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

I have done the same thing over and over BV, but sometimes, I like a good visual description. Imagine the hero or heroine lived through poverty and finally inherits a house! You suffered with him or her, and now you want to know if this place is worth the taxes it still owes or not.

 

I got it now, OJB. Thanks. What you describes was my house by the way. 100 years old.

 

That is a powerful paragraph that you wrote, Jannert. I feel for the man and hope that he makes it. Makes me glad that I'm not out there and have a warm bed nearby and a cup with some hot stuff to drink.

 

Awesome, JPC, how you bedded the descriptions in the dialog and the action. I love it. I wrote myself a note not to forget doing this in my own stories!

 

Here's a description of the city my MC's from in my fantasy novel It's only a first draft, so I trust by the time I actually finish writing, I will probably find faults with this. For now, I like it I hope it lived up to your expectations!

He turned into the city square. A handful of children, probably orphans, played by the well, laughing into the pit to hear their own echo. The ghosts of mage artists lingered on the streets, standing invisible where they used to be with their fire tricks and water shows, all their music and vibrancy left now to memories. Ever since mages became equated with traitors, they had all gone underground.

A few men wandered between the market stalls, but there was nothing to buy. With trade routes vanishing overnight, merchants ceased to have anything to sell and regular folks replaced them at the market stalls with worn dresses or a sack of feathers, ready to barter for someone else’s needle and thread or a cup of soup. Some of the empty stalls had been hacked to pieces, the wood and steel nails within bundled away in the night. Wood was becoming scarcer and dearer as forests became full of Shadow. Dryads were retreating, vanishing from civilisation like rare animals, taking the bird calls and beetles with them. Forests, once so full of life, had become eerie chasms to become lost in.​

 

That's not actually the passage itself as written in the story! It's just a description of the passage. Yeah, he gets to warmth eventually ...but there are a few obstacles in the way.

 

Thank you. See for me details are within the stories they tell about a person.

You don't tell someone about the new kettle you bought unless its important to you. Same with characters.

You don't describe a house or what not simply to describe it. There has to be some kind of personal reason for it;

-For example, as said one of my characters who comes form a lower income was enamored by his friends house because they have money, he described every inch of the living room. Not because the details were important. But the significance of money.

-Or in the shitty example I made out of thin air, he mentions the wallpaper, or brings attention to it because he hates it. The wallpaper isn't what's important, its the story that goes along with the wallpaper that is the true meaning. It describes his hate through his house.

 

Yes, there is more to a scene than just what is 'seen,' and personal experience is a primary source of information that really can't be bettered. Sensory details are not only important, but may actually be more important than what the scene looks like.

Sometimes it's not possible to visit a sample of the scene, but it's certainly possible to slow down and imagine the other senses that would be in play if the scene were real.

For example, it's not possible to actually revisit a street in 1885—although you might have a photo of it to use as reference. But if you slow down and imagine the scene, while thinking about the conventions of the time, you'll get close.

There will be no hum of modern traffic (a huge difference.) Instead, there may be the clop clop of horse's hooves, as well as the clinking of harness as they move past. The rumble of carriage wheels on cobblestones. If it's a warm day, you might be able to smell horse manure (depending on how clean the streets are kept) and other smells that might seem odd to the modern nose. You might hear a church bell or little bells ringing as people open and shut shop doors. Folk will be wearing hard-soled shoes (as rubber soled shoes didn't exist back then) so feet will be making a bit of clatter ...especially if the town is in a rural area, where the sidewalks are raised platforms made of wood. You'll hear people's voices more clearly than you probably would on a modern city street, because you don't have that overwhelming sound of motorised traffic to contend with. Would there be a breeze, or would the air be still? And etc....

 

I would continue reading your book, Mckk. You painted a vivid image with just a few sentences. Wonderful.

 

It is gripping, Jannert. I feel for the man and I was able to feel some of what one is feeling going through that. Actually, this is what I mean: describing and making the reader feel to be there.

 

Very good. How did the details come to you? You just think and think until you got enough details to describe the flair?

 

I get your point, JPC, the only question that I have left is how you trigger your creative juices to come up with describing details IF THEY ARE IMPORTANT TO THE STORY.

 

All details are important to a story. If you only break out the creative detail on the 'critical scenes', you won't hold your audience.

 

lost my post trying to correct a typo...

 

This doesn't make sense to me. If we share all details, we'll never get past the first scene. And I think we'd lose our audience a hell of a lot faster if we gave too many details than if we gave too few.

 

If you don't think you're good at descriptions, you don't have to use them (a lot). This is just one of many things that will affect your writing style. I think it's fine either way. The worst thing you could do is produce sentences that you know are bad just because you think it's better than nothing. Or write them and then take them out later.

 

Well, in my case, because I write historically-based fiction and try to be as accurate as possible, I do a lot of research. However, it also helps to see if I can project myself into that scene, and be mindful of what's missing as well as what's there. (Missing: traffic noise, smooth sidewalks and roads, automobiles, automatic glass doors, people wearing rubber soled shoes, and etc.)

Maybe also pollution would be missing, or certainly there would be a different kind of pollution. The smells are likely to be more 'organic' than a modern city street. However, depending on the city, there might also be coal smoke/smog. If it's a hot day, I wouldn't be walking around in a spaghetti-strapped top and sandals. Or in winter, I wouldn't be wearing Sorels and a down-filled coat. I would try to imagine what the clothing felt like to the POV character ...and see if it mattered to that particular scene. And maybe I've got the beginnings of a toothache, and know that getting it sorted will NOT be a painless procedure. Maybe that's why I'm in town just now ...which will colour the experience even more.)

 

Sound advice, 123456789, thanks.

 

The most "fun" would be the tooth ache and visiting the barber! Shudder!