Forum: Author Hangout

How much is too much? How much is too little? What do I do if description isn't my strong point?

These are a few of the questions I asked myself when I was first starting to write. I still ask them sometimes, especially when editing a rough draft, but what I've learned over the years is that these questions kind of miss the point when it comes to description.

Description is more than just a laundry list of facts strung together to offer readers more information about the world you are bringing them into. Done correctly, offering description tells the reader more about the Perspective character, or narrator. It doesn't stop there, however. Description is also a wonderful place to establish voice and style. It's not only the factoids you offer that matter, it's how you offer them.

So, what do you do if description isn't your strong point? How do you train yourself to improve?

I could just say practice and leave it at that. In the end, that's what it amounts to, but I like to be more specific than that.

Whether you do this with practice pieces, choosing a topic at random and apply it, in a rough draft as you are writing, or during your first edit of your rough draft, one method I've found that helps me to dramatically improve descriptive paragraphs, is to start with a list.

I keep a scene in my head and I simply start by trying to imagine some things that I would like to include in my description, whether these are just nouns, nouns modified with adjectives (When I use adjectives, if they are not creative, I omit them) or short phrases, I write them down before writing my descriptive paragraph.

It's a simple little exercise and it has worked well to help me write better descriptive paragraphs (Even though I've done this for quite some time, I still consider scene and character descriptions an uphill climb for me). But I also find that my ability to come up with more stylish descriptive prose has greatly improved since I first started writing.

Try it yourself and see. Instead of just barging directly into writing a descriptive paragraph, start by making a list of things you want your paragraph to include before writing it.

Sorry, but I cringe when you suggest basing descriptions on lists, as those are often the worst kind of descriptions. (Yes, yes, I know that's not what you intended, instead simply listing what you want to describe rather than listing items in the description.) But it's important to remember that descriptions should stand alone, and is not a place to dump all the detail which won't fit anywhere else in your story.

Instead, long descriptions are a good way of mixing up the pace of your stories. I find they're most useful (for me) after a fast-paced action scene. After the action spins out of controls for a few thousand words, my next chapters are usually summaries, where the characters gather and try to figure out what the hell happened.

Not only does this allow readers to regain their breath, but it answers whatever questions you didn't answer during the fight. It also provides a peek into each characters' personality, as it reveals how they handle a crisis. Do they think things through logically? Are they so amped up afterwards that they're unable to think straight? Are they good team players and leaders, able to refocus their teammates after a potential disaster.

Typically, an chapter with action will boost the chapter's score a couple tens of a point, but while the slow discussions afterwards don't score as high, they tend to boost the overall score to the story, and leave the readers deeply satisfied by the story. These passages allow themselves to slip into the minds of the various characters.

If you throw in a couple personal conflicts, as each character brings a different point of view into the discussion, you can make the after-detail exchange quite intriguing.

That said, that may be a bit much for most newbies to chew on initially. Dialogue and description are two of my strengths, so weaving them together is a natural for me.

The key, is to keep in mind where your readers' minds are at. Do they need to slow down? Do you need to account for missing details? Also consider your character's motives, and what mid-crisis responses will piss off the parties different members. Plot these out before you begin, and then play it up while writing the passages.

The deadly passages aren't the slow passages mid-story, but the data dumps early on in the story, where authors like to dump all the research they did on the story. Rather than do that, consider revealing the background a little at a time during the course of normal discussions, or even in recollections by the characters. That approach spreads the data out so it's not so overwhelming, and provides context to the other characters' lives, so it's more likely to be remembered by the reader.

How much is too much? How much is too little?

It varies with what's being described and why. I tend to go for as little as I can get away with and not lose the reader or confuse them.

I've found that general descriptions of characters is best in most cases, unless there's a special reason for it to be much more detailed, such as a special tattoo or scar or other special feature relevant to a later plot aspect. In my story Odd Man in College I make a point, very early, to describe Lyn's face, hair, and build in a way to let readers know it's easy to think Lyn is a girl, because that helps towards the housing mix up.

As to the surroundings, in Shiloh The Scot described one room in great detail (which was excessive and he later cut over two thirds of it) because some of the detail was important to show a part of one of the characters and to set the scene of the use of the room as a comfortable place to talk.

In Michaels Mansion I give a lot of detail about the refurbishment, but that's because the buildings are the main characters of that story and it's about how working on the building changes the other people.