I am worried I may put too much description in the story. How do you know when it is just spacefillers(which are definately unneeded)? Send me either an email or pm if you don't understand what I've asked. I am uncertain if this is clear enough.
Description
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I love description (perhaps too much). I think it contributes to setting, mood and character, and it helps make a story real. Too much, though, can slow a story to a standstill, thereby losing the reader.
I say, write your story, descriptions and all, and then read it through as if you were the reader, seeing it for the first time. If the description doesn't halt the pace and contributes to the story, keep it. If it slows the pace too much and detracts from the story, dump it (as difficult as that might be).
I say, write your story, descriptions and all, and then read it through as if you were the reader, seeing it for the first time. If the description doesn't halt the pace and contributes to the story, keep it. If it slows the pace too much and detracts from the story, dump it (as difficult as that might be).
Or if they are needed to help the reader visualize they stay.
You want to lead readers without putting them on leash. Let them use their own imaginations. You set the parameters they fill in the details.
You want to lead readers without putting them on leash. Let them use their own imaginations. You set the parameters they fill in the details.
I know I didn't give a lot of detail there. just write your story. write it the best you can. get it all down. worry about the details that need to go in draft #2.
Right now, just write.
sometimes the details you put in are the bridges you need to get from one plot point to the next. after you get across them, if the reader will not need the bridge to get from plot point to plot point, then tear it down.
Right now, just write.
sometimes the details you put in are the bridges you need to get from one plot point to the next. after you get across them, if the reader will not need the bridge to get from plot point to plot point, then tear it down.
Yeah, I agree. My initial drafts had hardly the amount of detail that my final versions do.
Ditto what Trish said.
Some writers struggle with descriptions, others add it with ease. I fall somewhere close to the latter, and I admire writers who can find a unique way to describe something (be it a person, place, situation, whatever).
Some writers struggle with descriptions, others add it with ease. I fall somewhere close to the latter, and I admire writers who can find a unique way to describe something (be it a person, place, situation, whatever).
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Descriptions are great to give your readers the sensory details, to envelope them in your world. However, if you stop the plot/action and just describe something for the sake of it, without advancing the plot or developing the characters, it becomes static and if you use that too much, it becomes stale. And your readers will yawn, and they will put the book down.
I always enjoyed unique descriptions too. Ernest Hemingway was good at that. never had to tell you the actual features a person possessed to explain the person.
He said Gertrude Stein looked like a Roman Emperor. (she really did, too!)
And this is what he said about Ford Madox Ford "holding himself as upright as an ambulatory, well clothed, up-ended hogshead."
He said Gertrude Stein looked like a Roman Emperor. (she really did, too!)
And this is what he said about Ford Madox Ford "holding himself as upright as an ambulatory, well clothed, up-ended hogshead."
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The problem with inference is that if you don't know or can't visualize what a Roman emperor looks like, then your description is lost.
I think it has it's place. Certainly can be overdone and too abstract if specific detail is not given but the occasional quick inference is good for a reader.
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Absolutely, and there are inferences that areso common (everyone knows...) that just immediately puts a visual in your mind -- that's very powerful and immediate.
Does this mean I have to take out the part where MC's girlfriend plays him like Hendrix burning his Stratocaster?
Absolutely not, Devil! That's one every reader will comprehend, including those too old or too young to really envision it.
Maryn, fan of Jimi's from way back
Maryn, fan of Jimi's from way back
writerdog, one tip I've heard from multiple sources is that when you are describing a place where human decisions have shaped the mood, style, tastes, ambiance, etc., give only the briefest general description, then find a single item or element which is representative of the whole, allowing the reader to mentally furnish and decorate the rest accurately enough.
Your general description might be: diner. Your detail might be red vinyl seats repaired with silver duct tape, or crooked hand-lettered signs announcing the day's misspelled specials, or that every waitress is 50-something and bone tired.
Or maybe you're in a spacious living room. Your detail item might be a sectional large enough to circle an above-ground pool, a crowding of antiques so spindly they must be genuine, or a white pallette suggesting the owner has no possessions of any color, not even a magazine.
For practice, see if you can pick a setting that's just a few words long, then come up with two or three representative things to describe within that setting that would let the reader 'see' it.
Maryn, hoping this helps
Your general description might be: diner. Your detail might be red vinyl seats repaired with silver duct tape, or crooked hand-lettered signs announcing the day's misspelled specials, or that every waitress is 50-something and bone tired.
Or maybe you're in a spacious living room. Your detail item might be a sectional large enough to circle an above-ground pool, a crowding of antiques so spindly they must be genuine, or a white pallette suggesting the owner has no possessions of any color, not even a magazine.
For practice, see if you can pick a setting that's just a few words long, then come up with two or three representative things to describe within that setting that would let the reader 'see' it.
Maryn, hoping this helps
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Some of us still do.
It's an excellent question, I think. As someone who tends to the other side of the spectrum, I hardly include description at all in my first draft because I'm scared of adding too much.
I think the advice so far is great - and I'd stick with the write and see how it turns out. Then review it and see whether or not it works in the context of the story as a whole.
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I try to practice writing description. (although I like to think I'm pretty good at it) Sometimes I'll visualize a place and I'll write about it then I'll give what I wrote to my wife, have her read it and then ask her if the place she visualized was the same place I was thinking of. If it was, then I did I good job. It really helps me to find out what works and what doesn't work.
Context is important, too. If I'm at a place in a book where the action is flying and the pacing is fast, or if I'm in the midsts of a section where some key "thing" is half explained, I'll skim the hell out of the heavy description chunks.
Yes, yes, yes to all of the above.
I'll only add one thing, and I hope this helps you writerdog. Watch out for repeating descriptions. I tend to overboard with description in my drafts, but it makes it easy to edit when I find that I've described the couch in three similar ways in three different scenes. I can just pick the best one, put it in the first mention, and the rest of the time, just call it a couch. Because hopefully, the reader can already see it.
(oh, and don't bother describing couches unless they say something about the character who owns them.)
I'll only add one thing, and I hope this helps you writerdog. Watch out for repeating descriptions. I tend to overboard with description in my drafts, but it makes it easy to edit when I find that I've described the couch in three similar ways in three different scenes. I can just pick the best one, put it in the first mention, and the rest of the time, just call it a couch. Because hopefully, the reader can already see it.
(oh, and don't bother describing couches unless they say something about the character who owns them.)
Does this mean I have to take out the part where MC's girlfriend plays him like Hendrix burning his Stratocaster?
Hendrix who? And don't you mean Stratocruiser? A plane that big must have made a heck of a big fire.
Just kidding. I remember Jimi, so I can guess what a Stratocaster must be, and then "burning" makes sense. You just wrote "played him like a violin" (a very 40's simile) in colorful, memorable, original language. Great turn of phrase.
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