Description
Oct. 16th, 2004 09:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
odd_buttonsThe following is an excerpt from Part III of the book Making Shapely Fiction, by Jerome Stern. The first two parts are very much worth reading as well. The book is available in paperback.
Description
Young readers often think of description as the parts that they can skip. Naïve as that may be, that impulse recognizes something crutial -- the parts where the colors of the arroyo or the burnished glow of the furniture are described do not seem quite as urgent as:
But the creation of the physical world is as crucial to your story sa action and dialogue. If your readers can be made to see the glove without fingers or the crumpled yellow tissue, the scene becomes vivid. Readers become present. Touch, sound, taste, and smell make readers feel as if their own fingers are pressing the sticky windowsill.
If you don't create evocative settings, your characters seem to have their conversations in vacuums or in some beige nowhere-in-particular. Some writers love description too much. They go on and on as if they were setting places at the table for an elaborate dinner that will begin later on. Beautiful language or detailed scenery does not generate momentum. Long descriptions can dissipate tension or seem self-indulgent. Don't paint pictures. Pain action.
Description should move the story forward just as dialogue and action do. If it's not crucial to the dynamics of the story, description is static. Those are the parts readers feel are skippable. Description is kinetic and important when it provides necessary information or affects the characters in the story as well as the readers.
Begin to think of settings as characters in your story. A character plays against other characters, increasing tension, creating drama, and advancing the plot. A story about a man in a hurricane is about two characters. A story about a step-father and a boy and a toy store is about three characters. As noted elsewhere, Henry James commented that he could not imagine "a passage of description that is not in its intention narrative." Poe knew that already. Hemingway never forgot it. Make readers feel where actions are taking place, whether in the lobby of Radio City Music Hall or in a smoked-eel shop.
Whatever you're describing, readers need a clear visual image. However, too much visual information is confusing. The mind loses track easily. A brown Naugahyde chair with a long gash in its seat can establish an interior. Big nostrils can make a person. Give one vivid detail, and readers will build the rest.
Good description follows natural physical movements. The single sweep of the eye from head to foot, from basement to roof, from left to right. Otherwise you get confusion or unintentional weirdness:
Scene-setting can be deliberately intriguing. A coin shop is described, and readers are beguiled into wanting to know why. What part will this shop play in the story? The description is tantalizing. It's like introducing a mysterious character and not yet revealing what part she will play.
Writers sometimes forget to describe their own characters. They remain mere voices, thoughts, talking heads, not fully people. Make readers aware continually that your characters are warm-blooded creatures with fleshy folds and itching toes. Keep them corporeal and you'll keep them alive.
Descriptions shouldn't be forced. People notice slowly. At first Esther sees that Marvin is fat and seems unfriendly. Later, Esther notices Marvin has a nice smile and small, delicate hands. Often first impressions are modified. Esther observes a timidity in Marvin's eyes suggesting that his brusque manner results more from shyness than hostility. Every time Esther sees Marvin he becomes more interesting. What Esther notices both establishes Marvin and reveals Esther's capacity to observe. Description is not skippable if it is creating characters, plot, and action.
See Character, Motif, Places and Place Names.
Description
Young readers often think of description as the parts that they can skip. Naïve as that may be, that impulse recognizes something crutial -- the parts where the colors of the arroyo or the burnished glow of the furniture are described do not seem quite as urgent as:
She held out the knife in front of her as she was taught by Mateus.Or:
Pinot leapt up. "Wow! You call those pajamas?"
But the creation of the physical world is as crucial to your story sa action and dialogue. If your readers can be made to see the glove without fingers or the crumpled yellow tissue, the scene becomes vivid. Readers become present. Touch, sound, taste, and smell make readers feel as if their own fingers are pressing the sticky windowsill.
If you don't create evocative settings, your characters seem to have their conversations in vacuums or in some beige nowhere-in-particular. Some writers love description too much. They go on and on as if they were setting places at the table for an elaborate dinner that will begin later on. Beautiful language or detailed scenery does not generate momentum. Long descriptions can dissipate tension or seem self-indulgent. Don't paint pictures. Pain action.
Description should move the story forward just as dialogue and action do. If it's not crucial to the dynamics of the story, description is static. Those are the parts readers feel are skippable. Description is kinetic and important when it provides necessary information or affects the characters in the story as well as the readers.
Begin to think of settings as characters in your story. A character plays against other characters, increasing tension, creating drama, and advancing the plot. A story about a man in a hurricane is about two characters. A story about a step-father and a boy and a toy store is about three characters. As noted elsewhere, Henry James commented that he could not imagine "a passage of description that is not in its intention narrative." Poe knew that already. Hemingway never forgot it. Make readers feel where actions are taking place, whether in the lobby of Radio City Music Hall or in a smoked-eel shop.
Whatever you're describing, readers need a clear visual image. However, too much visual information is confusing. The mind loses track easily. A brown Naugahyde chair with a long gash in its seat can establish an interior. Big nostrils can make a person. Give one vivid detail, and readers will build the rest.
Good description follows natural physical movements. The single sweep of the eye from head to foot, from basement to roof, from left to right. Otherwise you get confusion or unintentional weirdness:
The rat's whiskered nose, gray body, long hairless tail, and glittering red eye.
Scene-setting can be deliberately intriguing. A coin shop is described, and readers are beguiled into wanting to know why. What part will this shop play in the story? The description is tantalizing. It's like introducing a mysterious character and not yet revealing what part she will play.
Writers sometimes forget to describe their own characters. They remain mere voices, thoughts, talking heads, not fully people. Make readers aware continually that your characters are warm-blooded creatures with fleshy folds and itching toes. Keep them corporeal and you'll keep them alive.
Descriptions shouldn't be forced. People notice slowly. At first Esther sees that Marvin is fat and seems unfriendly. Later, Esther notices Marvin has a nice smile and small, delicate hands. Often first impressions are modified. Esther observes a timidity in Marvin's eyes suggesting that his brusque manner results more from shyness than hostility. Every time Esther sees Marvin he becomes more interesting. What Esther notices both establishes Marvin and reveals Esther's capacity to observe. Description is not skippable if it is creating characters, plot, and action.
See Character, Motif, Places and Place Names.