Describing A Specific Room?

You need to let your character "see" the room. I don't mean square foot by square foot, but what does he or she specifically notice, smell, hear, etc.?

If I walked into a green house, I might be struck by the size or the ornamental complexity, the neatness or disorder, the smell of earth and fertilizer and green leaves, the one dry, yellowing plant somebody forgot to water.... There's so much a person might notice, but it needs to be true to your character that he or she would notice certain things.

Hmm... I don't know your story, or what in particular needs to be described, so I don't think I can help you except maybe to offer some general pointers with (bad) examples.

One way to describe something is through the eyes of a newcomer/visitor: "So. This was Uncle Smith's legendary greenhouse, the one he kept warning me not to enter. At first glance, I was unimpressed: it looked remarkably ordinary, a garage-sized structure made of glass, the sort of greenhouse you might find in half the yards of my neighborhood. One step inside, however, and I realized it was anything but ordinary. Was that purple-leafed vine a Peruvian monkey-eating thorn-fig - growing here, in central Michigan? That bittersweet smell couldn't be anything but a sleeping rose, so deadly in large patches it was all but extinct in its native Madagascar. But what grabbed my attention was the softly glowing buds of the small tree at the end of the center aisle: a starberry, a plant I only knew from Smith's library of medieval manuscripts and classical poetry, yet described in those so well I knew it within an instant of seeing it..."

Or you can slip in descriptions as your characters see them: "A pile of rat bones gleamed beneath the Peruvian thorn-fig, stripped clean by the pods' digestive juices; Smith wouldn't need to feed it again for a while. In the next pot, the sleeping rose's dark buds were just opening enough to release their soporific, bittersweet perfume. He held his breath as he watered the dry soil, though just one plant couldn't do more than make a grown man drowsy. Finally, he made his way back to his personal pride and joy: the starberry, the only specimen growing in North America... and, after the fire at the London Botanical Society, possibly the whole world. Save its glowing, knuckle-sized berries, it seemed a rather nondescript and leggy shrub, but he would do anything to protect it. Anything..."

But if it's really important - as, perhaps, in a detective story, where some particular detail in the room might be vital to cracking the case - you might just have to spell it out. This could easily tip into infodump territory, so do it as quickly and succinctly as possible, relating the vital information required for the reader to envision the situation (along with a red herring or two, perhaps): "The greenhouse was as big as a two-car garage, wider than it was deep, with a peaked roof. The glass was immaculately clean, as were the three aisles between the wooden shelves of potted plants within - a marked contract to Smith himself, watching us in his ragged, dirt-smudged overalls and leaf-tangled hair. To step inside was to step into the heart of an exotic jungle, the humid air was warm and thick with strange, green smells, with a dizzying array of colors and textures overwhelming the eye. With each pot clearly labeled with Latin names, common names, and country of origin, it didn't take long to locate the plant whose flowers had incapacitated the young victim..."

And you can always give a general description - "The greenhouse was full of more plants than I could describe, in more shapes and colors than should be possible. Greenhouse? It should've been called a rainbowhouse." - and, in a later scene, get more specific - "I found the beans just where Master Smith had said they'd be: hidden in a burlap pouch taped under the wooden shelf, just behind the purple-leafed Peruvian thorn-fig. I wasn't sure how a handful of dried-up lima beans would help him escape prison, but I wasn't being paid to ask..." - as the need arises.

This really depends on your story. What's so important about the room? What stands out about it, and what would someone notice as soon as they enter it? I can't remember who it was, but someone recommended describing the room in action, as your characters interact with it. I wrote a short story that took place all in one room, and I went a little overboard with that advice. Give a good description as someone would see it upon entering the first time, so the reader is grounded in the scene, and after that it's up to you.

I can think of a few ways to get the detail in while making it seem natural. The easiest might be to show it through the eyes of a character who's never seen it before, and finds it interesting enough to notice a lot of things about it.

Or if it's your main character's greenhouse, have something unusual happen like a storm crash a tree through the roof--then you could get the basic layout of the greenhouse while he or she surveys the damage, and tries to figure out where to move plants until the roof gets fixed. Even the arrival of a few new plants could be a reason to look around and decide where they would do best.

Just try to make the details you're sharing relevant to the situation and POV character. If it's a place the character sees all the time and this is just another routine day, it will seem odd if they notice the setting in detail.

My first thought was... it's a greenhouse. Everyone knows what a greenhouse looks like? But that's the whole point. You only need to describe what makes THIS greenhouse different.

Hmm, so much depends on the person whose eyes we're seeing this through. Does he/she know what kinds of plants these are? When I step into greenhouses, the first thing I usually notice is that the air inside is warmer and more humid than the air outside. I also notice the smell--damp soil and the smell of whatever plants are growing there. Then I see the rows of plants.

So what do these plants look like, and what might your pov character notice about them?

I stepped in the warm, humid interior of the greenhouse and stopped for a moment, inhaling the sweet aroma of my mother's prize gardenias. They grew in neat little rows, their pristine, white blossoms contrasting with the waxy, dark-green foliage. I almost missed the sad little geranium in the far corner...

I agree with everyone above--tell us what makes this greenhouse, this plant, unique from all others, and try to do it through your character's eyes.

Since you say this greenhouse ties the story together, I assume you'll be revisiting it multiple times over the piece? If that's the case, you have the opportunity to do something neat by changing your character's perception of the place over time and successive visits.

Maybe they absolutely hate the place at first, but learn to find tending plants relaxing, or find out it's a peaceful place to hide from whatever drama is going on in the rest of the house.

Or maybe they like it just fine at the beginning, but after learning of the diabolical properties of the X plant, begin to feel an existential dread when approaching the door to enter.

Giving an evolving perception of a location helps make it dynamic and interesting--almost a character in its own right in the reader's mind.

Point-of-view?

caw

Go to somewhere like Kew Gardens (obviously your local version of it if you don't live near London!) and go in a few greenhouses. For some of them the most striking things are the heat, humidity and smells you're hit with as soon as you walk in. If the one in your story is for a specific plant then the conditions in the greenhouse will feel and smell different to outside, and that's more striking than anything you see (and I'm saying this as a normally visual person who'll see things before feeling or smelling them usually). So if I was to write the POV character going into the greenhouse, I'd have a line about the heat, humidity and smell before I even describe anything the character sees. As others have said, focus on what the POV character would notice. You don't need to describe every little detail. Just enough for the reader to feel they're in a greenhouse and that this particular plant is special.

The same way you describe anything else.