how can I improve description in my writing

When I'm doing the intial rewrites, i describe the scene to my self aloud - then I describe it differently. I do this three or four times until I am satisfied with the phrasing that I will keep, or until I decide that the description I am attempting is not necessary. I go through this process with every descriptive scene, looking for ways to show what I need to show without telling it point blank to the reader. Sometimes I decide I don't need to tell them everything.

Just because I see it in my mind, it doesn't mean it advances the story...


"Janes wore a red dress that accentuated her generous curves, in a good way."
"Jane's vermillion dress hugged her wide hips. John liked 'em wide."
"John greeted her warmly. Jane had put on a few pounds in all the right places and he approved. 'Let's go out to dinner,' he suggested, slipping his arm around her. Her bright red dress felt silky under his hand."
"The deep red Badgley-Mischka hit her dimpled knees, then caressed her curves a scant distance up to her stunning decolletage."
"Jane wore a red dress. She looked good in it."
"Jane dressed carefully for her date with John, taking a half hour to decide between the red dress and the orange leopard print catsuit. But John had already seen the catsuit. Oh, well."
"John waited by the mailbox. If Jane wore that red dress, he would put away the gun and take her out to dinner. But if it was that damned stupid catsuit, well, all bets were off."
"Jane went to dinner with John. They spent three hours at Anthony's, in the dark back booth, planning the murder." (What about her dress? Who cares?)

Best of luck to you!

When I describe, I try to put myself in the scene and imagine exactly what would stand out to me, what it would remind me of, and/or how it would make me feel. I try to imagine what few descriptions give the best feel of a place. Then I focus on one, two descriptions in a few brief sentences.

It helps if each description is based on a different sense - maybe one is what you see, one is what you smell, and the other is what you feel. Plus, I think word choice is hugely important. So you feel the breeze, but what kind of breeze is it? Does the breeze waft? Trickle? Hiss? Spin? Each one has a different feel as well as a different emotional subtext. Waft = light, aromatic, slow and relaxing. Trickle = tepid, maybe nervous, uncertain, leaves you gulping for air. Etc.

A final thing I believe is important is to take your metaphorical descriptions, and tie it in with something concrete. For example, a breeze hissed through the grates. The breeze spun around her ankles.

What helped me improve my description was forcing me to stretch myself, to try and pin down the exact emotion, or thought, or association instead of settling for something that just worked. Lots of people like the smell of fresh cut grass, but how does it make ME feel? What does it remind me of, exactly? How can I condense that? How can I compare it to something else that will take people there with me? And finally, is that the image/mood I want to set my scene with?

I hope that helps. I wrote a two-part blog post about description that you may want to check out as well: Description and Emotion,
Description and Selection

Try Jerry Weinberg's "Goldilocks" exercise: http://weinbergonwriting.blogspot.com/2007/09/setting-and-character-goldilocks.html

Dale

My wife helps me with description a lot. I look at a picture of a place either online or in a magazine or something, and I write a description of the place as best I can. I try to limit it to less than 200 words also. Then I give it to my wife to read, after she reads it I show her the picture to see if what she saw in her mind matches the picutre.

This really shows me what I am good at and what I need to work on. Try it.

Bombast from afar: apply daily as needed. (Consult physician for appropriate dosage.)

The Thesaurus won't help you become a better descriptive writer, but reading good descriptive writing sure will, as will practicing to better your craft: this means reading the kinds of descriptive writing that you enjoy, and paying attention to it, so that it both informs and reinforces your own writerly proclivities. In other words, you're mostly right-on with your approach, but bear in mind that the best descriptive writing operates in one of two ways. It either shows something in a new and startling way (a description is so new and unusual you just have to stop and gape and say, "Wow! I wish I'd thought of that!"), or it performs tasks beyond the merely descriptive. The goal of the latter isn't merely to catalogue sensory details, but rather to use those details to impart much more than mere surface impressions. Good descriptive writing resonates with many other parts of the story, whether a person, a place, a thing, a theme...

Oh but what in the world does that mean? Good descriptive writing accomplishes more than picture painting with words. Hammer, meet head of nail:


This is the great big magic act of writing (well, one of them, anyway), and Kate Thornton knows what she's talking about when she says that. Pretty much the same thing was said by John Gardner in his book on writing, which was emphasized with a little exercise that I'll try to reproduce below (though likely it's a botch). Exercise goes something like this:


If you manage to do what Gardner asks (or, in you own way, manage to impart a great many other things beneath the iceberg-tip of your descriptions), you will very likely produce meaningful description. Telling description. Emotionally resonant description.

If you manage to write something like this...


...you will have hit the nail of descriptive brevity and wonderment straight on the head, just like Heinlein so famously did with that very line. No one had ever said that before about a door before he did it, and the description succinctly transmits what any good old-fashioned science fiction door should do: open in its own, new, and very special way. Which is a way that made many say, "Wow, I wish I'd thought of that!"

Next trick? Practice. There's no substitute for hard work.

You have less leeway with description when you're writing in the first person, since you're using only the character's vocabulary.

The Scip said:

My wife helps me with description a lot. I look at a picture of a place either online or in a magazine or something, and I write a description of the place as best I can. I try to limit it to less than 200 words also. Then I give it to my wife to read, after she reads it I show her the picture to see if what she saw in her mind matches the picutre.

This really shows me what I am good at and what I need to work on. Try it.

Click to expand...

you forgot to post her email address.

just joking,

DeusExMachina770 said:

there are three things I already do: I read a lot, I read through the thesaurus, and I copy down any instances of good description in books I read (obviously I don't publish it, I just take note of it)

any other tricks and techniques that have worked for you?

Click to expand...

My critics will love this.
I often write short stories (one or two pages)just for practice. I’ll take an impossible scene, and see how alive I can make it. Try it.
This is my favorite: An empty office in an abandoned warehouse at night.…Steinbeck was a master at this. After you have done this, bring a character into the scene.
I look at writing like anything else…practice makes perfect…don’t practice on the book you want to write…practice on ideas you think you might want in the book.

I usually try to use anthropomorphism. Don't say the sun was bright and warm, say the sun smiled down on them. Don't say that a storm was about to start, say that the clouds rose up, darkened, and prepared to throw a tantrum.

When I'm doing descriptions, I try to focus on what's important to the character. That way each word does double duty - illustrating character as well as setting the scene.

Some things you can try in narrative:

1. Be particular. E.g.
   
   Her dog looked up lovingly into her eyes
   becomes
   The shaggy terrier looked up lovingly into her eyes
   
2. Replace the metaphysical with the physical. The metaphysical is anything to do with what we know about something. The physical is what we see/hear/feel/smell/taste/intuit about something. E.g.
   
   The shaggy terrier looked up into her eyes like she was the best thing it had seen all day.
   
3. Use powerful verbs. E.g.
   
   The shaggy terrier gazed up into her eyes like she was the best thing it had seen all day.
   
4. Remove redundancy. A terrier is unlikely to be looking down into her eyes, and does it matter that it's her eyes anyway? So
   
   The shaggy terrier gazed up at her like she was the best thing it had seen all day.
   
5. Strip adverbs. Strip adjectives. Especially avoid multiple adjectives.
6. Ensure that the basic questions of who, what, how, why, where and when are answered, and in the order that the reader is wondering about them.
7. The quality of writing can never be better than the quality of tension in your scene. Ensure that in every scene each major character has a goal and the goals are in conflict.
8. When presenting your character with a dilemma, consider presenting information in the following order: situation, emotional reaction, how it got here, options and choice. Here's a rough draft that does this:
   
   Janette's hands shook as she stroked the terrier's silver coat. How could she not have realised that Richard was blackmailing her father? But the letters in her handbag told the story. What to do? If she told her father what she knew it could tear her family apart. And Richard would hardly stop even if she begged him. If only she could find the photographs. But where had Richard hidden them? And was Richard hiding his own dirty secrets?
   
   The terrier leaned against her leg. She couldn't do this alone, she realised. But then she remembered the PI's business-card in her purse.
9. Arrive late to each scene and leave early. This keeps it interesting. E.g. rather than having Janette phoning the PI to make an appointment, why not cut to them meeting in the PI's office?
10. Vary the pace of the writing to suit the tension
11. Consider having action occur in multiple locations and cutting between them to build suspense

Some things to try in dialogue:

1. Remove every line of dialogue where the characters are not in conflict
2. Avoid cliches
3. Try to make characters speak indirectly rather than directly. E.g.
   She wants to kill her father
   becomes
   She's bought rat-poison for Father's Day.
4. Add colour with simile and metaphor where appropriate
5. Use language markers for age, gender, education, ethnicity, social status where appropriate

Hope these help.