Hello, my name's Christy, and I'm an over describer...

Christyp · Nov 30, 2011

Yeah, probably not the most eloquent way of saying that, but...whatever. A lot of you have read my work and have noted I have a tendency of dissecting everything, describing everything to the last fiber in a person's shirt. I'm not so bad with adverbs, just way to many adjectives, metaphors, similes, etc....

Anyone want to joing my recovery group? We can call it Writers with Bad Habits Anonymous.

JSDR · Nov 30, 2011

Rofl. Christy... Can I join your group if I'm an under-describer?

LilGreenBookworm · Nov 30, 2011

JSDR said:
Rofl. Christy... Can I join your group if I'm an under-describer?

Ditto! I don't like reading details, so I have to force myself to write them. I don't know anything about cars, so just tell me it's a red one and I'll be fine. If you tell me it's a Ford Kangaroo with a 450 elephant power engine, you're just confusing me. I'm a wierdo.

RobJ · Nov 30, 2011

Congratulations, Christy. Admitting you have a problem is the first step towards recovery. I think you're going to be okay.

Christyp said:
~~Yeah, probably~~ Not the most eloquent way of saying that, but...~~whatever~~. ~~A lot~~ Some of you have ~~read my work and have~~ noted I ~~have a~~ tend~~ency of dissecting everything,~~ to describ~~ing~~e everything to the last ~~fiber~~detail ~~in a person's shirt~~. ~~I'm not so bad with adverbs, just way to many adjectives, metaphors, similes, etc....~~

Anyone want to joing my recovery group~~? We can call it~~ , Writers with Bad Habits Anonymous.?

Christyp · Nov 30, 2011

Ah, my first two members!
JSDR-of course. Yet another bad habit we tend to make. It's like walking the find line of showing/telling. I don't mind details, but like LilGreen said, I know nothing about cars; just tell me it was red!

My newest one I went on and on about the character's face rubbing against a guy's shirt, describing the scratchy fabric, the irritation of her skin. Blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada!
All I had to write was she raised her head to look at him....

Christyp · Nov 30, 2011

RobJ said:
Congratulations, Christy. Admitting you have a problem is the first step towards recovery. I think you're going to be okay.

I believe we've found our sponsor! lol

Susan Coffin · Nov 30, 2011

Christy,

I think sometimes we over-describe because we don't trust the reader to get it. My advice would be to trust your reader.

mac3910 · Nov 30, 2011

HAHAHA

I can definitely relate. I wrote a solid seven hundred words about the way trees look when it's cold and snowing outside. They look like trees with snow on them. I need help.

dangerousbill · Nov 30, 2011

Christyp said:
Yeah, probably not the most eloquent way of saying that, but...whatever. A lot of you have read my work and have noted I have a tendency of dissecting everything, describing everything to the last fiber in a person's shirt. I'm not so bad with adverbs, just way to many adjectives, metaphors, similes, etc....

Try this experiment. Remove all the adverbs and adjectives from a sample of your stuff. Now start putting them back, adjectives first, but only if they're needed to get your message across. Then go with adverbs, leaving them out, or substituting a stronger verb if possible. There's a good chance you can lose at least half of your modifiers without hurting your readers one bit.

This is something I normally do in rewriting, not in the original writing. I also write a lot of multiple compound sentences, which I also break up during rewrite.

mirandashell · Nov 30, 2011

mac3910 said:
HAHAHA I can definitely relate. I wrote a solid seven hundred words about the way trees look when it's cold and snowing outside. They look like trees with snow on them. I need help.

CharlesDickensitis. That's what you've got.

He once took 3 pages to describe how cold the evening was. At the opening of the book.....

That hit the bedroom wall.

Susan Coffin · Nov 30, 2011

mirandashell said:
CharlesDickensitis. That's what you've got.

He once took 3 pages to describe how cold the evening was. At the opening of the book.....

That hit the bedroom wall.

But, that is what sold in Dickens' day. I find the over-description and overuse of adverbs in the classics very charming, because it pulls me to a different time.

mirandashell · Nov 30, 2011

It drives me up the wall.........

To be honest, I've read a lot of classics and Dickens is the worst for this. Really. Austen doesn't do it, she gets on with it.

But then JA wasn't writing a serial and didn't need to fill her books with fluff to stretch the story into 20 episodes.....

Or is that just me being cynical?

RunWrite · Nov 30, 2011

I have the opposite problem, my style is very spare. Perhaps your support group could meet with my support group . . .

Tepelus · Nov 30, 2011

I have the opposite problem, most of the time. Sometimes I find myself over-describing things, but usually I give a brief description, if any, and continue on.

KatieJ · Nov 30, 2011

RunWrite said:
I have the opposite problem, my style is very spare. Perhaps your support group could meet with my support group . . .

RunWrite, can I join your support group? Pretty please? My rewrites are 99% dedicated to plumping up the first draft, I'm so envious of people who have to pare things down, that seems so much easier.

Christyp · Nov 30, 2011

KatieJ said:
RunWrite, can I join your support group? Pretty please? My rewrites are 99% dedicated to plumping up the first draft, I'm so envious of people who have to pare things down, that seems so much easier.

Not easy for me. My paring down usually means some rewriting, and when your whole book is like that it can take quite a bit of time!

KatieJ · Nov 30, 2011

Sorry - I guess the grass is always greener!!

I have to go through and find the places where it is scraped bare and mark them with 20 point red font. Then I go back and try to really describe the scene. Anyway - it can be hideous! Who was it who said writing was easy, just open a vein?

VictoriaWrites · Nov 30, 2011

mirandashell said:
It drives me up the wall.........

To be honest, I've read a lot of classics and Dickens is the worst for this. Really. Austen doesn't do it, she gets on with it.

But then JA wasn't writing a serial and didn't need to fill her books with fluff to stretch the story into 20 episodes.....

Or is that just me being cynical?

He was paid per word. I would learn how to over-describe, too, if that's how I was paid.

I'm with the under-describers up-thread. I tend to skim lots of description and forget to describe things in my own writing. It's something to work on. :Shrug:

Susan Coffin · Nov 30, 2011

VictoriaWrites said:
He was paid per word. I would learn how to over-describe, too, if that's how I was paid.

Writers were paid per word for novels back then? I didn't realize that, but that would explain the superfluous prose.

mirandashell · Nov 30, 2011

VictoriaWrites said:
He was paid per word. I would learn how to over-describe, too, if that's how I was paid.

Ha! I knew it!

Logan! · Nov 30, 2011

Definitely an under-describer here. But it's a conscious decision most of the time, at least for my current WIP. I've fiddled with a more descriptive prose in a short story and found it to be a fun exercise in alternative styles. As everyone says, it depends on the story.

RobJ · Nov 30, 2011

As writers, we should care about all of the word choices we make, but this is never more true than with description. Importantly, though, it's not just a numbers game. You can take an over-written description and cut down on the number of adjectives, metaphors & similes and still have a poorly written description. It's just as much about selecting the right details. With the right details, you're almost certainly going to use fewer words, and will be using more effective ones. It takes time and effort to develop an eye for detail, to know when to add detail and which details to add, and this is one of the most creative parts of fiction writing, IMO.

Christyp · Nov 30, 2011

KatieJ said:
Sorry - I guess the grass is always greener!!

I have to go through and find the places where it is scraped bare and mark them with 20 point red font. Then I go back and try to really describe the scene. Anyway - it can be hideous! Who was it who said writing was easy, just open a vein?

I once read someone say they first write their first draft as the bare bones, close to an outline. They then go back and add the meat, then finally the skin. Unfortunately, I'm constantly having to remove extra limbs, warts, and growths!

The Lonely One · Nov 30, 2011

Re: Dickens - Have to read stuff of an older time in the context of other works in that time, otherwise it will automatically be frustrating. Have to expect it to be an anachronism to you.

As for over-describing, to me it depends on how relevant that information is to you. Maybe the character has OCD and a part of his/her disorder is an aversion to the texture of certain fibers in clothes. Then it makes sense to get in there and make the reader feel meticulously icky (dated someone once with OCD who had a issue touching paper).

But if you're doing it excessively with everything I just think it's going to bore people. I think the direct effect is that describing=telling, meaning your narrative stops while your narrator takes the time to notice all these details. Descriptions don't have a ton of action verbs, they seem to more be the "being" ones, or at least lousy actions like "wore." So it's just a balancing game and for my taste the heavier side has to be movement. Unless there's some specific reason, as I said.

buz · Nov 30, 2011

I blame high school.

They make us read all this literature from the 18th & 19th centuries and tell us that this is the standard of great writing.

Moby effing Dick. Seriously. Whaling. Ships. Ugh.

Although, I will say this...one of my favorite authors ever is Walter Moers (the Zamonia books, I mean; haven't read his other stuff). That dude does description until it's way overdone, and then he just keeps going until it's so ridiculous that it's awesome.

To his credit, though, his stories are amazing. Not Moby effing Dick.

Hello, my name's Christy, and I'm an over describer...

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