Detailed descriptions of characters and settings

MsGneiss · Jul 3, 2009

I am not one for very detailed descriptions, either of characters or settings. In my first novel, I hardly provided any at all, and if I did, it was mostly to emphasize something about a character's personality. There, it worked best to leave it all to the imagination of the reader, because the great appeal of the story was that everyone could relate.

Current book is a bit more chick-lit-ish, and unlike the first one, is told in third person. I am inclined to include more physical descriptions of the characters, but also, of the scenery. In the first book, the characters rarely ventured outside of their office. In this one, they are running all over New York.

I was wondering what your general opinion is about descriptions and how they work, why they work, and so on.

Also, want to mention that I went through the three Harper Connelly books by Charlaine Harris, and I have to say, Harris does quite a lot of describing in great detail. I understand that a lot of is important to set the mood and the tone, but I wonder if it's too much.

Anyway, all opinions on this are welcome.

ylrebmik · Jul 3, 2009

I wonder the same thing

For me, my drafts never have enough little detail. I always have to go back later and figure out how/where the descriptions would work.

Personally, I think description is important obviously, but I hate when books are heavily descriptive that takes away from the action. I think it's just a balance. And honestly, I want a brief description of what someone looks like or what a building looks like... I don't want to read two pages of description... sometimes one is too much. Clear, concise, and balanced. But easier said than done, I guess.

ChaosTitan · Jul 3, 2009

Descriptions are often a matter of balance and, in some part, style and voice. When I stumble across huge chunks of description in narrative, I tend to skim for pertinent details without reading deeply. Unless, of course, I'm totally in love with the author's writing style, then I'd carefully read anything they wrote.

Some books and stories (and voices) work well with bare bones descriptions. Other books and author voices work well with long, in-depth descriptions of setting, dress, and character features. What I think works in one book may not work in another.

As a writer, I tend to do slightly longer descriptions on things "alien" to readers. For example, a hidden, mythical chamber beneath city needs a little more description than a local donut shop--most readers have been to a donut shop.

Gillhoughly · Jul 3, 2009

Everyone handles this differently. You have to work out what works well for you, as it's part of your style and voice.

Harris gets detailed, but is good at it, Anne Rice goes WAAAAAAY over the top with TMI, and some don't bother at all.

My mentor was Arthur Conan Doyle. In just a couple lines he could paint a vivid description of a person or a scene so clear you could see it in your head.

MsGneiss · Jul 3, 2009

I agree that Harris does it well, but I wonder how much of that has to do with the first-person style of her narrative. Basically, it makes sense for Harper to notice such things and describe them, because she is the type of person to do so. Something like that - so, the descriptions, because they are in first person, serve to develop the main character further. I doubt it would be the same in third.

KTC · Jul 3, 2009

What Gill said. I tend to enjoy reading description... I never skim over anything when I'm reading. I'm not even sure how to do that. I can't skim a single word. I am a fan of literary works...such as Proust. I know it's crazy, but I can read his garden descriptions over and over. It is a matter of what works well for your style and voice Just keep in mind that the reader can see when it isn't working.

Libbie · Jul 3, 2009

Interesting topic!

I tend to write in limited third person. When I'm inside a character's POV, I don't describe things in great detail unless they're unfamiliar to the character. Why would I do otherwise? I want the reader to experience my POV character's world as she sees it. She's not going to notice much about familiar settings or people. I'd rather "describe" those things by showing how she feels about and interacts with the familiar, rather than giving details of appearance. But when she encounters something or someone who's beyond her typical experience, I do describe more of the physical characteristics. She would notice these things.

My writing style is heavily influenced by Richard Adams, but we approach description of setting and character in very different ways. Richard Adams is a master of creative settings, and he goes into extreme detail in describing them, sometimes setting a scene with pages of rich descriptive prose. There is one memorable sentence (a page and a half long!) in Watership Down that poetically describes how a flock of birds looks as it travels across open country. It's magical. It's also a lot of words devoted to description. While I love to read Adams, partially because of his incredible setting description, I can see why a lot of people find his work to be full of colossal info-dumps.

Another of my favorite writers is Vladimir Nabokov, who creates amazing characters and settings not by describing them outright as Adams does, but by showing how his POV character experiences them. Here is how Humbert Humbert, the POV character in Lolita, introduces the reader to two other characters:

[SIZE=-1] There are two kinds of visual memory: one when you skillfully recreate an image in the laboratory of your mind, with your eyes open (and then I see Annabel in such general terms as: "honey-colored skin," "thin arms," "brown bobbed hair," "long lashes," "big bright mouth"); and the other when you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on the dark innerside of your eyelids, the objective, absolutely optical replica of a beloved face, a little ghost in natural colors (and this is how I see Lolita).

Rather than outright telling the reader that Annabel had honey-colored skin, etc., Nabokov has Humbert explain to the reader how he experiences the memory of Annabel's appearance, and contrasts that to how he experiences the memory of Lolita's appearance. Isn't that a nice method? Instead of listing descriptors, we're right inside Humbert's head, reliving his memories with him. The close perspective to the narrator makes Lolita feel like a very intimate book.

While I've read remarks about the book implying that Humbert never cares for Lolita as a person and you can tell because he never really describes her, I have to disagree. Nabokov never lays out a straight description of Lolita as a character, it's true. But the reader does experience her through Humbert's senses in ways that characters are seldom explored in other books. Humbert tells us that he can always feel the exact spot in the middle of his chest that marks her exact height. Her hair smells "brown." She stands "four feet ten in one sock." And dozens of other subtle yet powerful images are all throughout the book, all of them clearly painting a picture of this central character without ever saying, "Lo was about four feet ten inches, with brown hair, and she was young and distracted enough that she often dawdled while getting dressed."

For my own writing, I like an approach somewhere between Adams and Nabokov (but not as good as either, I'm afraid.) I love to go into great visual detail when I can, because it's like painting a beautiful picture of an exotic place. But I try to keep it limited to only what my characer would experience whenever possible. And I find that I do my most satisfying describing of settings and characters when I really focus hard on how my POV character experiences the world rather than just setting up a little backdrop against which she can say her lines.

I break the rules occasionally. Sometimes exposition is necessary, and I try to cushion it with broader imagery of the larger setting while sliding in a minor info-dump.

[/SIZE]

Shweta · Jul 3, 2009

I love reading descriptions that are unique in some way -- except when I really wanna know what's happening next. (I don't actually enjoy that feeling. Often don't like the really "thrilling" books where you really have to know what happens next as much as I like quieter books, because I feel like I can't enjoy what's happening right now as much. I is weird.)

But description can be vivid without slowing down a story, if it's relevant to what the character's experiencing at a pertinent moment.

defcon6000 · Jul 3, 2009

I'm not big on large chunks of description either. I don't care for it at all when an author decides to take a paragraph or two describing a singe person. I like it better when it's spread out and focuses on certain aspects of the person at certain times, because we don't see an entire person at any one moment in time. One time might be the face, another time the clothes they wear, etc.

I've been reading a lot of novels lately where the authors hardly (if at all) describe the MC; the most I may know is the MC sex and age. By the way, they were all written in 3rd person, because I know it's awkward to describe yourself in 1st person. But I'm not phased by that at all, I just invent a look for the character. Like in Phillip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric sheep? I just imagined Harrison Ford in all the Deckard scenes. :ROFL:

Although, I've learned (mainly through my critique group) that setting is essential and it MUST be mentioned, otherwise it just looks like your characters are acting out in a blank box. Even if it's vague, you have to say something.

Shweta · Jul 3, 2009

Since I'm the typo queen today, I shouldn't comment on other people's typos, (and I don't mean it as a tease, just pointing out a cool accident), but...

defcon6000 said:
I'm not big on large chunks of description either. I don't care for it at all when an author decides to take a paragraph or two describing a singe person.

I just love this image! If I had a singed person I'd totally be describing them

gonovelgo · Jul 4, 2009

I don't like gratuitous description, which is probably why so much epic fantasy annoys me. For me, description is always a means to an end - either setting the scene, setting a mood (used sparingly) or, and this is my favourite use, revealing something about a character. In a first-person or limited third-person story, it can be wonderfully enlightening to have a character gloss over some things but spend a long time describing others, implying that they're paying more attention to the latter.

john barnes on toast · Jul 4, 2009

Either way can work brilliantly, or fail miserably.

I'll gladly read Tom Wolfe describing a mahogany desk for 3 pages. Yet some writers can manage no more than a few lines of incidental detail without coming badly unstuck.

Elidibus · Jul 5, 2009

ChaosTitan said:
Descriptions are often a matter of balance and, in some part, style and voice. When I stumble across huge chunks of description in narrative, I tend to skim for pertinent details without reading deeply. Unless, of course, I'm totally in love with the author's writing style, then I'd carefully read anything they wrote.

If no one else said this. The above is second'd

I tend to give a little detail and let the person reading do the rest. I believe if you have your own idea what a character looks like you connect more with the character.

Makes sense to me anyway...

Ruth2 · Jul 5, 2009

I'm a dialogue person myself. I can write dialogue 'til after the cows come home but exposition and description is as hard as chewing gravel for me. And when I read it, I skim unless I'm a fan of the author. If it's a standard set -- donut shop, for example-- I won't describe it at all except to say it's a donut shop, unless there's something really different (which for me means "weird") about it.

But that's just me. YMMV.

blacbird · Jul 5, 2009

Whatever you do, there's a single commandment:

It needs to matter to the reader.

caw

john barnes on toast · Jul 5, 2009

Ruth2 said:
exposition and description is as hard as chewing gravel for me. And when I read it, I skim

you skim exposition?

Jesus wept.

Ruth2 · Jul 5, 2009

Well, I skim long exposition. "Jesus wept" is short enough that I can't skim it.

Shweta · Jul 5, 2009

Ruth2 said:
I'm a dialogue person myself. I can write dialogue 'til after the cows come home but exposition and description is as hard as chewing gravel for me. And when I read it, I skim unless I'm a fan of the author. If it's a standard set -- donut shop, for example-- I won't describe it at all except to say it's a donut shop, unless there's something really different (which for me means "weird") about it.

But that's just me. YMMV.

To me, this would make your settings far too generic. I'd much prefer one telling detail that lets me get a feel for the donut shop. Donut shop hot from the oven half its size, donut shop with greasy windows, donut shop that also sells overbrewed coffee for a dollar?

This isn't the same as interrupting the story for paragraphs of detail -- but it means just enough detail to feel like a place rather than a token to me.

I skim exposition too. Actually these days it's more like -- if I notice exposition, I'm not finishing that book. There aren't enough hours in the day for clunky writing.
For me: detail better be enhancing the story, and exposition had better be woven deftly into scenes. Karen Joy Fowler's new book, Wit's End, is a perfect example to me of these being done brilliantly.

Shadow_Ferret · Jul 5, 2009

I've always felt description is what sets you apart as a writer from others, how you handle description, the words you use, if you create interesting turns of phrase (or is it turn of phrases?), and so on. It helps create your style. To me, description is where I get to unleash the poet in me and lets the reader see the world through my eyes.

maestrowork · Jul 5, 2009

Details that put you inside the story, letting you hear, smell, taste, see and feel like you're right there, are always good.

Descriptions that distract the readers from the story and bog every down with excessive details are not.

The balance? That's why we are writers, right? If there's a one-size-fits-all solution, we wouldn't call it art.

maddicharmed · Jul 5, 2009

I'm going to be totally honest here and say that in some cases you need to description. I'm a person that loves hearing about the character's description, what the setting looks like and how everyone moves throughout the novel. There doesn't have to be a lot, but enough for me to picture everything that is going on. Less may be good, but in some cases you need it there. Because sometimes you are going to get people like me who actually like it.

maestrowork · Jul 6, 2009

maddicharmed said:
I'm going to be totally honest here and say that in some cases you need to description. I'm a person that loves hearing about the character's description, what the setting looks like and how everyone moves throughout the novel. There doesn't have to be a lot, but enough for me to picture everything that is going on. Less may be good, but in some cases you need it there. Because sometimes you are going to get people like me who actually like it.

As a reader, I want to at least be able to put myself in the scene, hear the sounds of the cafe, smell the cigarettes or coffee, sees the plastic flowers, taste the croissants, etc.

It doesn't need to be a drawn-out description, just enough to put us there and give us a flavor and help us use our imagination to fill in the blanks. A little does go a long way sometimes, unless something is so unique that you must go into details. Still, give us something. When you see a movie, you don't want to just see the actors staring at blank walls, do you? You want to sets to be as good as possible, to make you believe they're not on a soundstage, but at a real location in New York.

Same with fiction. Telling us "they went to the cafe" doesn't do much for me. Yes, I know what a generic cafe looks like, but to me, that's the literary equivalent of dumping the actors in an empty set with a green screen -- oh, imagine yourself at a cafe.

Use the five senses. They are your friends as a writer.

firedrake · Jul 6, 2009

I'm one who likes to describe settings, visual images, scents, etc. Most of my stuff is set in rural areas and I love describing the countryside. I sometimes get carried away so I'm learning to rein in those passages and keep them pertinent.

As for describing characters, I'm very wary of going into too much physical description. I prefer to 'suggest' and hint and let the reader fill in the blanks.

Detailed descriptions of characters and settings

MsGneiss

ylrebmik

ChaosTitan

Around

Gillhoughly

Grumpy writer and editor

MsGneiss

KTC

Stand in the Place Where You Live

Libbie

Worst song played on ugliest guitar

Shweta

gone

defcon6000

Shweta

gone

gonovelgo

john barnes on toast

Elidibus

Over 9000!!!!!!!

Ruth2

Tam, na Koncu Drevoreda

blacbird

john barnes on toast

Ruth2

Tam, na Koncu Drevoreda

Shweta

gone

Shadow_Ferret

Court Jester

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

maddicharmed

I'm not the writer I used to be.

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

firedrake

practical experience, FTW