How to master describing? Any tips or tricks?

Reading books of the type we wish to write can give us a good idea how others describe the kind of scene we are most likely to encounter on our journey.

Beyond that, it's a case of writing, reading one's own work with a critical eye and gaining experience by doing so.

There are probably endless 'How to...' books etc., but 'doing' is ultimately the best way to progress. Whether or not one can ever say one has 'mastered' any aspect of writing is open to question. There always seems to be room for improvement or something else to learn.

As to learning how to spot potential flaws or areas in our own writing that may benefit from extra attention, there's no better way than critiquing the work of others, which you can do through the Share-Your-Work Forum here. You need 50 posts to open a new thread there, but you can crit others right now.

Read what others have written - maybe in the genre you have chosen - and say how you reacted as you read.

Spotting perceived flaws in the work of others is a great way to help discover how to spot our own.

In the bottom left corner of every page here, is a Google Custom Search box. Pop 'How to describe things' (or any other short phrase) in there and you should get a stack of links to existing or earlier threads that touch on or have dealt with that topic. The higher the reference number the more recent the thread. That can provide helpful info, but don't rush to bring long dead threads back to life.

Good luck. And Welcome

Description & Setting by Ron Rozelle

https://www.amazon.com/dp/158297327X/?tag=absowrit-20

The Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass (chapter 8 specifically, but you should read the entire book to understand his concepts)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/158297506X/?tag=absowrit-20


-cb

Bufty's advice is spot on. This is just my format for how I handle the 'how-to' on description, but I'm just going to look at it using the scene you've given and any potential flat aspects to the writing you say it still might carry:

When I turn the corner I saw a girl with white Maltese. She wears everything in pink. Even the dog leash was pink!

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First sweep:

1 First off with your example: filter out any unnecessary words like 'I saw', mostly because if you're narrating about the detail, it's clear the character is looking at it (show, not tell in that instance). Also look at making sure the tenses match.

2 Look for any missing words (a)

3 See if there's any referencing problems: e.g., you mention girl and Maltese, then 'she', which can refer back to either of those two, creating ambiguity, so you need to exchange 'she' for something else.

When I turn the corner I saw a girl with [a] white Maltese. [The lass] wears everything in pink. Even the dog leash is pink!

So from that. you have:

When I turn the corner, a girl with a white Maltese [struts my way]. The lass wears everything in pink. Even the dog leash is pink.

Second sweep:

I'd re-look at character voice, as "The lass wears everything in pink..." is a bit flat. Here I have to go with my character voice: you'd need to play around and find your own character's voice!

When I turn the corner, a girl with a white Maltese struts my way, head to toe in pink, true catalogue-season style. Even the dog leash matches.

And you can carry on and play from there, reworking 'even the dog leash matches', and just 'livening up' the sentence and getting to grips with what's being seen over who's seeing it.

One trick of apt description is being in the head of your viewpoint characters, and showing what they in particular notice or think is important. And if appropriate, what the characters think or feel about what they see.

I'm still working on my descriptive language skills myself. Just to piggyback on the excellent answers above, as an exercise, this is something I'd do.

Find a passage you like from a book you admire. I used to work with about a chapter at a time.

Then deconstruct each paragraph. Something like this:

Graf1, sentence 1: quick action beat, like "She raised her bow."
Sentence 2-4: dialogue from protag
Sentence 5: mental comment on other character's intelligence

Graf2, sentence 1: narration
Sentence 2-3: description

In addition to that, I'd try to slip in quick description with roughly the same frequency. I'd count adjectives and adverbs, noting how they were used.

Then I'd rewrite a similar passage with story content of my own, although I'd choose something similar. For the purposes of this exercise, it doesn't have to even be a whole story I plan on using. If the passage I was studying involved travel, I could substitute in a walk by the river. Or if it involved action, a description of someone spilling their drink at Starbucks, getting it on someone, cleaning it up, etc. In some ways, the more boring it is the better. Then you won't be tempted to use it. And besides, if you can make something boring sound interesting, that's an indicator that you're improving.

The reason I say to do this only as an exercise is because you might also copy voice, and we want ours to be unique, or at least our own.

In editing my drafts of "real" stories, ones I plan on publishing someday, something else I found useful is to read a chapter of the book I'm trying to learn from, taking mental notes on when and where description is used. Then I'd revise my own work, trying to look for overlooked descriptive opportunities in my passage.

And don't worry if this advice or any other doesn't work for you. Everybody approaches this writing gig from their own experience and dispositions. What works for one writer won't necessarily click with everyone (just consider the plotter vs. pantser thing). If you keep trying stuff, you'll find something that helps.

BethS said:

One trick of apt description is being in the head of your viewpoint characters, and showing what they in particular notice or think is important. And if appropriate, what the characters think or feel about what they see.

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Completely agree with this.

After that as the others say: it is read and practise, practise and read, over and over. Then if you want to know how you're doing put some of your work up for critique.

Everything must pull double duty.

It's not good practice to have a description JUST describe. The words you choose should say something about your character's personality and either build on the setting (if SFF), or contribute to the emotional atmosphere.

Depending on voice and the purpose of the passage you could say something like;

A girl and her dog, both dip-dyed in pink, meandered down the sidewalk.

Clara was in full pink ensemble today. I guess it must be a new trend or something. I mean, even her dog didn't escape--pink leash, pink collar. Who does that?

Pedestrians dotted the street, faceless obstacles in MC's route. A girl and her dog, all decked in pink. A man with mismatched socks. A couple strolling arm in arm, their argument conducted in mutters phrases and the occasional tight-lipped smile.


or whatever (sorry for the poor examples.) It's about what you want to do, what you need the scene to be and the POV character to express. I used to hate description, but I love it now. It's a great opportunity to shape your book and show off your voice.

Remember also that description is more than just what the POV character is seeing. What they hear, smell, taste, and feel (in both respects, the mental impression and the physical sense of hot/cold/moist/parched/etc) also plays plays heavily into putting the right picture in the reader's mind.

What you choose to describe can tell a lot about the viewpoint character, but the specific language you use colors the emotion of the piece. 'A decade of termites had chewed the wood to lace' and 'Most of the porch rails were snapped like broken bones' might reference the same thing but they set up a different expectation of what the setting and scene are about.

I trained to be an engineer in college - but, as required, I took some english and writing classes. One professor in particular had a strong influence on me... he was a bit abrasive, no, let's be truthful - he was a jerk. There was a lot of profanity thrown around in class, and he went on about writing the uncomfortable stuff because it was truthful.

Anyway -

One exercise he had us do quite often was... "describe this room". We'd of course start with size, color, furniture, etc - but he kept pushing. What do you smell? What does the air feel like? What's the sense of the room - what does it feel like to be here?

It was a good exercise, and I learned a lot from this professor. He was still a jerk though.

BethS said:

One trick of apt description is being in the head of your viewpoint characters, and showing what they in particular notice or think is important. And if appropriate, what the characters think or feel about what they see.

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Echoed for emphasis. Point-of-view is hugely important for many things in writing, and this is one of them. Be your viewpoint character. What is observed? What can be observed? What cannot be observed? Why should a particular detail be noticed?

Description needs to be relevant to the story, in some way. Random tidbits of information are almost guaranteed to be boring if they aren't relevant.

caw

So much good advice, this is just a little add-on.

Some settings are extensions of the characters and some settings can be treated like you'd treat a character.

Honestly, I'd ask how important that girl with the dog and her is to the story. If she's not that important, than I don't see what's wrong with the first direction. Sometimes, less means more, and having a description for everything can take away from the story.

Phoenix_Writer said:

So, what are your best tips by the topic “Describe a scene”.

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1) Practise
2) Read a lot in the genre you wish to write for
3) Try to find a balance between describing scenes and the people in them with a healthy balance between show and tell, including dashings of simile and metaphor as required, season sparingly with adjectives, ensure that you don't screw up your tenses and do try to write consistently in the same voice, and always be mindful that your descriptions allow the story flow to continue without bogging the reader down in unnecessary info-dumps. Accomplish all of this by referring to point 1)
4) Always follow Bufty's advice

When I turn the corner I saw a girl with white Maltese. She wears everything in pink. Even the dog leash was pink!

Click to expand...

Not a master describer hear at all, but I do have a couple of thoughts:

1) When setting a scene the best advice I've ever heard is to sketch out a handful of details (two or three is probably enough) that will allow a reader to paint a picture in their heads. Everyone knows what a kitchen looks like, so just help them along with your favoured details.

2) When describing something, what do you want people to know or think about it? Those are the details I find make for the best description in my own work.

3) As for style, metaphor, simile and the like - everyone else's advice is better than mine.

I've followed Bufty's advice for years and look where it's got me.

Unpublished, skint, white-haired, half-deaf, teeth dropping out, everything else hangin' on by a thread.

Screw 'im.

The Urban Spaceman said:

1) Practise
2) Read a lot in the genre you wish to write for
3) Try to find a balance between describing scenes and the people in them with a healthy balance between show and tell, including dashings of simile and metaphor as required, season sparingly with adjectives, ensure that you don't screw up your tenses and do try to write consistently in the same voice, and always be mindful that your descriptions allow the story flow to continue without bogging the reader down in unnecessary info-dumps. Accomplish all of this by referring to point 1)
4) Always follow Bufty's advice

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Bufty said:

I've followed Bufty's advice for years and look where it's got me.

Unpublished, skint, white-haired, half-deaf, teeth dropping out, everything else hangin' on by a thread.

Screw 'im.

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I have tabs on my computer that are descriptive word lists, especially the sensual/erotic words because that is where I struggle to describe things.

My own personal opinion regarding mastering description is to read read read. If you really want to read a master of description pick up a Stephen King book. I know horror isn't for everyone but the way he describes characters is brilliant. You don't even have to read the entire book, just skim the first few chapters and you'll see what I mean.

I think you have to decide WHAT needs describing and what doesn't. You don't have to describe a German Shepherd because the name itself is self explanatory unless of course the GS has an unusual feature like one floppy ear(my fathers GS had one floppy ear instead of two perky ears).

So when I'm writing a scene and I want to set the scene I picture myself as the character. Where is she, what is she doing, and what is happening around her. For example you could have a radio playing for sound, or the whirling of a ceiling fan, or the clanking of a passing train, or the waves lapping at the shoreline...what does he/she hear? Then the smell, is it the aroma of fresh coffee, maybe burnt old coffee(which does stink) or something roasting in the oven, floral scents, is it pungent, intoxicating, musty, dank, smokey etc. For instance your mc may smell urine and feces before they discover the dead body under the floor boards

So for me smell and sound are things I always think of, but then there is touch....I'll have to work on that one and I don't always describe the feel of things, so its something I should work on for certain scenes.

Look through lists of descriptive words, plug a word into an online thesaurus and you might stumble across other words while you browse, and jot words down you like from books you enjoy.

I love when authors compare things, that is a skill I'm really trying to hone, but I'm not the best at it. But it's a great way to get across what you are picturing. If I said, "he could easily pass for a member of ZZ Top" I don't need to describe anything because the visual is immediate, unless of course you have no idea who ZZ Top is, then you might have to google. But doing this eliminates the need for detailed description. Just food for thought.

BethS said:

One trick of apt description is being in the head of your viewpoint characters, and showing what they in particular notice or think is important. And if appropriate, what the characters think or feel about what they see.

Click to expand...

Good advice.

Remembering also that you don't need to describe everything. A descriptive interlude every now and then, say at the beginning of a chapter, may be as much as yo need re descriptive passages. Beyond that, key things, moments can be described with brush strokes.

My general rule is the less the better. Get on with the action and dialogue.

welp. Everyone's said my say already pretty much, but I can't help but post -

Reading is #1. I read a book I like several times. The first time is for the fun of it. After that I allow myself to ask, as I read, 'how is the author doing (this)?' 'this' being whatever I found most enjoyable, effective, etc. If you do that you'll begin to see what was referred to upthread as the words doing 'double duty'.

POV is #2 IMO. & note that the narrator is not of necessity a character in the story. fyi/fwiw - In any case, the words chosen should reflect the narrator's nature.

Somewhere in Jim Butcher's livejournal, you can find an excellent essay on description - in particular about action. He makes the point that the role of the words on the page is to create a virtual reality in the readers head. So writing a story nicely isn't just saying what's in your head, but picking words so that they will affect what happens inside another person's head.

Personally, I'm less interested in details than I am with impressions, ambiance and mood. If I give the right feel to the scene, readers will supply their own images. I only focus on a fine detail if it's important, either for story or for the mood I need to set. I write in characters' heads so this also means description gives characterization. Readers pick up a lot about a character by the language used in their head.

Probably the most helpful advice I received was to focus on all the senses. I used to write largely focusing on sight and sound, because I happen to notice those more myself, but it didn't always give enough depth or immersion to a scene. Definitely don't use all the senses in one go, all the time, because then you end up with pages of description which, often, a reader won't care about, but adding in smell and touch can be very helpful. Try to focus on what your character would notice - if they're in a field, what kinds of things would they pay attention to? etc.
And of course, practice a lot