"Description felt forced..."

One reoccurring criticism I received from my latest workshop submission was that my description often "felt forced." The trouble is, I honestly don't know what that means. To take it further, I can't remember ever feeling that specific way about anything I've read, let alone put it forward as a criticism.

Maybe I don't conceptualise or digest prose the way others might? That strikes me as a possibility. To be clear, I don't doubt the sentiment has merit, but because I don't understand it, I can't do anything constructive with it.

 

I took a look at your recent WS entry and tried to provide some guidance on this.
Just for you, B2p: I've generally stopped doing critiques because there seems to be a dearth of worthwhile reciprocation; people posting a conclusion with no explanation.

The worst being one I got: "I don't have to explain what's wrong with this, do I?" Of course they have to, if the author knew what was wrong they'd already have fixed it.

People just want WS credit I figure.

 

XRD gave some good suggestions of how to cut some of the sentences down a little. Sometimes people who don't have a stomach for a lot of description will be willing to read it if it is as tight as possible. That said, I liked the description, and wouldn't say it was forced. It seemed genre specific.

If you redrafted it, making sure you are in the POV of the character and not using an outside camera (which only happens sometimes) and maybe cut a few words like XRD is suggesting, you might get a more general appeal.

But personally, I wouldn't call if forced. I think it's appropriate to the genre, imo.

 

I appreciate the effort. To be clear though, I'm neither trying to drum up more workshop critiques (I feel I have plenty), nor am I taking a shot at the people who left feedback. I'm genuinely hoping to understand how someone uses "forced description," because it's not something I remember experiencing as a reader.

 

Not just cut them down: make them matter more. For my style of writing, since most description won't be plot related (although some can be), it either has to be world-building ("Standards" becoming "The orange and yellow standards of the fable 7th Legion" for example) or reflect the character of the observer (as I tried to do with the standards falling as funeral shrouds onto the dead).

I never do more than minimal description if the description is just for it's own sake. Dickens did, but that was another time, and a different reader base than I'm targeting.

 

Understood. Hopefully my critique helped.

 

I can't tell if you're suggesting this, but I never include description "just for its own sake."

 

Interesting. Again, I can't remember experiencing that as a reader - maybe I've been lucky.

 

No, I was not. But some authors do, and some genres of literature encourage it.

 

One problem with reading one's own work is the author knows what is being described and why it is being described. But sometimes the reader can't get that from what the author wrote. I have this problem pretty often, and rely on my beta readers to catch it. I'm nearly blind to it: I can only see what I wrote, not what others read.

The standards and banners falling in the piece I critiqued, for example: I didn't see why that was included. So I made up a reason: to characterize the POV character by having him see them as funeral shrouds. That may not been at all what you intended, of course.

 

XRD made another good point about the banners. I could be mixing up how he talked about it, but Brandon Sanderson said that getting two of character, world, and plot down with every line of description is the cardinal skill of writing fantasy.

So if you say, "banners fell," you are getting character a little, because of all the things the POV character can see, he's choosing to focus on the banners. You could make that more explicit by describing the banners falling like something else the character would think of, to do with nature or bandages or fanning flames or leaves or whatever, who knows. You can also get world in by mentioning what the banners are of.

So "the standard of the 7th legion fell from the ramparts to shroud the fallen," could get something about the world, and the main character's concern for the dead, across at the same time.

 

If I say that a description felt forced, I would mean that the words written on the page aren’t things that it would make sense for the POV character to notice. So it would seem like those details were included so that the author could put something down on the page that isn’t really relevant to the scene at hand.

 

Eh, this conversation has taken a wrong turn. I guess I'll take the blame for that. I didn't intend, nor desire, to discuss the specifics of my workshop submission. I understand there's ample room for improvement there. I was merely trying to understand how folks use "forced description."

 

It's easier to discuss with a concrete example of what some people have described as possibly being "forced description." I hope you don't mind.

In the abstract, I would think "forced description" meant either that the description was "purple" - using too many words or words that seemed chosen just to show off the author's skill with a thesaurus -- or that the description was shoe-horned in without being really necessary.

But I'd never use the term myself, it's too vague.

 

That's what I mean if I say something is forced...the author showing off his skills. I also call it "flowery" description.

 

I'm up against the opposite (or is it the same?) problem, I've realized that my writing contains very little description even when it should. I'm writing in first person, trying to figure out how to shoehorn in some explanation of the surroundings that the "camera" would pick up on even if the character wouldn't include them in his internal monologue.

 

Assuming that's what they meant by "forced," I'm really surprised to get that feedback. I don't consider myself a description heavy writer.

 

Yeah, my issue is that I started off writing flash fiction, so I taught myself to cut out every single word that wasn't critical to the story. When the reader knows they're only in for 500 words though, they generally aren't expecting much in the way of description, it can all take place on a fairly blank stage. Novels, on the other hand... yup, gotta unlearn some habits that are no longer appropriate to the task at hand.

 

For me, as a reader, it's simple. "Forced description" would be anything that takes me out of the story. In other words, it's description that seems out of place for some reason. Either show-offy authorial intrusion, or simply a list of 'stuff' that goes on too long. Especially if it has no specific context. If you can link the descriptive detail to something else (to how the POV character is feeling, for example) it will read in a more natural fashion.

Forced description can be too much at the wrong time (in the middle of an action scene, we are suddenly noticing the wallpaper pattern and what's on the shelves.) It can also come from a character (via POV) who would either not be noticing these things at all—because they are part of the normal world they live in, or they're not the noticing kind—or would not be caring about these details at this particular time.

Lists of descriptive details can also derail the train. (Lists of any kind can derail the train, in my opinion—but they seem to have become fashionable, in literary writing at least.)

I believe that pure description of a scene is often best delivered at the start of a chapter or story, where the reader is interested in 'getting into' the scene. But again, this can drag on, especially if there is no emotional context to make us understand why we are being told these things, or what their significance might be.

It's hard to judge without seeing an example, though ...and, more specifically, without seeing the example in context.

Some readers skim over anything that isn't 'action' or dialogue. That's their loss—and they are usually the people who end up confused, because they have missed important stuff and don't know why. If you've encountered that kind of reader, well ...you make the judgment call.

But if your critique-giver can pinpoint exactly where they thought the description felt forced, you'll be on the way to sorting the issue. Any good critique-giver should be able to do this for you.