're an interpreter of how things affect them and so then shifting your shifting your creativity and and your mind towards that instead of like I need to describe this thing in a really poetic beautiful way um it suddenly becomes a different objective of like well how does this character see it because how they see it will be different to how you see it even you know and that's part of the experience of like putting yourself in the shoes of the character is you're kind of becoming them and you want the reader to feel like they're becoming them um becoming the character so this makes them an active participant in the scene and it makes them more of an active character and that's what you want your reader to feel like like they are an active participant in the scene as well so let's look at a side by side example now so let's say you are writing a story about a character who is let's say you're writing a scene where you have this character who's about to enter a creepy Victorian house that they've heard is haunted by ghosts okay that's our setup here and they're standing outside on the on the walkway hesitant to step inside so we have two examples here one is more of a flat description how things are and the better example is more of how the character sees it so flat example Teresa stood on the walkway staring up at the creepy old house it was two stories tall with peeling paint and broken pains in some of the windows it had a wrap around porch and a weathered swing that Creek doesn't moved back and forth the front door had been left open like the ghosts were expecting her storm clouds were darkening the sky which made the whole place look scarier Teresa didn't want didn't want to go into the house and find out whether it was really haunted but she didn't have much of a choice so as you can see this example is lacking Rhythm and creativity and flavor and character voice character perception we're more just it's almost like taking inventory of what exactly is there in front of the character exactly and so a better version of this might look like something like this a chill raced down Teresa's spine as she stood on the pathway staring up at the old Victorian house that loomed before her were the rumors true was this place really haunted it certainly looked like a breeding ground for ghosts a hollow shell of a house sagging with rot and smothered and Moss like an infection that had spread to every shutter and floorboard on the wraparound porch an old swing creaked eerily as it drifted back and forth like an invisible hand was pushing it but that wasn't what terrified Teresa the most it was the front door which had been left open as if expecting her arrival all she could see when she looked at it was a hungry gaping mouth ready to swallow her stop it Teresa scolded herself silently ghosts aren't real she ignored the coil of dread tightening in her stomach and took a step toward the old house so as you can see this example is way more creative and colorful and all because we see how Teresa sees the house that's basically the only difference here her observations are subjective okay the Moss is an infection the Invisible Hand is pushing the swing the front door is a hungry mouth ready to swallow her those are all Teresa's interpretations of what's going on not really what is going on and so that's basically what we mean here by like bringing the characters interpretations and how they see the situation into the description and there are so many different ways to do this depending on the character you're writing and the scenario you're writing but I think it's important also of course to focus on the internal conflict here and finding those moments to bring to the surface the character's fears their desires their goals what is the internal forces at Play Because those those things are what really supercharged description and make something even that's mundane feel meaningful right exactly yeah and it's it's so much more it has so much more style to it it feels like there's so much more of a voice rather than just cut and dry narration exactly which leads us to our next point and that is personality and character voice so this is another key element to Juicy colorful descriptions and this is something that you can play with a lot and it's really fun I find it really fun to play with character voice and personality and finding ways to weave your character's personality into the description so we think in the style that we talk like everything we perceive and think about and have a thought process or internal dialogue about is kind of the same style that we speak in um in a way so how does your character's personality and voice influence the way they describe scenes situations and other people that's a really good question to ask yourself as you're going into writing a scene from this character's perspective and I feel like there are so many ways to do that like there's no like I want to keep re-emphasizing the fact that there's no right or wrong writing style and like these examples that we're giving today the the better examples they're written in my writing style because I wrote these examples but your writing style might look completely different and that's totally fine that's great that's perfect the principle is more bringing these elements to your Unique Style so there's no right or wrong way to write prose it could be more colorful and poetic and lyrical if that's your style or more simple and to the point and um Spartan I guess in a way and that's all those are all stylistic things so it's kind of more of your writing preference right it's more like taking these principles and then making them work for you modifying and using them in a way that's going to serve you not restrict you so Abby and I always believe in experimenting and trying new things with your writing to see what is going to serve your writing the best and how can you mold it and shape it so that it works for you not mold and shape your writing so that it works for this principle this is something that you have to find how does this work for me and like Abby was saying everyone's style and writing voice is going to be different so it's about taking these examples and looking at them in terms of your own writing how could you use them with your Unique Style and that may look completely different from what we're doing here right exactly and taking taking note also of like your character's personal style and that may be different than how you think and talk right we're like kind of exploring that a lot with the co-write we're currently working on because it's multi-point of view and each character is very different from the one next to it and um all of our our cast is just really diverse in personality very different each each one is so individual that when you step into that character you have to really take on their voice their personality all their little quirks and the rhythm of their speaking to describe what's happening and so it's been a fun it's almost like an exercise in what we're teaching here because you have to really look at well how would this character perceive if they'd perceive it so much different than this one so this may if you're someone writing multiple point to points of view this would be something that maybe this changes from point of view to point of view to reflect your individual character's voice yes exactly very good point so let's look at another side-by-side comparison let's say you're writing a character who is kind of cheeky and tends to be overly confident and self-centered and let's say he's walking into work knowing his boss is planning to promote someone in the office and he mistakenly believes he will be the one to receive the promotion only to find out that it's been given to someone else so side-by-side example let's look at the flat example first today was going to be a great day I could feel it the Sun was shining the birds were singing and I was walking into the office on my first day being the senior creative director what could possibly go wrong nothing I thought until my annoying cubicle neighbor Emily walked up with a taunting smile and said good morning Bryce good morning I replied suspiciously why do you look so pleased with yourself because I got the promotion she burst out rubbing it in by sticking her hand out for a shake as if we'd never met before you're speaking to the new creative director I stared at her dumbstruck I couldn't believe it so this is okay but it's kind of bland it's kind of on the nose and I want to if I saw this description in in my own writing I would want to bring out more of Bryce's personality okay and show how he's cheeky and full of himself and also ramp up the emotion and tension between him and his co-worker so here's a possible way to do that today was going to be a great day I could feel it the Sun was shining the birds were singing and I was striding into the office on my first day being the senior creative director okay maybe I was strutting more than striding but who cares I deserved this promotion I'd worked harder than anyone in the office knowing that one day my efforts would pay off one day everyone else would be answering to me good morning Bryce Emily was the first to greet me when I entered the office a dazzling smile on her lips good old Emily she may have been the most annoying cubicle neighbor I was ever unfortunate enough to work next to but I had to hand it to her the girl had real sportsmanship nobody besides me had fought as hard for the promotion as she did but her smile that morning was genuine satisfied full of professional pride and respect heck I was almost going to miss sitting next to her in that dingy little cubicle it is a good morning isn't it I sat with a grin straightening my tie always a good morning when you're the senior creative director in a place like this Emily laughed and tossed her silky hair over one shoulder I know right it's so exciting I can't wait to get started I have to admit I was surprised they didn't choose you for the promotion but don't worry I'm sure it's nothing personal I was just a better person for the job the realization hit me like a punch in the stomach what so as you can see the difference here is that we're emphasizing the character's voice and internal conflict way more in the second example and we're also playing with sort of the comic timing and the contrast of expectation versus reality right which is another really fun thing to play with with character voice is like how how do the characters think something's gonna happen and then like contrasting that with what actually happens and showing it kind of surprises the characters but also surprises the reader at the same time with this different outcome and it's a great way to hold your readers interest as well but that's kind of like another I guess another topic I don't know well another interesting thing to point out too is the fact that the better example is almost twice as long as the first example and so this is a really good point to hit on is that it's places like these when you want to bring some more words into the mix because so often a lot of you know when you're editing a lot of emphasis is put on what words can be taken out what words are not necessary what words are perhaps distracting from the main subject but in instances like this we actually brought so much more um personality and style and groove and insight and internal conflict into the more wordy example so it's places like this where we can actually put some more words inject some more words into the mix because it's going to make it more meaningful that's always the balance is adding or taking away words in order to make the story more meaningful so it's places like this that we can look at well even though this is twice as long does it make the scene more impactful and in this case it reveals to us so much more about Bryce's personality even more about his relationship with his co-worker that makes this scene just so much more intense than the first example exactly very good point and I think that's something to definitely watch for if you're trying to cut words from your book or not you know all I have to restrict myself and not make this too long sometimes it's better to make something longer and the pacing of it longer more um more of a build up right in a meaningful moment because you have you have internal conflict and you have some pretty complex emotions happening between your characters that's a time where you want to take your time um you don't want to rush through that so appreciating and and understanding like the pacing of the scene and like how what kind of pacing would make my reader feel the most for my characters is more important than making things go by quickly I think that's an excellent point um so definitely have fun with that play with that one and enjoy the creative play time of like exploring your character's personality and their inner dialogue and their voice and seeing how their personality reflects upon their voice upon their word choice how they see themselves how they see other people it can be just a really fun exercise to play with different character personalities and see what what you come up with okay last but not least describing people like you introduce a new character and you kind of want to pause the story for a second just to explain what this character looks like and go through their physical appearance and and give the reader a good mental image of what this character looks like but you don't want to just go through an inventory list of all their physical features because that can first of all be too long and dragged out it can also make the story make the like kind of hit pause on the story for a long time just to describe this character and go in depth about every single detail and a lot of times we don't need that much description so a lot of writers do get carried away with detail but some writers don't describe characters enough and then we're left with this false mental image like we're allowed we're left to like create our own mental image and then have it shattered later like I've experienced that many times and then the movie comes out and then there's outrage because no one thought the character looked like that yeah because we didn't describe them exactly so that's why it's important to have some foundational building blocks and then small things you can leave up to in the interpretation of the reader yeah but it does help us to have a more Vivid image in our minds of okay who is this person we just met right exactly so some Basics that you might want to describe about a physical description is facial features eyes lips nose jaw brows Etc build and height skin tone hair color and texture those are like the absolute Basics to me that's like I need to know these four things or at least you know two or a three out of four to be able to conjure like a pretty accurate mental image however you can also use other distinctive features about a character to show us something not just about what they look like but who they are um and maybe their history maybe their backstory maybe where they're from maybe um something about their personality so those things can be hairstyle scars or tattoos if they have any makeup or the lack thereof clothing what's what's their fashion style Voice or accent posture scent and gestures or non-verbal cues so like their body language can say a lot about who they are as well if you have a character who is more confident their body language will be different than somebody who's more insecure so those are all physical description things that could serve to say something about who this character is and where they're from and what is their role in the story and maybe even something about their internal conflict who knows get creative with it and again take into consideration the point of view character who's doing the describing of the character that we just introduced what are the things that they notice about this character and why are they things that this character would notice that the point of view character would notice um I've seen that so many times in in books where like the point of view characters describing another character and they just start describing things and using words and descriptors that feel so outside of their personality and their voice it's like they wouldn't notice that they wouldn't describe it like that it's and it feels a little bit unrealistic um because of that so asking yourself how do their preconceived ideas and opinions affect the way they see this person and how does their personality affect the way they see this other person and how they describe them um and and also how how the point of view character is looking at this new character what do they mean to them like what is the purpose that this new character is going to serve and how does the point of view characters perception of them change because of that that's another question that you could ask yourself for example I was once writing a story where my point of view character was a pickpocket and he was describing a woman that he was going to steal from and I put more emphasis on describing the jewelry that she was wearing that he was going to steal more so than describing her physical appearance because that's what he would be thinking about and that's what he would be noticing so that's what I mean about like taking into account what the point of view character would realistically notice about this other character right yeah that's a great example because it's very rooted in his character who he is as an individual based on what he's noticing right that's really dictating what he's noticing what his attention is being drawn to so then the reverse can be true as well for an example when it feels out of place is if we have published that maybe a character doesn't really pay attention very well or they skim over a lot of details and then suddenly they meet someone and they're describing every single detail about that person and we've already established that they don't really necessarily pay attention to a lot of things right maybe their their mind drifts more they kind of gloss things over well then they wouldn't really notice too much about someone else um so so there's a lot or if you have a character who's more self-absorbed maybe they notice hardly anything about other people so it's like you have and vice versa maybe you have someone who's very you know sensitive to small details so maybe they notice something like you know the color of the buttons on someone's shirt but if you have someone who's like doesn't notice much around them suddenly they're describing the buttons on someone's shirt I feel like that's a little out of place for them why are they noticing that and another thing to keep in mind is that you're bringing not only your character's attention but the reader's attention to all of these details and everyone's attention span is different most people don't have an extremely long attention span and they're looking for reasons why you're bringing their attention to this thing so it's best to make it meaningful make it matter to the character either because of their personality or has to matter to the story somehow like you know those buttons are gonna have special meaning later you know what I mean exactly so just keep keeping in mind and of course you don't have to overthink it when in doubt just write whatever you want and in the editing process you can always go back and ask yourself these questions if you find that you're getting jammed up overthinking this like do I really need to describe that her hair is Curly just write whatever you want and when you edit these are great questions to come back to through the editing process we do that all the time yeah 100 so true and remember that you don't have to describe everything all at once if you do want to describe everything about a character you can also like describe the the rudimentary Basics at first and then sprinkle in more descriptions as time goes on which is one of my favorite methods okay so two more examples side by side of describing characters first the flat example she had long curly hair the color of Honeysuckle and eyes as blue as the morning sky in late June her skin was tanned from the Sun and her strawberry pink lips were always smiling she had dimples in her cheeks freckles across her nose and a peace sign tattoo on her left ankle from her freshman year in high school when she and her friends had all dared each other to get tattoos she never wore makeup but she didn't need to she was a natural beauty today she was wearing a Rolling Stones t-shirt and denim shorts but she still looked glamorous so as you can see that description is pretty loaded with like lots of metaphors and comparisons and colors and backstory roots and backstory right so it's like it's a bit muddy right and once again remember every single thing you mention you're bringing your readers attention to that thing yes and doesn't matter bringing them to that ask yourself why does it matter why does the peace sign tattoo matter it doesn't to this character we're describing now now if she had like some mysterious scar that's lead that's like attached to her backstory and we have to know about this backstory that might be meaningful um or even a tattoo that's attached to her backstory that's meaningful but it's in this case not meaningful so I would start by taking away that and I would also start by honing in more on these descriptions of like hair the color of honeysuckle eyes as blue as the morning sky in late June can we like make those a little bit less dense and a little bit more quick giving the same impression but in a um like a quicker more of a snapshot view so that we can deliver the same sort of feeling and at the same time show the reader who this character is not just what they look like so here's a better example for comparison she was like sunshine in human form honeysuckle hair sky blue eyes and a laugh like the first day of summer effortlessly glamorous even in a Rolling Stones t-shirt and denim shorts it was impossible to not notice her dimples because she was always smiling and that was the most beautiful thing about her she was genuinely happy in a way that made everyone around her smile so shorter more to the point but as you can see the difference the first one is like an inventory list of the characters physical features and the other one serves to tell us not just how they look but a little bit about who they are and we still have room for those more descriptive lyrical that style um but in like the metaphors of like the honeysuckle the sky blue eyes but without it bogging down the description so finding ways to play with that and remembering that less is usually more I find with descriptions if you can say what you want to say in fewer words that to me is even more impressive than having a big long ostentatious sentence and what's interesting too unless you're literally going to rewind and re-listen to the flat example again you probably don't even like where are the differences you know what I mean it's almost like they kind of convey the same thing right you know I mean you're not like oh I'm really missing this part of it right which I mean maybe you are everyone's different but yes true but um it's almost like they're they're so similar but yet the the small differences made it more Compact and made it snappier fresher and it conveys the meaning quicker but yet it's still so similar we still have so many of the elements that made the first example fun that there's really it's almost like unless I go back and read the first one it sounds pretty much the same just a little bit quicker a little bit snappier yeah exactly and I think that it's it's easy to go overboard especially with metaphors especially when describing a person but also other descriptions too because if you use too many metaphors stacked on top of each other you almost lose track of what you're even looking at it's like am I looking at a girl or am I looking at honeysuckle or the sky or what am I looking at you know it's like it's strawberry pink lips it's like all these metaphors stopped on stacked on top of each other and then you're almost trying to like see through the metaphors right what's behind the metaphor and remembering too sometimes if you want one or two features to Stand Out Among the rest we want to sort of centralize around those features rather than spending too much time like her eyes were like this her lips were like this her hair looked like this we want to maybe just like boom here's the centerpiece yeah you know her hair was tumbling around her shoulders like a waterfall whatever that becomes the centerpiece and then everything else is a little bit um back seat right because our attention can't be brought to all of it at once so that's something to just keep in mind is if you want something to stand out make everything else sort of support that one feature rather than everything has a big description around it because then the one thing you might want to stand out sort of gets lost in the white noise of everything else yeah very true it's a very good point so yeah those are the main three pillars I would say of writing descriptions that you'll encounter is describing scenes and scenarios putting that through the lens of your character's perceptions and then describing situations where you can bring your character's voice and personality into the description and then describing other characters where again you're you're putting all of this together you're putting together the perceptions the interpretations and the character voice and personality and using that to also help you describe other characters in your story through the perspective of your point of view character but remembering that oftentimes less is more but in the first draft when you're just letting the creativity flow just see what happens just write forward and don't doubt yourself too much enjoy the creative play time that is writing it should be enjoyable it should be fun um but remember these examples remember these side-by-side comparisons and see if you can write your own side-by-side comparisons of taking a flat scene a flat description and turning it into something more creative and immersive and layered with conflict it's really fun exercise you can do exactly like we did like Abby was saying you can even just copy and paste maybe you're working on like okay this is a section I'm working on copy and paste it into a separate document and then come up with a few different versions and read all of them and then see what do I like about some which one do I like the best which one is my least favorite and then ask yourself why yeah it's a great point that would be a fantastic exercise guaranteed to improve your writing and this these are things that you learn from doing and Kate and I are big proponents of learning from doing and learning from the practice of writing not from you know studying it forever and never actually doing it so you have to get your hands dirty you know do the thing write the book write the story and write forward and learn from the experience just play enjoy the process try different things see what works see what doesn't that's the best way to just get familiarized with with what is your style what is your voice what do you like what do you not like you can only learn these things by just doing it over and over again and just play and have fun so true it's really all it is it's not that hard so hopefully you guys enjoyed this episode comment below and tell us what you thought we'd love to hear all your thoughts on these discussions we love to see you guys adding to the discussion so comment below and tell us your favorite thing about writing description maybe some things that you some obstacles you run into while you're writing description we'd love to hear all about your process in the comments below so do that if you're not in the video version of the podcast you can find that on Kate's YouTube channel which is youtube.com kamins and again thank you so much to our amazing sponsors you guys our patrons you helped make this show possible we so appreciate your support if you get value out of this podcast go to patreon.com the Kate and Abby show and help us keep it alive and free of interruptions until next time stay stoked and rock on

Channel: K.A. Emmons

Views: 22,915

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Id: Mwy2RnzW9nY

Length: 37min 25sec (2245 seconds)

Published: Mon May 15 2023