Words all have meaning, and power, which is where description comes in. A strong description pulls a reader into the scene, and then allows him or her to be 'lost' in it to the point where they feel a part of the very action. Good wordsmanship does that. The only way to make up for weak descriptive skills is to sit down and read the descriptive parts of novels and practice writing descriptive scenes. Unfortunately, there's no magic bullet other then reading and hard work.
Hello sarahs, Really, I find your post a little confusing. What precisely do you mean by descriptions? Physical appearance? One's psychology is revealed not just by dialogue (people, after all, don't reveal much about themselves through speech alone!), but by physical appearance and actions; through body language. Our opinion of a person, and of a character, is not formed just by what they say about themselves or about other characters, but the way they are described through their actions, through what their actions reveal hiding below the surface, and yes, through description of their physical appearance. A man who dresses messily says something about his psychology. A woman with deep laughter lines says something about her psychology. A girl wearing an expensive dress when she meets a boy says something about her psychology. If a person lies, we depend upon their body language, and their appearance (are they avoiding eye contact?), rather than their dialogue, to determine the true state of things. Body language is incredibly important, and to write body language is to write description. The way a person blushes, or smiles, or looks away in embarrassment, or looks at their toes when they've done something wrong or lied- all these things reveal the psychology of a person without a single word of dialogue. If anything, I believe that depending too much on dialogue detracts from the vibrancy of physical interactions; detracts from the tension of outward appearance and inward reality; detracts from the way we appear to be and the way we really are. In my own writing, at least, the way I try to present my world through descriptive writing reveals so much more, and entertains the imagination so much more, than any single line of dialogue I could write. The dialogue in my writing is used really rather sparingly (at least in the second chapter onwards); it's used as a general sign post to keep the reader informed of who is who, but more often used to lead the reader astray by providing false information the characters tell each other, and which contradict the reality portrayed by their physical interactions. For me, dialogue is on the surface- it's the advertisement, the facade the characters paint themselves with to cover a multitude of psychologies. The depths of the characters, and the depths of the story, are all below the speech; behind the speech, standing next to the speech as body language, physical appearance, and action. A character may say one thing, but his face is telling a different story. Which one is true? This is a tension you can only create using thorough description as well as dialogue. Speech is cheap, really- characters can abuse it to escape themselves and hide their psychology. It's a lot harder to cheat physical appearance and body language. After all, the way we live our lives is reflected in our physicality, too. A wife's calloused hands; a farmer's weathered face; a boy's scabby knees; they all say so much, and there is no word of dialogue in it. Description is a great opportunity to tell a story in images, as well as using dialogue. Don't pass on the opportunity! I'd start with reading your favourite authors to see how they tackle description. Edit- for an extreme example of how description reveals character psychology, read 'American Psycho' by Bret Easton Ellis. A good majority of the novel consists merely of descriptions of brand named clothing, drinks, products, and music (and extremely sexually violent murder scenes) . This tedious attention to detail reveals both the obsessive compulsive disorder of the psychotic main character (through which the story is narrated), and the superficially absurd 'me too' nature of all the character's lives living in eighties Manhattan.
When you are writing the story, do you ever visualize its occurrence? Is your dialogue enough to put the reader into the picture? Is that really necessary? My own preference is to detail the scene insofar as I can get the reader's mind into the zone. A smell here, a texture there, and little more. That's not to say that visualizing the milieu is unimportant. I think it's important for you as the writer to have a complete understanding of the environment of your story. You need not, and should not, throw everything into every scene. You should allow that authorial understanding to permeate and inform your description so that even if you only give it five words, you choose the right five words. Also, I don't understand skipping parts of a book I'm reading. If it's interesting enough to read the end, I don't want to miss something in the middle. And if it's so boring I can't make it through the middle of the book, why would I think the ending is worthwhile?
All writing is description. All that dialog is just a description of a conversation. What you're having trouble with is describing the setting, but this generally doesn't interest you even when reading and I am willing to bet you are not unique in this. So here's my advice: don't. I imagine you in one way or another get across the location. That's probably enough. It's been my experience that most people tend to overwrite things, bogging their stories down with pages and pages of description when it could all be reduced to a few sentences. So, here's what you do. Write it how it comes naturally to you. Then when you're showing people your second or later draft, make note wherever they say they needed more description of the setting because they were confused or whatever and write more description of the setting. That should do it.
Descriptions are great when used to paint a scene. Imagery is such a beautiful tool! Take an excerpt from Douglas Adams: How could you skip that? Could you paint that through dialogue? The answer is no. So awesome. ~ J. J.
I think that with any writing, the goal is to communicate what you want to say to an audience. So imagine who your audience is and imagine you are sitting at a bonfire telling them a story. If your audience is a bit more sophisticated, you may need to have a bit of wit and sophistication yourself to keep their attention. That is all to say that you shouldn't feel so pressured. If you want to be better at storytelling, do a web search for books that may be highly regarded for elements you want to improve in. I wanted to get better at dialog, so, according to a few reviews, I decided to purchase a book on my Kindle. So far, I am enjoying it and books are a lot more entertaining when you catch a few impressive tricks that the author uses (that you could use in your own stories).
Imagination is very important in writing and whenever we write something, we should think always how the audience would react to this??
Here is a way to do it. Go to google images and search for a picture that would fit as a setting. For example if a dialogue takes places in a forest then search for 'forest'. Now, take the picture and descibe it is as great a detail as you can. What do you see? What would you expect to hear if you were there? What would it smell like if you were there? If you were to touch the ground, what would you feel? Write it all down in a bulleted list and then look what the most important, most prominent sensations are. It's really not that hard to describe an environment, what is hard is picking only the most prominent. A description should be giving readers the few needed to sparks for them to imagine the setting. Really, the environment is created inside the readers heads (that is why everyone imagines different things about the same book and scene) you only need to provide the incentives. In short give only what is needed for the reader to fill in the blanks.
One more thing - in description, don't forget there are five senses. Involving more than one sense can bring descriptions to life. The visual aspect is the most obvious, so it is also the one that has the least power to move the reader. In particular, smell is the sense most tied to powerful memories.
Use the sense and be crazy with your imagery: the more creative you are, the more engaging the writing will become. BE SILLY. Silliness can lead to nice things. And be confident. If you are confident in what you are writing, that will be portrayed by the quality of your write.
This is exactly what I was thinking. Shakespeare didn't write a lot of description. There are different kinds of writers, and different kinds of readers. That means there are different kinds of books. Some are very descriptive, others are not. What matters is the story. Does the writing about the characters, dialogue, events, and settings move the arc of the story the way you want it to? If so, then you have enough description. If your dialogue moves the story, that's fine. If there are elements of the setting that NEED to be described in order to move the story along, then you're going to have to find a way to communicate it. If not, then it's superfluous. Sometimes I read books that have very detailed descriptions, and if it's done well, I think "Wow, this is like watching a movie!" because everything is there, and I don't have to work to imagine everything. If it's done badly, I think "Wow, this is boring!" and I stop reading. The best books I've read are the ones that provide some description, but only enough to provide a frame, which my mind then fills in. As a writer, you are exercising your imagination, but remember that the reader wants to do the same thing. The best books are the ones that have an interplay between the author's imagination, and the reader's. Allow space for your reader to imagine what they want to. They will populate your stories with elements from their own mind that are compatible with the emotions of the story you're creating. If you want them to imagine something beautiful, let them imagine what's beautiful to them. If you want them to be afraid, let them imagine what's fearful to them. Your story will have much more power. You have to provide enough description to give them the frame, in which they will draw what their mind's eye sees. UNLESS the details are important to the story! Focus on those details, they're the only ones that matter.
Thanks for all the suggestions, they helped!!! thanks everybody... I actually found a way out through my block of description writing, just followed bits and pieces here and there from what all was suggested.. going steady so far! still a beginner with it though, plan on getting better! liked the idea of the Bonfire story telling situation, so went writing as much as i could with and without the description[the actual physical descriptions, i mean] and put some precis in a play sort manner[Rachel enters, eyes all blunt and red] liked that idea too.... Never really thought positive motivation works wonders as much as these... Thanks a million tons!! now...putting in the dialogues based on all storyline[descriptions and more] that's been collected so far... Wish me Success!!
Great thread. There is some great advice here. Some advice I was given; seduce readers with just enough detail to spark their imagination. Just looked at a favourite book I have, the book has pencil illustrations, and is about a little girl. The illustrator hasn't shown the face of the girl, only a child with long unkept hair that depicts the situation, when running, or when she is angry and upset, the hair is wild, when she's thinking or reading her hair is smooth and tidy. There is a certain magic in the book because of the lack of detail.
^ Can't echo that statement enough. I'll make it more specific and suggest reading some Somerset Maugham, for he is stellar at providing extreme descriptions of situations. Focus on what details he chooses to include, and what details about the scene he allows the reader to fill in on their own through omission.
Make your settings and objects "characters" that are part of the story as in all good literature -- I don't mean personification. Just try to imagine Wuthering Heights being set in a kibbutz... Or for example, if the bad haircut inflicted on the teenager is an antagonist in his action to seduce a girl, then a descriptive line of that haircut would not be superfluous, it would help tell the story. Someone above suggested playwriting, but writing for the stage brings the visuals even more in focus, just can't get away from it.
I personally take a minimalist stand point unless it's absolutely necessary to describe something in great detail. I've seen so much work that I just get bogged down in, perfect example is the paragraph above. Quite literally I read he had a watch, visioned it for myself based on relatively few key words and skipped the entire rest of the paragraph. Off the top of my head, this is how I would describe an action: "Jennifer was rushing frantically around the room loading a small bag with supplies." Of course if I was thinking about it more I'd name important supplies and what they might be for. On the other hand there's some people that would use 10 words that essentially mean "rushing frantically", then another paragraph describing the bag down to the last stitch, a description of each supply, weather or not there was a 1mm spot of rust on one screw of a frying pan. I'm not trying to be rude to people that do over-describe, but don't go so hard on yourself. I almost gave up writing because I was trying to be someone I'm not. If you don't like descriptions, don't go overboard, and follow your style.
I suppose it depends how fast paced you want to go. I'm in to alot of action, where in action long descriptions only serve to disrupt the flow. In a gun fight let's say, things are happening bam, bam, bam, all in the space of a few seconds. Where I get bogged down is describing a firing gun in an entire paragraph. People are not idiots, they know what a firing gun looks like. To me the description of the watch had too much and I instantly succumbed to boredom simply because I know what a pocket watch looks like. The author could have condensed that entire thing into a couple of sentences. But it's like I said, it's all a matter of preference and style. I hold nothing against people who like reading or writing that style of description. I'm merely trying to tell the OP not to beat him/herself up over trying to be something they're not.
And this is exactly what I was discussing with a colleague earlier. If you're a minimalist, you get talked down to by "the reading elite." I can appreciate description as much as anyone else when not over done.
People have their own tastes and I will not concede that I am somehow uneducated or deficient in any way simply because too much description gets on my nerves. There's a fine line involved where the reader gets drawn in to he scene and where they just get bogged down. It's the same principal as my other hobby, scale modeling. You can add a plethora of detail down to the last bolt, and spend years doing it, only to have most of it go not noticed. Why? People look at the big picture. For example, the hatch on the turret of a tank is the big picture, the nuts and bolts around it will generally get lost. It's human nature and the only people that will notice the stuff around the hatch are the people that care enough to actually look for it. That's us. I'm the guy looking at the big picture, you're the guy looking for the details. Neither is better than the other, they just see the world differently.
