Kill Your Blank Pages: Description

Yes, heath is pretty. No, it is NOT exciting, Mr. Hardy.

 NOTE: Sorry this post is a day late! I was in Oklahoma competing in a national debate tournament all last week, and spent most of yesterday sleeping. ;)

Anyone who's read a book before has experienced the frustration that comes with setting or character descriptions. Sometimes authors go on for pages about irrelevant details (like Hardy's description of Egdon Heath in Return of the Native, which is a running joke in my family) or don't provide enough to paint a good picture in the reader's mind. 

Thus, when we get down to writing ourselves, describing stuff can be scary. How much detail is too much? Will the reader get bored of all the detail I'm putting down? What if we're not putting enough-- do they have no idea where our characters are? This fear or confusion can stifle our creative processes, so it's important that we address it.

Is Description Slowing You Down?

It’s possible that an inability to describe a setting is slowing your writing down if you’re having a hard time mentally envisioning your scene. When you imagine your characters, do you see them talking in a blank white room, or do you see them walking beside the road, with the smell of hot asphalt stinging their nostrils as they sweat in the midday sun?

Do your characters have all their important conversations while sitting at a table—in the kitchen, or the cafeteria, or at a restaurant, or at the park? If so, it’s time to think outside the box and take a realistic view of setting.

What about when you try to describe your characters’ appearance’? Do you always fall back on their hair, their eye color, their facial expressions?  

How Do You Find the Words to Describe?

There are three quick steps to being able to describe a setting/character appearance.

1- Identify It

Obviously, before you can describe something you have to know what you are describing, but many writers actually forget this step—hence the blank rooms and the repetitive appearances.

As far as settings go, challenge yourself to find a backdrop for your scenes that will provoke an emotion in your characters or provide something new for them to interact with. Many writers encourage seeing your setting as another character—is it hostile, or friendly, or deceptive? Does it provide a strong contrast to the mood your character is in, or does it reinforce their perceptions? For example, in one of my stories the character is being interrogated by another character, and as he is asked questions, he watches a spider ensnare a moth under the interrogator’s desk—this reinforces his feelings that he is trapped.

Don’t be afraid to mix and match contradicting ideas, either. In fact, having a depressed character walk through a fun carnival may be more impactful than having them sit in the rain.

In sum, identify where your character needs to be for maximum effect on the scene, and then go with it.

The same idea applies to describing characters. Identify something you want to convey about them—do you want them to appear stern, or silly, or nervous? Once you know what you want to portray, you can move on to the next step.

2- Envision It

In this step, in order to describe a setting, you need to imagine what it would be like to BE in that setting with all of your five senses. What would you see, feel, hear, smell, and taste if you were there? Many writings stop at the first sense—vision—but it’s the other details that make a scene truly come alive.

Imagine yourself at the beach. Yes, you might see the white-capped waves, the golden sun, the bright sand. But close your eyes and experience all of that through your other senses! The waves crash against the shore with a calming beat. They smell salty but fresh. The sun warms your neck like an embrace, and your toes dig into the soft, silky sand. Gulls wheel overhead, their cries echoing in your ears like a distant memory.

Or maybe it’s a different kind of beach! Maybe there is an odor of rotting fish hanging heavy in the cold, damp air. Maybe rocks and broken shells crush under your feet and pierce your flimsy shoe soles. Maybe you have to pick your way around piles of sour-smelling sea weed, and the beach is silent but for the grumble of waves on the rocks. The sun is suffocated by the clouds, and little raindrops prickle your skin.

See? Immerse yourself in your setting, and imagine ALL of it. This website has an awesome list of settings that you can use to fill out all the details of a scene, but remember, the most powerful images will come from your own imagination.

As far as character descriptions go, think about the last time you were at Walmart on a Saturday afternoon. I guarantee you, that people’s hair and eye colors were not the biggest thing you noticed about them. Their clothing choices, piercings, tattoos, level of cleanliness, told you a lot about them (or you thought so, anyway).

To describe a character, completely envision what they look like. Not only the everyday things like what they wear and how fit they are, but also the little changes that people undergo depending on their mood. Are their muscles tense with frustration, is their chin titled back with contempt, are they straining forward with eagerness?

Also, check out the above mentioned website as well. It goes through all of body parts to help you learn how each part of the body can tell you something about a character: their feelings, lifestyles, etc.

3- Make a Selection

Once you’ve completely imagined your character or setting, pick the important details that convey what you want to convey. You can’t completely described how every location effects each of your character’s five senses, so pick the ones you think they would notice based on what is occurring in your scene.

For example, if your character is sad and they are walking through a carnival (as mentioned before), they might not notice the sweet smells of cotton candy or caramel apples like a happy person would. They might only see the trash and food wrappers and soggy fliers littering the ground, since they are staring at their feet as they walk. They will barely feel as they bump into other people, not watching where they are going. Every once in a while, their thoughts might be interrupted by a shouting child (like the character, they’re not getting what they want) or a ringing bell (their time is up!) Focus on the details that effect their mood, and let the rest go.

As far as characters go, just pick the details that express the desired trait about the character. Maybe there is a woman who is not pretty, but she has perfect knees that catch your male character’s attention (hidden beauty or goodness). Maybe your female meets a guy for the first time at the office, and his tie is off-centered and hands won’t stay still, so she gets the impression he is nervous and unreliable.

In sum, once you start consciously thinking about the stuff you would notice about a setting or person in real life, you can use that information to describe a scene in a meaningful way. Identify what you want the audience to learn or see, envision a character or scene in its entirety, and then pick the elements that express/contrast with what you want the audience to see.

Next week is the last section of the series discussing specific story elements that might be slowing down your writing, as the next half will discuss lifestyle changes you may need to make to overcome long-term writer's block. Adieu until next week, with part five of KILL YOUR BLANK PAGES: A TEN-PART SERIES ON WRITER’S BLOCK.