I often find that too many new writers tend to over-do narrative descriptions. Some tend to be overly poetic and repetitious. I find this flaw more so in self published material. I read a self published work about a month ago titled "The Scape Goat" (I can't remember the author's name); however, at least 50% of the story was describing plants, flowers, facial expressions and body movements. The story line was lost in a narrative that did not move the story in any manner. Narrative, to me, must be very closely connected to the story line (to enhance the story's progression towards an ending).
My characters. I love trying to describe to someone what a man's face looks like when all I have is a picture in my head. I tend to try out my descriptions on my sisters (over skype) to see if they can find a picture similar to what I'm describing. I'm always excited when they find matches. Then, I can reword my descriptions to match what they understood.
I can very easily go overboard if I let myself, but my favourite descriptions are those that occur in transit from A to B, forcing me to be concise so as not to clutter the action and dialogue.
Combat or the scenery around the character -though I can easily go overboard on the latter. One particular combat scene I'm working on starts with this:
I wish I could like them. Transitions actually make me very nervous. I always wonder if I'm ending a scene on the right note or rambling.
Similes are embarrassing when you return to a draft and every paragraph builds to a 'like.' Easily fixed: like
Similes are embarrassing when you return to a draft and every paragraph builds to a 'like.' Easily fixed: metaphor.
Hmmm. I have most of my fun with the dialogue (Regular critique: "Why do I feel like I'm reading a screenplay?!) But I think I get the most fun out of providing people with images they don't quite expect from the setting. My main setting is a 2034 near-future and I love showing shiny 2015 stuff either rusting or being used for nostalgia. I really got a kick writing a piece where my adult characters were sitting in their childhood hangout on the roof of the family diner and I note that the beat-up old MP3 boombox lost it's capacity to download years ago. I did another one where the characters were in a comic book shop and the characters got all nostalgic about how Marvel might have to cancel the "Guardians of the Galaxy" series due to declining readership. That or putting forward weird things as if they're normal - I have too much fun outfitting the menu of my 2034 Starbucks knockoff (it's a Taiwanese bubble-tea/espresso joint and everything is bright pink and basically inspired by Hello Kitty). And I think my best one was a story I started in an alternate present where a native South American tribe survived to become a modern Christianized nation - one of my opening scenes involved the protagonist getting mad at a vending machine in the old cathedral because she thought four florins was too much for a bag of "Kelpie" snacks (there are too many jokes about seaweed in that text).
I'm a very visual person, and I often illustrate my stories. I think that might make me be a bit weak on writing out the setting, and describing what I've already put down on the paper in the form of a drawing. But when I do describe, it is almost always the weather. And the weather and my person's mood are often tightly linked. I'm working on that, because it feels too much like a cliche.
Think I'll dig out my son's giant box of crayons. There are bound to be some great ideas in there for names of colors.
Writing descriptions is still like pulling teeth for me, but I want to write them. It's just that I'm still working on that skill.
I'm with you on that. I tend toward less description in my own writing and am almost always impressed when people pull it off without it feeling overwrought or unnecessary. I do think, though, if I were speaking about my writing right now I'm pretty good with describing physical and emotional feelings in a neat way.
I m having my first bash at fiction. I really enjoy reading none fiction, facts are something I get enthusiastic about. I have started writing, its early stages I have characters speaking to each other and they are describing the story well. I reached a point where some description would come in handy but it feels cheesy. I don't like reading fiction with lots of description, to be honest I hate it. Do any other authors write like this?
Description can be scattered throughout the story, with small lumps here and there when necessary. I also don't like a lot of description in books, but when it's scattered through the book through the character's experiences and observations it's a lot more interesting. When you say your characters are "describing the story," what do you mean?
You don't need a lot of description, if you don't enjoy it. And what you do have, you can wrap up with the character's feelings and attitudes. For example: "Have a seat." I blinked at the living room. Acres of polished pale-wood floor. Window after window after window looking into the garden. Just a few pieces of ultra-modern furniture, each one probably worth more than I made in a year. I've often wondered where the very rich really get comfortable. Do they have hidden rooms full of squashy sofas, with bowls of Cheetos constantly replenished by maids? Maids bound, of course, by ironclad nondisclosure agreements. Anyway. "I'll stand, thanks."
When someone says add description, are they always right? Of course not, but I think this is an easy thing to point out in any story that might skimp a little on physical descriptions. A lot of the what I read often seems to leave out a lot of physical description. On the other hand, when I've gotten this advice and tried to apply it to my own work, it doesn't read like there is more description. It reads like a fuller and more complete story. I don't think you ever want to over do it and being clever with it if at all possible can really add something. So, does this mean description is really my friend and I'm over thinking I'm some sort of minimalist writer? What's your relationship with description? Has it changed from when you first started writing?
For me, it's both a style choice and a circumstantial thing. I won't add description just for the sake of description, but if adding it will allow me to expand on the theme, characters, subtext, etc, then I'm all for it. When I have a nice image in my head, I tend to run with it, but other times my description is scarce, almost nonexistent. I don't think my relationship with description has changed, but my understanding of it and what it can do has evolved as I've grown as a writer. I stopped seeing it as a way to add meat and started seeing it as a way to enhance other aspects of a story, to make everything work in unison toward a singular goal.
I'd say that description should be relevant, and if the relevant description can be placed where the reader might be hungry for more visuals, that would be good. Last night I described elements of my female MC's for the first time, because they're a direct indicator, to the character observing her, of her place in their shared society and, more relevant to him, how she's likely to feel about and react to him. (Someday I'll have to move that description up, because it's a few thousand words in.) But the description was still very brief--I just checked. The paragraph is 59 words, and the descriptive part of the paragraph is about fifteen words.
Agree with the others--description is awesome when it's appropriate and lame when in it's not. And there's a big difference between smooth lines of description blended into the natural flow of the narration and giant blocks of gangly, untethered text that hover naked on the page. I think that's where novice writers get into trouble. They open stories with long descriptions of characters or settings, or they use it as a kind of crutch when they get stuck between two actions. Almost like they're not sure what to write in a particular place so they jump head long into description. I tend lean toward the minimal side, especially when it comes to the physical description of a character. I just don't find it important unless there's something out of the ordinary about their appearance. Like a pink rooster haircut or six toes or something. Now if you're describing a monster or something, or an astronaut looking across the landscape of an alien world for the first time, then obviously more detail is requited. But the idea that the reader needs to know what everything looks like in detail is bunk in my book. It all comes back to imagination: how much is enough to get the reader's juices flowing but not so much that the imagination has nothing to play with? For me at least, my warning light usually goes off if I spend more than one sentence describing something. The first sentence of description is usually good but the subsequent thought tends to stick out naked from the page. Not true in all cases, but I try to adhere to a one-off philosophy. And it's really all in how you frame it. If it fits into flow the description becomes part of the passing scenery instead of a roadblock.
For me it's more about the type of description than the amount. If it's interesting, colorful, poetic, it can move a reader and he or she won't notice the amount. I also love to slip action into the description so that it doesn't lay stagnate. In my WIP I had my three characters head to trashy used clothing store with rack after rack of clothes but rather than just have the layout and smell etc. I had them watch children climbing into t-shirt bins and tossing the contents into the air with the joy of a ball pit. That action helps give life to the description. Which is why I prefer description to adhere to the scene and characters rather than to be some sort of separate thing. The layout/look/description of the store is not as important as the fact that the man entering it is a little snobby and offended by it's lowbrow set up.
But unless you describe the children or the t-shirts or something, it's just an action and not a description. Unless I'm missing something here. I don't know. Same with the man entering the store. Do you describe how snobby looks on him? I would think saying something about the way the store looks might be important if it's going to offend a character.
