How to Write Engaging Descriptions in Fiction

thank you what is reading but just staring at pieces of dead trees for hours and hallucinating vividly as one clever reader put it in fiction the descriptions writers bring to the page spur readers to feel the story in their hearts and guts as they conjure scenes in their Mind's Eye many writers dread writing descriptions it's difficult to know what to include and it requires a lot of mental energy to summon interesting details from one's imagination description can involve the setting an object a character actions and even internal thoughts it might entail an artfully placed sentence dancing between dialogue a paragraph that grounds the reader in the scene or pages of prose that sink deep into a particular subject I have five guiding principles for writing description after touching on these Basics I'll cover more advanced strategies with in-depth examples one focus on details specific to the point of view with the script of writing it's tempting to Veer toward cliches because we don't have to think too hard if a writer wants to show that a character is beautiful they might rely on the familiar phrase she turned heads when she walked into a room to make descriptions more memorable and engaging be specific and go beyond the obvious at Art Museums men would find excuses to talk to her trying to steal her attention from Monet when it comes to rendering a scene author David F Schultz emphasizes the importance of knowing the story's narrative lens this includes how the point of view character precedes the world and what they notice he explains this idea in his article on the topic how do you describe a werewolf is the wrong question how does the protagonist see a werewolf is the question the answer is it depends on whether they are a Werewolf hunter or someone trying to run away Schultz provides an example written from the perspective of a werewolf Hunter she breathed in the creature's musk was there like a wet dog the word creature and the detail comparing the werewolf to an animal informed the reader about the character's world view as a hunter she doesn't have much empathy for werewolves the details you choose spring from the story's perspective two include the senses sight sound touch taste and smell sensory details add a visceral Dimension to a scene inspiring emotion from the reader the most underutilized sense is smell yet it's powerfully associated with strong memories mood and atmosphere say you want to create an atmosphere of coziness what smells would you or your characters associate with feeling cozy I'm imagining the warm scent of freshly baked gingerbread and the steaming cup of herbal tea conversely what smells create an atmosphere of dread or unease rotting fruit comes to mind Decay with an undertone of sweetness with sensory details try to avoid generic descriptors everyone knows clouds are fluffy and the Sun is bright what's more important is conveying the senses in a way that's emotionally relevant to the character or scene a sound that's normally comforting can be rendered terrifying depending on the phrasing it goes back to that concept of narrative lens how the description fits in the larger context of the story compare these two examples the call of the crows beckoned her home as she crossed the desert landscape versus the cacophony of the crows assaulted her ears as she'd crossed the desert landscape it's the same sound yet it can feel positive or negative depending on what the character is doing to expand your sensory memory go out on an adventure somewhere and try to write down at least one instance of each of the senses practice paying attention to the worlds around you and describing it through emotionally engaging phrasing 3. favor strong verbs and adjectives your addiction your word choices can do a lot of heavy lifting for you to express mood and tone verbs and adjectives feel strong when they evoke a feeling or give a new way of thinking about a subject these words often activate other senses as well verbs like drone sputtered and screeched for example all relate to sound and each one creates a slightly different effect in a sentence like the car droned or sputtered or screeched to a halt editors often recommend replacing the verb was with a stronger verb take this sentence she was even more irritated because the afternoon heat was on her and her two frilly dress was sticking to her skin all the verbs here are was what if we chose more interesting verbs instead to add voice and emotion the sentence might sound like this her irritation only festered as the afternoon heat bore down and her two frilly dress shrink wrapped her skin the verb festered meaning to become rotten has strong negative connotations matching the character's irritation shrink wrapped also features a passive aggressive tone underscoring her discomfort and it implies a texture these small changes give readers more information and create a stronger sense of voice and fewer words don't replace was in every instance but if you want to spice up a descriptive moment replacing was is one easy way to do it this includes descriptive sentences that begin with there was which you can often recast to put the subject at the beginning accompanied by a stronger verb there was a house sitting on the hill could become a house sat on the hill I often collect interesting nouns adjectives and verbs I encounter while reading and put them in a word bank to sneak into my own writing lighter these are usually words I already know but forget to use reading poetry has helped me expand my vocabulary and Inspire fresh ways of seeing the world the thesaurus is also your friend when you're writing descriptions but try to sprinkle interesting words throughout the story rather than stepping them all into a single sentence or paragraph juxtapose simple sentences with complex ones so you have variety in addition to the line level prose you want to consider the purpose of description in a scene which leads us to the next point four move the narrative forward good description advances the story it relates to whatever the character is doing or thinking in the scene if the protagonist is climbing a tree it's natural for them to describe those Sensations the roughness of the bark the way the light filters through the leaves above them they're physically interacting with the subject you're describing if you need a scene to go from point A to point B make it interesting to yourself in terms of content or language and that will in turn make it feel interesting into the reader for example I could write when the garage door opened she was standing on the other side but say I wanted to add a little more suspense and hint at how the point of view character feels about the she standing on the other side I might tease out the details the garage door creaked open revealing a pair of bubble gum Pink Shoes pale legs dotted with bruises then the metal curtain Rose higher and her smile Shone back at him her face a glow with freckles description can be a form of characterization it feels most natural to illustrate someone's appearance when the protagonist meets them for the first time or notices something has changed about them for instance if their mother's normally meticulous blonde hair is disheveled that tells us about her emotional state in addition to her appearance description is about conveying a feeling as much as it is about providing imagery when the character is describing themselves you can connect it to how they feel about those physical details in that moment isabellende uses a character's discomfort to drop details about her outfit in the house of the spirits a bone in nivea's corset snap and the point jabbed her in the ribs she felt she was choking in her blue velvet dress with its high lace collar its narrow sleeves and a waist so tight that when she removed her belt her stomach jumped and twisted for half an hour while her organs fell back in place five don't describe everything flowery long descriptions aren't better than short to the point descriptions or vice versa both are valid styles that serve different stories and reader preferences use a descriptive style that fits with the character's perspective the overall tone of the story and the type of scene you're writing your character probably wouldn't wax poetic about the ocean while they're drowning unless that's an intentional contrast you're using to communicate the ocean's power and Mystique the job of the author is not just to describe a scene or show us what's there but to contextualize it for the reader to show us what matters that's what narrative is after all the ordering of detail into meaning an author should remember that when they're choosing what to describe or not as well as the way they describe things now I want to go beyond these common tips and explore specific writing strategies in practice I've gathered advice from a variety of writers so you can see how many different methods there are of approaching description this way you get to Glimpse their actual thought process while drafting I've asked each of them to share a snippet of description from their own work alongside an example from a book they admire I want you to notice how their influences shape their writing writers who struggle with visualizing scenes should listen to author Sarah L Hawthorne's advice and add a character-based layer Sarah notes that her aphantasia makes it difficult to mentally picture scenes although she uses Pinterest photos as writing inspiration when you're navigating through a scene try focusing more on the character's emotions rather than just the setting details Sarah comments your mileage may vary but generally I get bored by a wall of description unless it's super critical to the story it's much nicer to read a little peppering of description that connects me to the character or place emotionally so I think the most important thing about description is just making sure that it adds to the vibe of the world where the character's way of taking in the world and don't be afraid of adding a note to self to insert something later if it's really bogging you down in the first draft take a big lens on it and ask yourself what is really important here for a reader to Come Away with here is an excerpt from a draft of Sarah's Gothic work in progress the drowned Coast read by the author I cut the Cod downwards behind the head and near the gills to create a space in the cavity I run the blade down the back in Shallow sections until the tail becomes thin enough to slice end to end a sharp knife makes all the difference between a quick clean cut and a massacre of choppy gut covered bits Cod is not an easy fish to fillet smaller fish like Pollock or mackerel can be opened with one quick swipe of the blade down the backbone Cod requires patience you've gotten better at that cut since you did it to me says the man I murdered last year from across the kitchen I am thankful for the Nets that caught the Cod it will feed my sister and me much longer than the tiny perch that they usually dredge up I am not thankful for the lighthouse Keepers persistent presence I admire how Sarah seamlessly Blends descriptive action and dialogue in the scene the character's voice comes through in phrases like a massacre of choppy gut-covered bits even the description of the character's internal thoughts adds a visual with the idea of Nets catching the Cod and the tiny perch and those thoughts add the emotional character-based layer and describing the scene Sarah's chosen excerpt from a book she admires comes from Jeff vandermeer's Eco horror novel annihilation far worse though was a low powerful moaning at dusk the wind off the Sea and the odd interior Stillness dulled our ability to gauge Direction so that the sound seemed to infiltrate the black water that soaked the cypress trees this water was so dark we could see our faces in it and it never stirred set like glass reflecting the Beards of gray Moss that smothered the cypress trees if you looked out through these areas toward the ocean all you saw was the Black Water the gray of the Cypress Trunks and the constant motionless reign of moss flowing down all you heard was the low moaning the effect of this cannot be understood without being there the beauty of it cannot be understood either and when you see beauty and desolation it changes something inside you desolation tries to colonize you what words or details stick out to you in this passage I'm drawn toward the cypress trees and the gray Moss of specific visuals I also noticed the intentional repetition of beauty and desolation ordinarily we wouldn't think of desolation as beautiful but that contradiction is compelling because it invites the reader to examine the description more closely there are also a number of strong verb choices dulled infiltrate smothered colonize Sarah notes that this passage sunk its teeth into her brain because the descriptive work becomes part of the character and setting it feels dense in the best kind of way like a rich chocolate cake author Joe Butler takes a cinematographer's approach by imagining the scene from a fixed point he says I find I have a very Visual and oral imagination so when I'm writing it feels filmic in my mind's eye imagine the scene from a fixed point and describe what I see from that point within the space I tried to approach that with a minimalistic angle only pointing out the details that have real meaning and help capture the feeling of the space this descriptive passage comes from Joe's dystopian short story a small life which was published in Bandit fiction read by the author from the small porthole window in the bathroom he observes the dark shape of the city butting the sky the neat angular lines of the brutalist tower blocks that spread along the horizon resembler sine wave they eat up the color of the Horizon pixelating the dawn making it look like a corrupted digital image Birds Circle The Towers Golds mainly even though the sea is Mars from here he cranes his neck in the small window space toothpaste dripping from his chin and tries to see past the perimeter of the city but there's too much pollution there is an inherent sense of conflict here in the description of the setting it's implied that this is a sterile machine-driven place with the brutal's tower the sine wave Horizon the sky that resembles a corrupted Digital Image and the pollution clouding The View fixed point of the window limits what the character can see even when he tries to Crane his neck to see more Joe's novel to be admired is the road by Cormac McCarthy he got up and walked out to the road the black shape of it running from dark to dark then a distant low Rumble not Thunder you could feel it under your feet a sound without cognate and so without description something imponderable shifting out there in the dark the Earth itself Contracting with the cold it did not come again what time of year what age the child he walked out into the road and stood the silence the Solitaire drawing from the earth the mud stained shapes of flooded cities burned to the waterline at a Crossroads a ground set with Dolmen Stones where the spoken bones of oracles lay mouldering no sound but the wind the fixed point in the Knuckles back to the sounds or lack of sound McCarthy's style demonstrates how sentence level Rhythm contributes to the way the reader experiences the description here the short sentences and fragments create a staccato effect each sentence is like a sharp punch that adds to the harshness of the landscape he breaks up the staccato Rhythm toward the end of the passage with a longer piece of description to Joe all of McCarthy's work is beautiful dark and layered with incidental exposition Joe notes how the idea of the Domin Stones purposefully laid out indicates that someone was there people use these stones to communicate directions maybe although it's not confirmed nor is it important it's just there and it lends the scene a huge sense of atmosphere similarly the way McCarthy mentions the Indescribable Noise Within the Earth as if Contracting with the cold conjures a picture without giving too much Joe says that the Magic in McCarthy's prose is that he articulates images in such a unique and beautifully dense but metaphorical way evoking an atmosphere in a way no other author can another approach comes from Mia VMAs a Science Fiction and Fantasy author who tries to permeate the scene with a specific emotion she shares my way of describing is to first start with how I want the scene to feel expansive with a sense of wonder intimate claustrophobic comforting and familiar once I know what sort of emotion I want to evoke for the characters I then pick and choose a few set pieces and a scene in my fantasy novel where two characters have been kidnapped and have to escape by jumping off of a flying Airship into a pink hot springs below I go very wide and describe the setting in a swift fearful way the staying of the wind whipping the character's hair and her eyes the way the lake feels so far away but Rises up so fast to meet them when they jump the absolute hush Silence of a forest covered in two feet of snow around them the drip of it and to the edges of the lake where the warm water is melting it creaky bows Laden with ice and snow as they hold their breath and strain and the Shivering cold so here the Airship is turning around to come catch them in that scene I had to choose from a million little things and it took me a while to whittle it down but I ended up going with a focus on the snow and the silence because the point of view character is in a primal terrified hyper-vigilant state of mind and she's not thinking of anything else except listening for the Airship and not dying of exposure this excerpt from Mia's sci-fi Noir Novella my ties for the Lost published by underland press captures the chaotic atmosphere of a party scene Coco tugged at my hand drawing me away from the image and further into the house crystal chandeliers cast splintered fragments of pink light across a menagerie of furnishings and heirloom rugs some in Fabrics you can no longer manufacture guests sprawled gathered danced proud and pod amongst themselves in each room we passed the library lined floor to ceiling and wall to wall with real paper books had been rather cavalierly converted into the bar for the evening a live heavily tattooed boy stood behind a heavy table in a cloud of Sandalwood scented smoke and strained color-changing cocktails into Coop glasses Coco and I skipped those Temptations and slipped through the thick Maze of Limbs and conversation towards our destination the changing rooms at the end of the main hall because of course everything up to that point was just the mood Setter the true clamp ache was outside beyond the safety features of the hab the flurry of details reflects the character's experience of being amazed and overwhelmed as they navigate this flashy party certain details suggest what things no longer exist in this futuristic setting there are Fabrics you could no longer manufacture and real paper books these objects have become status symbols of wealth and luxury in the story world in addition the characters aren't static in the scene they're literally moving across the room with a clear objective and destination the story is still moving forward rather than grinding to a halt to describe the scene one of Mia's favorite descriptive passages comes from the hundred thousand kingdoms by n.k jemisin that night as I slept I dreamed of him it is an ugly storm cloud choke night above the clouds the sky is lightning with the approach of dawn below the clouds this has made absolutely no difference in the battlefield's illumination a thousand torches burning amid a hundred thousand soldiers are more than enough light the capital 2 is a gentle Radiance nearby it is not the sky that I know this city sprawls across a floodplain rather than over a hill and the palace is embedded at its heart not hovering overhead I am not me a respectable Force says Jacques beside me jakar and I know now goddess of battle and bloodshed in place of her usual headscarf is a Helm that fits her head almost as closely she wears shining silver armor its surface a glory of engraved sigils an incomprehensible designs that glow red as if hot Mia said this passage stood out to her because it begins with the sky and then pans down to a battle Below in the city beyond the scene then Narrows down to the Character level describing zaka's armor the primary motion is dreamlike epic and a little disorienting which makes sense given the scene is an actual Dreamscape it shares a similar type of movement to Mia's scene where we see the character's attention travel from one part of the setting to another with a specific goal in mind and Jemison scene we know the dream scene will eventually move toward the hymn mentioned in the opening line so all the description before that point is setting the stage for that objective author Alex Laurel lands focuses on that connection between environment and description She lays out a theory for how to make description feel organic to the scene when I think of description I think of it less as describing what things look like and more like how the physical presence interacts with the environment this means pairing descriptions with actions or even reflecting on how different aspects of the scene lighting air Etc impact each other I could describe someone as tall but I'd rather think of them as looming or how their Shadow casts longer than everyone else's or how the book they're holding looks small in their hands this also gives me an excuse to keep moving the scene forward Alex shared an excerpt from a psychological Horror Story every little hair on your head published by scare Street where she not only has to keep things moving but also has to ensure she's creating tension with her description the broken bent in the dressing room hissed like a death rattle Mara adjusted the pins holding the golden wig in place the yellow shine clashed against her tan skin that seeing hair spill over her shoulders for once made her feel normal you're going to go bald who wants to watch a bald person dance the old shrill voice of her mother rang in her head she flinched at The Uninvited thoughts how she would scold her for pulling out all her beautiful hair despite all the warnings of scars and baldness that relief was too sweet that sweetness had beckoned her since she was a child the stage was empty a single light shining down from above Benji was probably around somewhere making arrangements hopefully Deb wasn't Mara clicked the play button on the vintage stereo and music bumped from its speakers in a small space Alex covers a lot of ground and I was fascinated by her thought process and choosing which details to include she says this is a scene where I have to describe both the new set an empty stage as well as the costume the main character is wearing all while slipping information in to keep the story moving I tried to set the atmosphere first with the way the place Feels by describing the vents but then moved to describing what is unusual about the main character her wig which allows me to further delve into her character I flesh out the scene around her by having Mara interact with and react to her environment by creating a daisy chain of events I'm trying to make sure none of the description slows down the character development or story development when making your descriptions Dynamic think of how you can pair it with a character's external actions or internal choices Stephen Graham Jones does this in his novel my heart is a chainsaw which Alex selected as an author she admires you good there mismatched gloves asks and Jade looks down to where he means the red blooming slow in the left pocket of her coveralls from when she was flicking the utility knife's razor blade open and shut against her leg on the walk here got some red on me yeah she kind of quotes shrugging his inspection off all the tiny scars up and down her thighs and hips crawling over themselves to be seen the description of the character's scars is delivered alongside her shrugging during a conversation Jones also personifies these scars almost giving them agency and how they crawl over themselves to be seen that detail adds to the visual and to the novel's unsettling atmosphere when I asked Alex why this snippet works for her as a reader she commented what makes Jones's description great is that he doesn't stop the show to illustrate something and has a great sense of giving things a physical presence rather than just describing them the blood in that excerpt becomes its own entity with physical space but he also uses this as a way to sneak in more details about the scene such as providing context for what the character was doing leading up to this moment his word choices are unique adding a lot of poetic Flair to his horror author Lyle Enright has advice specifically for crafting similes and metaphors that stem from the world or character as a quick reminder both similes and metaphors are forms of figurative language comparisons between two ideas that help the reader better understand what you're describing similes use like or as at any given moment you could spot him in his field bent at the waist back is curved as the Scythe he swung all day that's from harid hussaini's and the mountains echoed metaphors are a literal comparison where two things are presented as being identical all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players from Shakespeare's as you like it Lyle recommends drawing inspiration from what's unique in the story's setting to craft similes and metaphors the character would naturally use good similes and Pros help build the world while excellent metaphors create an emotional connection with a reader husseini's simile suggests that the character with his curved back is an older experienced farmer Shakespeare's metaphor conveys a philosophy about the universal Human Experience in a scene from taverner his fantasy work in progress Lyle uses figurative language that subtly draws on the novel setting as read by the author I patted my way through half a dozen empty Pockets before I found what I was looking for I ripped the patch open and palmed the contents a silver coin with a big wedge cut into it like it had stopped an ax blow silver in hand I eat the coin onto my thumb and gave it a good flick I couldn't see it but I heard the pleasant ring as it lifted off and into the air as it reached at Zenith somewhere near the top of the cave it sparked like a piece of flint and came alive with white light it dropped gently back into my wading palm and I smiled I was a bag of stupid tricks the little things like this still made me feel like a hero sometimes the similes here include like it stop and ax flow and sparked like a piece of flint axes and Flint are both details drawn from the story's fantasy world it feels natural for a first-person narrator to use similes and metaphors that relate to his personal experience in a similar fashion a character who's an expert on birds might use bird-related metaphors and talk about how a greedy man's eye twinkles like a magpies when he sees a collection of gemstones the character's lens for seeing the world colors how they describe it Lyle's chosen excerpt comes from the high fantasy novel the lies of Loch glamora by Scott Lynch the thief Maker's Wards all carried candles they're cold blue light Shone through the silver curtains of River Mist as Street lamps might glimmer through a smoke grind window a train of ghost light wound its way down from the hilltop through the stone markers and ceremonial paths down to the wide glass bridge over the cold smoke Canal half visible in the blood warm fog that seeps up from Kimora's wet Bones on Summer Nights Lyle explains why this passage works for him the simile here as Street lamps compares the shine of the candles not only to something common in the world but to something that probably is part of the scene Lynch populates the scenery through comparison and illusion instead of direct presentation the metaphor about kimura's wet bones interrupts the scene since cities don't have bones but it also enriches the scene by adding something to it implying that the city is alive good metaphors enrich the scene by adding to it from a slanted or outside perspective as a writing exercise think of a point of view character from any of your stories Now list three places that character might go a friend's house a coffee shop a hidden cave choose one of those three settings next identify one word that describes the atmosphere or how the character feels in that moment about that place you're going to filter the descriptions through that emotion say the character is annoyed and they don't even want to go to that place all the sight sounds and smells of the scene might get on their nerves with a place and emotion in mind give the character a goal for the scene what's the reason for being there to meet someone to buy something to escape make that goal clear at the beginning of the scene then have the character move through the scene and show what they notice about the things and people around them include these three details a surprising smell an object that the character interacts with they touch it or move it a simile or metaphor derived from the character's background for instance they might say the place stunk worse than Grandma's Spain broccoli and garlic soup if you get stuck try a different setting from your list have fun and use this as an opportunity to experiment and come up with weird descriptions you want it right otherwise all the writers I featured in this video are part of teal deer press or tldr press a small non-profit that publishes anthologies of short stories and poems all proceeds from these anthologies go toward different charities they also host an annual flash fiction contest and provide feedback to every writer I've linked their published novels and stories in the video description my short story cream of you was published in the no poor Anthology benefiting the pill Crow Foundation to provide children's books to rural communities check out the teal deer press website for upcoming submission opportunities and writing contest what's your approach to writing description I'd love to hear how your brain works in the comments whatever you do keep writing [Music]

Channel: Diane Callahan - Quotidian Writer

Views: 94,073

Keywords: creative writing, how to write, authortube, booktube, fiction, literature, description, descriptive writing, how to describe, writing inspiration, writing exercise, engaging descriptions, books, reading, publishing, cormac mccarthy, nk jemisin, jeff vandermeer, isabel allende, stephen graham jones, scott lynch, fantasy, literary

Id: ZVgarxL1rrk

Length: 35min 11sec (2111 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 30 2022