How do you approach describing landscapes, houses, cars, anything?

Honestly, that sounds a bit immersive... I don't think I dove that deep! I just... wrote what came to mind. I think because I'm looking at it from a character POV rather than an omniscient POV, it's easier to just imagine... what would a sweet, well-intentioned person living in poverty notice about her home? What would a frustrated teenager think about his home? It's all about the characters, for me, even if they're just one-shot stereotype characters.

 

Wreybies, I understand and I agree. Bayview said a ton about this place with just a few words. But if you believe it or not, I like also the additional description that you provided. It helped to create even more atmosphere. So, you basically got all these ideas by brainstorming your mind?

 

Yes, sure, lots of details can be skipped but anything comes easier to me than (also short) descriptions. But I like them as they make me feel being there.

 

I try and get a feeling for the place and write what I feel. Sometimes I do look up an image on Google just to get an idea. I try to convey details that would give an idea of the kind of mood or life I'm trying to portray, rather than every last thing. Quite honestly, I write as though I'm painting a literal picture sometimes. My ex once told me - at least in the past when he read my work - my writing often felt a little like I'm presenting shots of images, as in a film or a graphic novel. I think in terms of visual scenes. Perhaps it's because I grew up on a diet of Japanese manga and only later moved to narrative?

I do think it takes more skill to convey a place without direct description, but honestly, I quite enjoy painting that literal image in words. Not sure if it makes good writing, mind you...

 

Well I have been in a few forests, so it is easy to describe them.
I try to add the information that is pertinent to the story and how
it moves along. But no I don't write up a sheet of little notes based
upon what it is or its detail (unless it is complicated enough to warrant
them). Though I spend a fair amount of time researching the things
I am unsure of how to describe them (like the depth of Melas Chasma,
the large canyon on the face of Mars.) where the information is part
of the world building.

Though I use extreme detailing for important things that directly affect
the MC and how it falls into the narrative. But on other things outside
my main WIP, it is somewhere in the middle as they are written in
3rd POV, and a bit more relaxed.

So basically research and asking questions helps me get through those
spots that I am having detail trouble with. Otherwise I try to imagine
these things and how they are apart to the story. Thus far it doesn't take
a lot of detailing to describe some gov. complex in a far future setting
as it would be considered pretty dull, much like they are now. While we
can all kind of imagine what a city or suburb would look like in the wake
of being caught up as a battle field, and know the results of such things.
However depicting an intimate object will be a bit more thoroughly from
the characters perspective.

Sci-fi has a disadvantage from most genres, due to the fact that how do
you explain things to an accurate degree, as you can with pretty much
any other genre? You take a few liberties to make up for the short comings
and hope they are not too outlandish. While my main focus is more on actions
and consequences, means objects are sitting in the back seat to what is
going on. So my desk example with the simpler, allows more room to
evoke an emotion to the character observations and interactions.
Like at a present point with Marckus being forced to watch (described in
great detail) how three women from the factions on his side, are systematically
skinned alive and their reactions to being in such a horrific situation. So
we can all agree a bland Sparatenesque office deep under ground where this
part takes place in, plays a very minor role to the reality unfolding right before
their eyes.
The preceding depicts a long walk down a long dimly lit tunnel, to build the
atmosphere that this place is more akin to a version of hell. Even the discussion
between Marckus and General Flurren adds to the disparity of the environment.
Guess I use the environment, more so than individual objects to achieve the same
results.

 

Sort of. My descriptions are always filtered through the perspective of my POV characters, so I just imagine what they're seeing AND what they're thinking and feeling about what they see. I try to put myself into the scene as fully as I can. For the purposes of writing, I try to become the character in that time and place.

For example, in my opening (non prologue) chapter, my POV character, who grew up on the flat plains of Kansas, is riding through a narrow pass in the northern Rockies. It's the start of winter, evening is coming on, and a blizzard is not far off. He's cold and tired, both mentally and physically, and he's starting to semi-hallucinate. He feels intimidated by the nearness of the mountains. He's claustrophobic as well, because he's used to being able to see for long distances, and now he can only see as far as the next bend in the trail. So he feels hemmed in and uneasy as he edges his horse along the icy cliff, trying to keep from slipping and falling into the river gorge below. He gets the feeling that the mountains are watching him, and that they want him to be gone.

Getting a feel for his journey helped me to pick out the details I needed to describe the scene. When I first wrote the scene I spent a lot of time describing the mountains, the pass, the weather, and my character and his horse. But when I edited it, I realised I didn't need all those details. All I really needed was his reaction to the situation he's in. I was able to cut the scene in half, while adding 'more' if you know what I mean.

 

Speaking as somebody who has read your work, I can assure you that your scene-setting is masterful, colourful and imaginative. I still remember some of the details about what you wrote, and certainly the feel of the scenes themselves. You do this very well. It's one of your strongest writing skills.

 

Ohhh, OJB, I like this a lot! I can see the river and the trees and you make me want to be there!

Let me try one sentence giving non-human thing a human-trait and action: "The house walls crumbled like aunt Allie's annual fruitcake. Maybe it wasn't even fruitcake what she brought but pieces of these walls?" I bet you all come up with more exciting personifications!

 

OK, thanks.

 

This is a simile, not a personification. For it to be a personification "The house" has to do something.

Example: The house, with its sagging-window sail eyes, begged to be put down.

 

I remember that it was very dry and mechanic. You had to look at a picture and describe what you saw. It wasn't fun to write or to read!

 

Thanks, I'll keep this in mind and it makes sense.

 

Mckk, if you painting a literal picture (I like the sound of it) your descriptions must be quite interesting. I wonder how your visual scenes look like.

 

Also recognize that description might be dependent on the character as well. Someone might say

"the trimming" could become something entirely different to an architecture and trimming "french trimmings" or "ranch home". Or I got to use the word french trimming because my character was a painter, an artist, who knows the names of structures because he had to look them up to draw them from reference.

So character background takes a play on the details as well

 

You should probably mention the trees, but you're right; once we know we're in a forest, our brain can fill the trees in. You need to tell us about the spooky animal noises.

 

I didn't really brainstorm. I just have an active imagination. I can read @BayView's two sentences and they serve as a kind of light-switch. The room was illuminated. I have a personal idea of what a shithole apartment looks like from past shithole apartments I've been in. Threadbear and generic. People who live in shithole apartments in the South (I'm a southern boy) don't have money for paint so the walls are always "builder white", which starts to age and go grey/yellow very quickly. And shithole apartments in the south aren't in ancient, dilapidated apartment buildings like maybe they are up north. In the south they're in slapdash apartment complexes that always smell humid and moldy and vaguely of rotting pine mulch from the oh-so-tragic attempt to landscape the outside. The shaking wall from the slammed door that Bayview described is totally on-point. It's a real thing in these complexes that have the life expectancy of a Toyota Corolla. It happens. The appliances are white because that's the cheapest, easiest kind of appliance to replace, and these apartment complexes quickly get turned over to Section 8 programs, so yes, there actually is a chance that a dead stove or fridge will get replaced if it can't be revived, and it will be replaced with another, white, $259, bottom-of-the-line Walmart special. In the South, any news story that begins with "Two dead in a drug related shooting...." will picture this kind of apartment complex in the opening of the story. You might get some interior shots. They will be what I described above. Those are the colors and smells and textures of Southern poverty.

So, to go back to your original question:

I guess my answer to your question is: I've lived it. I've lived in shitty apartments. When I attended U.F., the school was experiencing a growth boom and lots of new complexes went up for high-end students to rent that had a thin veneer of being "nicer", but the Southern boy in me knew better and thought So this is what shitty apartments look like when they're brand new. I wonder how long it takes high-end to slide down to low-end. Probably not very long.

What I like about Bayview's description is not only how much it packs in two short sentences, but how universal it is. I'm sure shitty apartments in her area of Canada have a different look and smell and layout. But her description of crap construction is likely to be pretty universal and trigger the memory banks of anyone who reads them. She lives in a completely different part of a completely different country than I ever experienced, yet her words gave immediate access to the file-drawer in my brain labeled "Shitty Apartment". If there's a story-related reason for me to know about the colors and smells and textures of Canadian poverty, those reasons will be the clear segue to Bayview writing those things in her story. She won't need to question the how or the why because that will be the part she already has in her mind. Now it's just to pick the thing that best executes that how and why. Like I said, there's no reason you can't tell us these things, no reason you can't describe these things to us. Just remember your POV and be true to it.

 

Based on conversations here and with writers in other places, I think some people are just more visually oriented than others. I do a lot of what I call "writing in my mind" before putting words on the page, but that doesn't mean I'm planning the words I'm going to write. It's more like watching a movie that only I can see, so when I'm writing I have access to all the visuals I created when putting myself into the character's POV. I don't use every detail about the room my MCs are fighting in, but when it's useful to reference it I usually have the information handy in the old bean.

That said, if I'm needing to describe a real place I've never been to, or a setting I'm unfamiliar with, I use reference photos from Google quite a bit. But any description, as has been pointed out above, would be limited to what the POV character would notice. A character who is a detective or criminal might naturally notice a lot of things that a schoolteacher or office manager might not.

 

I think that's totally true about some people being more visually-oriented than others, and I'm totally NOT visually oriented and maybe that's part of why my descriptions tend to be character-based rather than, well, visually based. And when I read long passages of visual descriptions I just skim over them b/c I don't really care - I want to know about the characters, damn it!

 

I am visually based. But I don't like long slogs of detail either. I like when they are carefully implemented elsewhere.

Instead of saying

"The large study room had olive green wallpaper, with pink rose patterns on it, a magahony shelf wrapped around the width of the L shape of the nook of the room, with two red arm chairs in the center, turned to face a brick fireplace, with an antique coffee table that weighed more then the two men in the room did"

I much prefer

"My wife chose the wallpaper, ugliest color I have ever seen," opening the door, the two men entered the study.

"No kidding," Mr. Stone responded with a raised brow at the garish olive green wallpaper, with pink rose patterns on it.

The two men took a seat at two red arm chairs, that didn't quite match the rest of the study. Stone politely smiled.

And I feel like detail should only be visible if it is important to the scene. The intention of a visual is invoke person hood. To me those little details still tell Who those characters are, but not through words or actions.

From my poor example we know

-His wife has a poor sense of taste
-She might even chose to wear gawdy dress

All of this is inferred through the visuals. For example, comic books do it a lot. They feel the background with stuff. Most famously is the Killing Joke, in the house of the Detective Gordon. You see he has a cabinet of liquor in the house, a cup of liquor out, etc. Which would imply, Gordon might have a drinking problem.

Those visuals still tell you who the characters are. They simply need to be spliced up and placed into sections, and come up when they need to come up.

 

I agree in general, but I think it's dangerous to try to match the level of detail of, say, a comic book in a novel. If we accept the old "a picture is worth a thousand words" idea, then we have to accept that our written work won't be as visually rich as forms of media that have a visual component. We just don't have space for it!

 

I say you just write the descriptions that fit your particular
story and style. Obviously that does not mean that all are
going to be short, or have every last little detail.

So style and preference play a role in detailing things.

IDK, just a thought.

 

Thanks, CT, you give me several ideas to explore...

 

post: 1578352, member: 3885"]I didn't really brainstorm. I just have an active imagination. I can read @BayView's two sentences and they serve as a kind of light-switch. The room was illuminated. I have a personal idea of what a shithole apartment looks like from past shithole apartments I've been in. Threadbear and generic. People who live in shithole apartments in the South (I'm a southern boy) don't have money for paint so the walls are always "builder white", which starts to age and go grey/yellow very quickly. And shithole apartments in the south aren't in ancient, dilapidated apartment buildings like maybe they are up north. In the south they're in slapdash apartment complexes that always smell humid and moldy and vaguely of rotting pine mulch from the oh-so-tragic attempt to landscape the outside. The shaking wall from the slammed door that Bayview described is totally on-point. It's a real thing in these complexes that have the life expectancy of a Toyota Corolla. It happens. The appliances are white because that's the cheapest, easiest kind of appliance to replace, and these apartment complexes quickly get turned over to Section 8 programs, so yes, there actually is a chance that a dead stove or fridge will get replaced if it can't be revived, and it will be replaced with another, white, $259, bottom-of-the-line Walmart special. In the South, any news story that begins with "Two dead in a drug related shooting...." will picture this kind of apartment complex in the opening of the story. You might get some interior shots. They will be what I described above. Those are the colors and smells and textures of Southern poverty.

So, to go back to your original question:



I guess my answer to your question is: I've lived it. I've lived in shitty apartments. When I attended U.F., the school was experiencing a growth boom and lots of new complexes went up for high-end students to rent that had a thin veneer of being "nicer", but the Southern boy in me knew better and thought So this is what shitty apartments look like when they're brand new. I wonder how long it takes high-end to slide down to low-end. Probably not very long.

What I like about Bayview's description is not only how much it packs in two short sentences, but how universal it is. I'm sure shitty apartments in her area of Canada have a different look and smell and layout. But her description of crap construction is likely to be pretty universal and trigger the memory banks of anyone who reads them. She lives in a completely different part of a completely different country than I ever experienced, yet her words gave immediate access to the file-drawer in my brain labeled "Shitty Apartment". If there's a story-related reason for me to know about the colors and smells and textures of Canadian poverty, those reasons will be the clear segue to Bayview writing those things in her story. She won't need to question the how or the why because that will be the part she already has in her mind. Now it's just to pick the thing that best executes that how and why. Like I said, there's no reason you can't tell us these things, no reason you can't describe these things to us. Just remember your POV and be true to it.[/QUOTE]

You are sure right about houses and apartments smelling different in each state! I noticed that too! Wonder which state or country has the best smelling houses and which one the stinkiest.

I appreciate your advice. I can picture those dumps now too. My imagination however works better when plotting. I always feel being stopped when having to describe that my characters reaching a place, whatever place it is, a dumb, a luxurious report, heaven or hell... Guess I just have to write more to break through it.

 

More visually oriented than others... Glad you mention this, Laurin. I do the same. I see the scenes first in my mind and then I am looking for words to describe them. Lol! It seems that I am looking for a translation of what I see and it is not always easy.