FEATURE ARTICLE: How
to Write Description
By Mike Klaassen
Description " . . . is more than the amassing of details; it
is bringing something to life by carefully choosing and arranging words and
phrases to produce the desired effect," according to Writing from A to Z, edited by Kirk Polking.
Todd A. Stone, in Novelist's
Boot Camp, observes that "Good description has a purpose (or purposes)
other than description. Description is
not an end in itself; you don't write a sentence, paragraph, or passage with
the single goal of providing description. The purpose of fiction is to cause the reader to have an emotional
experience. Description is just one more
tool for achieving that purpose . . . ."
When broadly defined, description encompasses almost all written
fiction. But even when description is
narrowly defined so as not to overlap other fiction-writing modes, writers face
numerous issues:
- Word choice
Quantity
vs. brevity
Selection
of details
Concrete
vs. abstract nouns
Verbs:
active voice vs. passive voice
Modifiers
Comparative
description
Transmorphic
description
Clichés
vs. fresh language
Obtrusiveness
vs. transparency
Disguised
description
Narrative
vs. point-of-view description
WORD CHOICE
Rather than having to settle for a word that will merely do,
authors who write in English are fortunate to have a vast reservoir from which
to draw just the right word.
In Spunk & Bite,
Arthur Plotnik notes that " . . . perhaps the most intriguing quality of
certain [words] is aptness-an exact, right-seeming match between word and
thing."
"Selecting the right word that conveys just the right shade
of meaning and can't easily slip over into some other meaning entirely--that is
a writer's job," according to Michael Kurland, in The Writer March 2008,
QUANITY VS. BREVITY
How much description is enough? How much is too much?
Les Edgerton, in
Hooked,
provides some insight: "In fiction's days of yore, it was perfectly acceptable
(and even encouraged) to craft great blocks of passive description, also
referred to as windowpane description. But
today's description is short and sweet . . . ."
David Morrell, in
Lessons
from a Lifetime of Writing, notes that less is more. Economy of description may produce clearer
effects than description with detail piled upon detail.
"Details may be many or few, but best not to shovel them in
wholesale," observes Susan Bell, in
The
Artful Edit. And "Many writing
mishaps could be avoided if a writer thought harder about the notion of
necessity--in other words, about language that is, or isn't, necessary."
In
Writer's Digest Handbook
for Novel Writing, David Madden summed it up: "Be brief, as always."
SELECTION OF DETAILS
Since quantity of description is an issue, a decision must
also be made as to which details of description to include and which to
exclude.
"Readers love details, as long as they are interesting,
authentic, and colorful," according to Janet Evanovich in
How I Write. But "You don't
need to tell us every detail. Pick a few
and the reader will supply the rest from his imagination."
David Morrell, in
Lessons
from a Lifetime of Writing, states "The
rule I follow is that, if I can assume readers are familiar with a place, I don't
need to describe it at length. Only if I'm
adding something new do I get excited about describing it."
". . . some things don't need describing. Never state what's implied. And don't imply what's stated, either," says
Peter Selgin, in
By Cunning and Craft.
Stephen Roxburgh, (publisher of Front Street Books) in
Children's Writer (November 1999),
states that "The test for including a detail is relevance."
"Details give your work texture, depth, and credibility," observes
Susan Bell, in
The Artful Edit. She also notes that "When you edit, remove
random details. Significant details are
the ones that describe more than what is visual. Choose the detail that has an
echo behind it." Also according to Bell,
"Your obligation. . . is to carefully select details that both mean the most
and are the most authentic."
NOUNS: CONCRETE VS. ABSTRACT
Where possible, use concrete nouns instead of abstract
nouns.
"A concrete noun refers to a material object (the table, a
dog), whereas an abstract noun refers to something intangible (love, art),"
according to Gary Lutz and Diane Stevenson, in the Writer's Digest Grammar Desk Reference.
David Morrell, in Lessons
from a Lifetime of Writing, observes that "When you read the word "apple,"
you automatically see an image of that object in your imagination. Concrete words are triggers that instantly
prompt you to imagine the physical experience that the words represent. By comparison, notice how hard it is to deal
with abstract words. Honor. What happened in your imagination when you
read that word? You saw a blank."
VERBS: ACTIVE VOICE VS. PASSIVE VOICE
One of the first admonitions writers learn is to use active
voice rather than passive voice. As
explained by Gary Lutz and Diane Stevenson, the use of passive voice isn't
incorrect, "but it creates a strange and unnecessary sense of disembodied
action." Examples provided by Lutz and
Stevenson include:
(Active voice) John hit
the ball.
(Passive voice) The ball
was hit by John.
MODIFIERS
The gross overuse of modifiers, sometimes in the form of "purple
prose," can stop a story in its tracks. But even more subtle misuse of adjectives and adverbs can slow the
momentum of a story.
"Most modifiers are filler, cotton batting or sawdust, their
modifications perfunctory or already implied," observes Peter Selgin, in By Cunning & Craft. And "As
for adverbs, they seldom add anything to an adjective that isn't already there
. . . ."
According to David Morrell, in Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing, "Adjectives tend to get in the
way, overwhelming a description rather than sharpening it." Adverbs tend to have no other function than
to strengthen weak verbs."
"When you use two words, a weak verb and an adverb, to do
the work of one strong verb, you dilute your writing and rob it of its
potential power," note Renni Browne and Dave King, in Self-Editing for Fiction Writers,
David Morrell, in Lessons
from a Lifetime of Writing, ". . . economy doesn't only mean reducing a description
to its essentials. It also means going
for so clean a line that adjectives and adverbs become a sign of bad writing."
Not all fiction-writing coaches agree on the avoidance of
modifiers. After all, adverbs and
adjectives are fundamental parts of speech, so avoiding them entirely may be
difficult. According to Peter Selgin
there is . . . "nothing wrong with adverbs and adjectives-as long as they pull
more than their own weight by being fresh, unpredictable. Above all they must add something that isn't
obvious or trite to the words they modify."
COMPARATIVE DESCRIPTION
A common technique for building an emotional connection with
the reader is the use of comparative description: similes and metaphors.
Todd A. Stone, in Novelist's
Boot Camp, observes that "Similes and metaphors are like hand grenades--they
are two of the oldest and most used descriptive techniques. They're powerful, but you must use them
carefully to avoid cliches, mixed metaphors, and figures of speech that just
don't work. Otherwise, they'll blow up
in the wrong place--your novel."
TRANSMORPHIC DESCRIPTION
Another descriptive technique for building an emotional
connection with the reader is to endow the subject with traits not usually
associated to it.
Animals or inanimate objects
portrayed as people (think cartoons, fantasy, and comics)
Inanimate objects or
abstract concepts seemingly endowed with human self-awareness (think fighting
trees in Lord of the Rings)
Abstract ideas, people, or
animals represented as a physical thing (think soldiers standing as a
stone wall)
These techniques are sometimes described by somewhat
overlapping terms such as anthropomorphism,
personification, or objectification. To borrow a term from science fiction, these
techniques could be called transmorphic
description.
CLICHÉS VS. FRESH LANUGUAGE
In general, fresh language is preferred to clichés.
"Clichés are born when someone, somewhere, comes up with a
truly original bit of language, probably to describe something," according to
Les Edgerton in
Hooked.
As stated by Ann Hood in
Creating
Character Emotion, "Clichés . . . are a kind of emotional shorthand . . .
." And "When we read a writer who relies on such emotional shorthand, we don't
trust what that writer is trying to say."
"Triteness can move an acceptable phrase into the realm of
the untouchable," notes Michael Kurland in
The
Writer (March 2008). And "Remember:
Avoid hackneyed expressions, well, like the plague."
In
Hooked, Les
Edgerton states "You're a writer--use original language. Be the kind of writer who comes up with such
inventive phrases that others will eventually transform into clichés."
OBTRUSIVENESS
How much should description jump out at the reader? How noticeable or prominent should
description be?
"You don't want the reader to notice your descriptions . . .
," advises Janet Evanovich in How I Write.
As stated by David Madden, in the Writer's Digest Handbook of Novel Writing, "Words, phrases and
other material that call attention to themselves--or don't add to the story--destroy
immediacy by putting distance between the reader and your fictional world."
"It often falls to the writer to make a description
absolutely transparent so it doesn't intrude between the reader and the
action. And if the writer achieves that,
the reader never notices the words," according to Michael Kurland (The Writer, March 2008).
DISGUISED DESCRIPTION
Should any particular bit of description stand on its own,
presented directly from the narrator (as narrated description)? Or should it be disguised by mixing it in with
other fiction-writing modes (such as action, dialogue, introspection,
recollection, sensation)?
Les Edgerton, in Hooked,
states that "Today, static (or passive) description is eschewed in favor of
active description, description incorporated within the action of the scene
itself, so the bit of description doesn't stop the scene or even slow it down
noticeably."
"You want your description to exist as part of action and
emotion . . . ," according to Sandra Scofield, in
The Scene Book.
In
Lessons from a Lifetime
of Writing, David Morrell notes that "Description also fails when it is
static. Too often, scenes are
constructed so that a character arrives at a locale, the locale is described in
one lump, and then the action continues. A much better tactic involves using details of the setting as part of
the action."
NARRATIVE VS. POINT-OF-VIEW DESCRIPTION
Should description flow from the narrator (as in narrative
description) or should it appear to flow through the mind of a point-of-view
character?
Janet Evanovich, in How
I Write, hints at the answer when she observes that ". . . you want [the readers] to feel like they're right next to your
characters, experiencing the scene as the character does."
Donald Maas, in
Writing
the Breakout Novel, notes that since the invention of the novel it has been
transformed by a progressive narrowing of point of view: from the
once-essential author's voice, to omniscient narration, to objective narration,
to first- and third-person narration, and most recently to close third-person
narration. According to Maass, today's
reader wants an authentic experience. Skillful inclusion of description from a character's point of view can
go a long way toward adding verisimilitude to fiction, involving the reader,
and making it seem more realistic.
David Madden, in
Writer's
Digest Handbook for Novel Writing, sums it up "Filter all description
through point of view."
Broadly defining description to include almost all writing
provides little help to fiction writers. More narrowly defining description to exclude the other fiction-writing
modes, however, focuses attention on numerous opportunities to enhance the
reader's emotional experience. How a
writer uses description and the skill with which he presents description is, of
course, an important aspect of his unique writing style.
