Jump to section:
The Dos and Don’ts of Writing Immersive Description
Setting the Stage: Drawing Readers in through Descriptive Details
From https://www.goodstorycompany.com/blog/writing-descriptions:
Writing Descriptions
WritingCraft Jul 26 Written By Amy Holland
Writing descriptions is a tricky part of the craft. Descriptions help you create a story world that’s immersive and engaging, but layering them on too thick can make your story sluggish. What’s more, beginning writers tend to devote too much time to crafting the perfect description, because that’s the fun part of writing. The beauty in the world is inspiring, and writers often yearn to pin that beauty to the page. But it can come at a price. Did you just spend a paragraph, or even a page, describing something that’s relatively inconsequential to your story? As much as you might want to take your memories from that gorgeous trip to Maine and freeze them in the amber of your story, ask yourself first: will this description add value to my story, or does it slow the action?
Let’s look at some guidelines for writing descriptions so you can quench your thirst for gorgeous imagery without sacrificing the pacing of your story.
Never Sacrifice Pace for Your Descriptions
“In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it ‘got boring,’ the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling.”—Stephen King, On Writing
Oh man, I’ve definitely been guilty of this particular sin! When I started creative writing, all I knew was that I wanted to write a story about an abandoned cemetery. I was enchanted by a particular location that’s outside Chicago, and I had the urge to capture its melancholy and ruined beauty in words. But setting is only a small part of a story, as I soon discovered. You don’t have anything unless you have flawed characters with unfulfilled wants and needs. So the cemetery in my story is important, but it’s less of a focal point than I had originally imagined. The real focal point is my characters, and how they drive the action that happens within the setting. Sure, I still have some description that pays homage to my love for cemeteries, but I’m learning to craft that imagery with economy and precision.
Another way to slow down action in your story is by writing long-winded descriptions of the action itself. I’ve been reading some of the original Nancy Drew novels, and I came across a passage that’s a great example of this problem:
“Ned dashed off with the rest of the group following. As if about to punt a football, Ned made a run of several feet, lifted his right foot, and aimed it at a kitchen window. Crash!” —Nancy Drew and the Mystery of the Moss-Covered Mansion
This first time I read this sentence, it made absolutely no sense to me. I think it’s because, in my mind, the act of running doesn’t really mesh with the act of lifting. But that’s not the real problem! The issue is that you shouldn’t make readers parse through the choreography of a high-energy moment. If they have to get a Master’s degree in kinesiology to understand your action sequences, then maaaaaybe your descriptions aren’t as action-packed as you thought. Do we really need to know how Ned kicked in the window, or is it enough to say “Ned kicked in the window” so we can get on to what happens next?
Less is More
“Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.” —Stephen King, On Writing
One of the things that’s magical about reading is how the “theater of the mind” will fill in the blanks. If you choose the right words, you don’t have to describe every little detail. Readers will absorb the evocative words you’ve chosen, and the rest will blossom in their minds. I just finished reading Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia, and there several outstanding examples of images that are evoked with two or three words.
- Puckered with ravines —to describe the landscape around the spooky mansion at the heart of the story. It’s three simple words, but because they’re well-chosen, I have a clear mental picture of what the landscape is like.
- Faint sketch of a man—to describe one of the story’s main characters. By employing an apt comparison, I can infer several things about this character’s physical and mental attributes. I picture someone who’s slight and pale, and also meek and quiet. You always want to go for descriptions that give you the most bang for your buck, and this is a great example of that kind of economy.
- A pustule, not a man, a living, breathing, pustule—to describe the story’s villain. I know this is an effective description because it makes me say “Ew.” And it shows how you don’t have to go for adjectives upon adjectives to elicit a reaction from readers. In fact, I’d argue that with horror writing, you want to leave some things in the dark. That’s where the scariest things live.
Make it Count
In addition to thinking about our descriptions themselves, we need to think about where they add the most to the story. When writing descriptions, always ask yourself, “Is this deepening the reader’s understanding of character, plot, setting, or theme?” Let’s look at another example from the world of Nancy Drew:
“The grandstand shook as if a giant hand were shaking it violently.” —Nancy Drew and the Mystery of the Moss-Covered Mansion
This sentence is only a hair better than saying, “The grandstand shook like it was shaking really hard!” The simile here—“as if a giant hand were shaking it violently”—doesn’t add enough to our understanding of the situation at hand to earn its keep. You could reach for a more evocative comparison, but is this really a situation where we need to deepen the reader’s understanding with an apt simile? I’d say it’s a solid no. Take a look at your own manuscript for extraneous descriptions and save those words for a place that really counts.
Key Takeaways for Writing Descriptions
“We’ve all heard someone say, ‘Man, it was so great (or so horrible/strange/funny)… I just can’t describe it!’ If you want to be a successful writer, you must be able to describe it, and in a way that will cause your reader to prickle with recognition.” —Stephen King, On Writing
As you go forth to work on your own manuscripts, I’d like you to remember these key points:
- First and foremost, focus on developing your characters’ inner lives—their motivations, their fears, their emotions—so they can drive the plot forward. Description is the icing on the cake.
- Aim for precision and economy in your descriptions. Your writing won’t be better if it’s stuffed with adjectives and adverbs.
- Think about where and when your descriptions will add the most to your story. Do we need to know that Nancy picked a generic white dress and shoes to wear to dinner? Not in the slightest! Do we need to know that the bleachers shook like a giant hand was shaking them? Nope! Remember: strategic placement is half the battle when writing descriptions.
From https://kingdompen.org/writing-immersive-description/:
The DOs and DON’Ts of Writing Immersive Description
by kingdompen | Style | 6 comments
By Chelsea Hindle
We’ve all been there—engrossed in a beautiful book, with fantastic characters we’re rooting for, a plot that has blown us out of the water, and amazing, immersive descriptions that sweep you off your feet.
And we’ve also picked up that book which looked so promising, only to lay it down a few chapters in because good gracious have you ever seen such cliched descriptions?
I don’t know about you, but cliched descriptions make me cringe. Every time I read the words “it was a dark and stormy night”, or “she let go a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding”, my prose-loving heart dies a little bit. And sadly, these cliched, or downright bad, phrases and descriptions pepper modern books everywhere.
But how do you write non-cliched, immersive descriptions? How do you steer clear of the aforementioned clichés and bad writing? Well, never fear, for we’re here to give you six DOs and DON’Ts for writing the sort of descriptions that make your readers feel like they’re living in an alternate universe.
Also, because we’re a C.S. Lewis– loving crew here, we’re going to be mentioning a lot of Narnia in this article!
DON’T Rely On Cliches
We all know the phrases, “it was a dark and stormy night”, “it was as white as snow”, “she was a fish out of water”, “he is a pain in the neck”. They are tired and threadbare cliches and are so overused that they’ve lost all meaning. If your main character describes the love interest as “pain in the neck”, what does that even mean? So, instead of relying on cliches, think about new, and more accurate, ways to describe things. Let’s take a look at an example!
“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis
Lewis’s third published Narnia book opens with this famous line. And why is it such a good line? Because it sums up the boy who will become the main character of three Narnia books in thirteen words. The description is enthralling. Eustace Clarence Scrubb is a horrible name and Eustace almost deserves it. But why? What has he done? What will he do in the future? We’re enthralled, so we keep reading to find out why Eustace almost, but not quite deserves his name.
But how does this apply to our own writing? When you’re writing descriptions, stop for a moment. I know your fingers are itching to write “the love interest was a pain in the neck”, but think about it first. How could you better describe this character? Does he have “a swagger that screams arrogance”? Or a quirk of the mouth that speaks of overconfidence? Or an awful name that he almost, but not quite, deserves? Lewis could have opened his book with “there was a boy who was a pain in the neck”, but he chooses not to. He avoids the cliche and as a result, makes his opening much stronger than it would have been.
It takes time to develop a knack for identifying and avoiding cliches, but it’s worth it. A great way to practise this is by reading through a wide variety of novels. Highlight cliched phrases and practise twisting them into something original and more evocative. Or, search your own writing for common cliches and practise eliminating them! Here are a few to start with: “sly as a fox”, “at the speed of light”, “as old as the hills”, “brave as a lion”, “shy as a mouse”, “sharp as a tack”, etc.
DO Consider Your Character
Too often, writers fall into the trap of describing scenes and people the way they see them. This is all well and good, but unfortunately, we are not our characters. In fact, our characters often have completely different personalities and backstories to us. And this means they would see the world in a different way to us (shocking, I know!)
So how do we avoid this issue? Well, in theory, this is a very easy problem to solve! As writers, we have to consider our world through, not our own eyes, but the lens of our character. Unfortunately, this is exceedingly difficult in practice.
Thankfully, we have a great example before us in the form of Diana Wynne Jones’s novel, Howl’s Moving Castle. At the beginning of the novel, we’re introduced to the eccentric Wizard Howl twice. Once through the eyes of a nervous, “mousy” Sophie Hatter. And the second time through the eyes of a ninety-year-old enchanted Sophie. The two descriptions we get are completely different–to the point of being contradictory. And better yet, they make a great example of this point. Namely, different characters see the world…well, in different ways. So, let’s jump into these descriptions!
“…when a young man in a fantastical blue and silver costume spotted Sophie and decided to accost her as well, Sophie shrank into a shop doorway and tried to hide…he was such a dashing specimen too, with a bony, sophisticated face—really quite old, well into his twenties—and elaborate blond hair. His sleeves trailed longer than any in the Square, all scalloped edges and silver insets…he wore perfume too. The smell of hyacinths followed her as she ran. What a courtly person!”
Howl’s Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
In this description, Howl makes a dramatic and courtly impression on Sophie. Jones sets him apart from the other men in the town square, being more sophisticated and romantic. So, let’s compare and contrast with the next description of Howl, post-Sophie-enchantment.
“ ‘Who on earth are you?’ said Howl. ‘Where have I seen you before?’ ‘I am a total stranger,’ Sophie lied firmly. After all, Howl had only met her long enough to call her a mouse before, so it was almost true. She ought to have been thanking her stars for the lucky escape she’d had then, she supposed, but in fact her main thought was, Good gracious! Wizard Howl is only a child in his twenties, for all his wickedness! It made such a difference to be old, she thought as she turned the bacon over in the pan. And she would have died rather than let this overdressed boy know she was the girl he had pitied on May Day.”
Howl’s Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
I notice two main things in these two descriptions. One is the comparison of Howl’s age. In the first description, Sophie sees him as quite old, since he’s older than her. But in the second description, she sees him as “only a child”, since she’s now older than he is.
The second thing I notice is the description of his clothes. In the first description, his courtly clothes amaze Sophie. But in the second, she sees him as frivolous and “overdressed”. Howl has not changed at all in the day or two between these two descriptions, but Sophie has. Her entire worldview and, arguably, her personality has changed due to her enchantment.
In the first description, she is young and frightened. She lacks confidence in herself and sees Howl as mature, charming, dashing and scary. In the second, she’s old. Her joints hurt, she’s fed up with Howl and his “wickedness”, and he now appears immature and ridiculous.
So we’ve seen a great example, but how do we apply this to our writing? With a lot of practice, of course! Spend some time considering different characters in your current work-in-progress. What are the differences in their personalities, backstories and beliefs? How might they both approach a new person or location? Would they be wary, curious, excited? Would they describe things factually, ironically, or poetically? Then practise writing the same scene or description from different characters’ viewpoints. Experiment with different word choices and make your descriptions unique!
DON’T Switch Point of View
This is a massive problem I spot at frequent intervals in young writer’s books. The slang term for this is “head-hopping”, and it boils down to an author “hopping” between characters. For example, showing the plot from A’s view in one sentence, and then jumping to B’s thoughts.
Normally, scene or chapter breaks are utilized to show a shift from one point of view (POV) to another. Having said that, there is a storytelling device called “omniscient”. In this POV, the author is the storyteller, rather than a character. The author knows every characters’ thoughts and experiences, and this drives the narrative. This is the POV many classics used, but it’s less popular on the whole nowadays.
For example, Tolkien uses omniscient in his book, The Hobbit. Consider this paragraph from Chapter 5 “Riddles in the Dark”:
“Deep down here by the dark water old Gollum, a small slimy creature. I don’t know where he came from, nor what he was. He was Gollum—as dark as darkness, except for two big round pale eyes in his thin face. He had a little boat, and he rowed about quite quietly on the lake…he paddled it with large feet dangling over the side, but never a ripple did he make. Not he. He was looking out of his pale lamp-like eyes for blind fish, which he grabbed with his long fingers as quick as thinking. He liked meat too.”
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
Here Tolkien gives us a description of Gollum, what he looks like, where he lives and what he eats. The facts he gives us aren’t known by the main character, Bilbo. In fact, Bilbo can’t even see Gollum at this point—all he can see are Gollum’s lamp-like eyes. This works because it’s Tolkien’s style and he’s dedicated to it. But, consider this passage in first person limited, from The Hunger Games:
“ ‘Well, let me know when you work it out,’ [Peeta] says, and the pain in his voice is palpable. I know my ears are healed because, even with the rumble of the engine, I can hear every step he takes back to the train. By the time I’ve climbed aboard, Peeta has disappeared into his room for the night. I don’t see him the next morning, either. In fact, the next time he turns up, we’re pulling into District 12. He gives me a nod, his face expressionless.”
The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
In The Hunger Games, Katniss is the sole storyteller. We’re in her head for the whole trilogy and never see anything from anyone else’s point of view. In the passage above, we never see Peeta’s thoughts. We don’t know what he was doing on the train when he disappeared, because Katniss doesn’t know. We don’t know what he is feeling, because Katniss’s feelings and perception of the world is all we’re given.
The most common POV used in writing is third-person limited, which I’ve provided an example of here:
“Long ago, on the wild and windy isle of Berk, a smallish Viking with a longish name stood up to his ankles in snow. Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, the Hope and Heir to the Tribe of the Hairy Hooligans, had been feeling slightly sick ever since he woke up that morning.”
How to Train Your Dragon, Cressida Cowell
Chances are, you recognise this POV from most of the novels you’ve read. Now, to be clear, there is nothing wrong with any of these storytelling methods! But as an author, you need to pick a POV for your novel and stick with it. Don’t head-hop if you’re not writing in omniscient (which most of us aren’t). Don’t shift POV halfway through or drop details that your character wouldn’t know of. Again, this is all about practice. Practise identifying moments where you’ve head-hopped. And practise playing around with POVs to work out which tells your story the best way.
DO Mix Up Your Senses
“What?” You may be saying. “Doesn’t she mean, ‘use all your senses?’ That’s what these articles always say!”
Well, no, that’s not what I meant, because you’re right, that is the common advice. And it’s great advice, too often writers rely only on their sense of sight. But today I wanted to give you some different advice, and that is to…
Mix up your senses! Allow them to coexist in unusual ways when you write descriptions. Spend time considering how your senses interact to give you a full picture of the world. And try something inventive while you’re at it!
Have you ever heard of synaesthesia? Synaesthesia is a neurological condition that approximately 2-4 % of the world’s population experiences. It can be hard to explain, but in basic terms it involves senses getting “mixed up”. In essence, people with synaesthesia have senses that cross over. Certain sounds might also have a smell. Words might have colours, and people might see music. The most famous example is people who see colours and personalities in association with numbers and letters.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of creatives experience synaesthesia (I’m one of them!) and use it to add an interesting spin to their descriptions. So let’s take a look at how synaesthesia can enhance descriptions in storytelling! Here are some examples:
“The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music, and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilt with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word.”
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Did you catch that? Fitzgerald describes the party’s music as “yellow cocktail music”. Obviously, the music isn’t actually yellow, but the use of the word is very evocative. It brings to mind that the party is fun, bouncy, cheerful. All without using any of those words, like a “sensible” description would have.
Here’s another one:
“An attractive smell came from it—what Lucy called ‘a dim, purple kind of smell’, which Edmund said (and Rhince thought) was rot, but Caspian said, ‘I know what you mean.’”
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis
Again, this description seems strange–almost nonsensical. Purple doesn’t have a smell, so how can anything smell like purple? But again, it makes sense when Lucy describes the approaching island as smelling “dim” and “purple”. It adds an odd angle of authenticity to this description.
And here’s another one, also from Lewis:
“Long, long afterwards, without the slightest warning, an utterly strange voice spoke… It was a dark, flat voice—almost, if you know what that means, a pitch-black voice.”
The Silver Chair, C.S. Lewis
And a final one, from Lewis:
“ ‘Wherever is this?’ said Peter’s voice, sounding tired and pale in the darkness. (I hope you know what I mean by a voice sounding pale.)
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
These both describe voices as sounding pitch-black and pale, respectively. But again, voices can’t sound like colours, and yet a mixing up of senses produces an interesting description.
And here’s another example, from the movie Tangled:
Flynn: Take a deep breath through the nose! Really let that seep in. What are you getting? Because to me it’s part man smell and the other part is really bad man smell. I don’t know why but overall it just smells like the colour brown. Your thoughts?
And if you still can’t picture what I’m talking about, take a look at this scene from Ratatouille:
Now that you’ve seen synaesthesia can make a great addition to descriptions, I hope you’ll give it a go. If you have synaesthesia, spend some time thinking about how you see common things.
And it’s also a great tool for those of you who don’t have synaesthesia! Do some research and then spend some time playing with some mixed-up-sense descriptions! What smell could describe a sweet bird song? What colour is that music? And how does the voice feel? Play around with it and see what amazing descriptions you can conjure up!
DON’T Underestimate the Details
Have you ever visited a scenic lookout and stood in awe at a magnificent landscape? I have, and it’s an amazing feeling.
But imagine if you had to describe that valley, or mountain, or waterfall. Words would fail to do justice to the scene, wouldn’t they?
Thankfully, the best way to describe locations isn’t to focus on the entire spectacle. Too many writers describe settings with broad, sweeping statements, and this usually fails. Why? Because these sweeping statements, while true, fail to capture the reader’s imagination. They fail to connect the reader to the experience in an emotional way. While saying the “house is old” may be correct, it fails to bring to life the “spooky” or “haunted” vibe you might be aiming for. And when this happens the reader’s eyes glaze over and they disconnect from the story.
So what do we do instead? If broad setting descriptions fail to engage the reader, well, what will? The trick is to aim for the things that aren’t immediately obvious to the reader and let them fill in the rest. Focus on the tiny details that make a scene seem alive and real, rather than like words on a page. If you highlight the details, you can allow your reader’s imagination to fill in the gaps.
For example, if your main character stumbles across a cave, every reader will have a picture in their head of a cave. We all know what caves usually look like. So, trust your reader to lay the foundations and then build on that foundation with your details. How many of you have actually been inside a cave? I have, so I can tell my readers about the things that don’t immediately spring to mind. I can describe how the air feels wet around you. I can describe the musty smell and the cold walls. Or how, when you touch the roof of the cave, glittering calcium salts stain your hands. These things are all much more evocative than stating “Jane saw a cave, and went into the darkness”.
Here’s another example, from the children’s novel, The Eagle of the Ninth. The author is describing some standing stones and a burial mound, but note how evocative she makes it:
“There was a sudden hiss and flare of flame, as somebody kindled a torch from the fire-pot they had brought with them. The fire seemed to spread almost of its own accord from torch to torch, and several stepped out from the silent waiting crowd, into the vast emptiness within the standing stones. They carried the flaming brands high above their heads, and the whole scene, which had begun to blur with the fading light, was flooded with a flickering red-gold glare that fell most fiercely on the threshold of that strange doorway, showing the uprights carved with the same curves and spirals that swirled up the standing stones, flashing on the bronze bosses of the sealskin apron so that they became discs of shifting fire. Sparks whirled upward on the light, sea-scented wind, and by contrast with their brightness, the hills and the dark thorn-crowned crest of the mound seemed to sink back into the sudden twilight. A man’s shape showed for an instant high among the thorn-trees, and again the horn sounded its high clear note; and before the echoes had died among the hills, the sealskin curtain was flung back, its bronze discs clashing like cymbals.”
The Eagle of the Ninth, Rosemary Sutcliff
The scene described here is basic. Marcus, our main character is watching a warrior-making ceremony. But the description draws us past the big picture, and into the experience of the main character, and the scene comes alive because of it. We’re shown the firelight gleaming off the bronze discs studding the curtain. The bronze clashing like cymbals. The fire “spreading of its own accord” from torch to torch. The sparks whirling up into the night on the sea breeze. These are things you would notice if you were in this scene, not watching from the outside. The description makes us feel like we’re standing with Marcus, watching this ceremony.
But how do we put this into practice? Envision a scene in your mind, then zoom in on the details. What would you see if you were actually there? What would smell or hear? What would it feel like to touch it? Create an immersive description by immersing yourself in the scene. And of course, practice, practice, practice!
DO Try Something New
(Spoiler warning for The Giver!)
Young writers often look to their favourite authors to know what’s “acceptable” and what isn’t in fiction writing. While this isn’t a bad thing, it can be a limiting thing. It has the tendency to stump creativity and pen authors into “what’s been done before”. And trust me, that be a difficult pen to break out of.
This is particularly true in descriptions. As we’ve already seen, the same old cliches have persisted, dominating descriptions everywhere. So why not try something new? Why not try something crazy, even? Even if the idea seems wild or ridiculous, give it a go! You never know what might come of it.
I found a great example of this in the popular dystopian novel, The Giver. The first time I read this book I thought there was something odd about it. The descriptions felt off, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. Until this description of Jonas’s friend, Fiona, over halfway through the book:
“Jonas stood for a moment beside his bike, startled. It had happened again: that thing that he thought of now as ‘seeing beyond’. This time it had been Fiona who had undergone that fleeting indescribable change. As he looked up and towards her going through the door, it happened; she changed. Actually, Jonas thought, trying to recreate it in his mind, it wasn’t Fiona in her entirety. It seemed to be just her hair. And just for that flickering instant.”
The Giver, Lois Lowry
A little later in the chapter, Jonas tries to explain this experience to the Giver, saying:
“ ‘Then today, just now, outside, it happened with my friend Fiona. She herself didn’t change exactly. But something about her changed for a second. Her hair looked different; but not in its shape, not in its length. I can’t quite…’ Jonas paused, frustrated by his inability to grasp and describe exactly what had occurred. Finally he simply said, ‘It changed. I don’t know how, or why.’”
The Giver, Lois Lowry
After asking Jonas several questions, the Giver then tells him:
“ ‘I’m right, then,’ the Giver said. ‘You’re beginning to see the color red.’”
“ ‘The what?’
“ The Giver sighed. ‘How to explain this? Once, back in the time of the memories, everything had a shape and a size, the way things still do, but they also had a quality called color.’”
The Giver, Lois Lowry
And with this line, I finally realised what had felt off about the entire first half of the book! Not a single description included colour. No hair, eye, or skin colour mentioned in character introductions. Clothes, buildings and scenery were never described using colour. As this passage revealed, all the characters, excepting the Giver, see in black and white. And as strange as it sounds, it works wonderfully. We discover the power of color and nature alongside Jonas, who has never seen these before. The unorthodoxy makes it striking, powerful and moving.
When it comes to giving descriptive details about settings and characters, there are two ways to err:
- Not giving enough details to allow the reader to be visually grounded in a scene.
- The dreaded info-dump—piles of description that are completely unrelated to plot or action.
The first results in frustrated, confused readers who can’t follow a scene because actions or late descriptions conflict with what they had already pictured. The second results in frustrated, bored readers who walk away because they just couldn’t read another page about the architectural history of Notre Dame Cathedral, or the steppes of the neolithic world. (For the record, I read every page of those linked books… the first time.)
I find the most common problem is not giving enough information at the right time for readers to see what you see.
Now, much like Goldilocks’s assessment of, well, everything, the “right” amount of description tends to be subjective and a matter of personal taste. However, no matter how much you include, there is a right and a wrong way to include it.
Okay, scratch that. Let’s remove the moral judgements. Instead of “right” and “wrong,” think “engaging” and “boring.”
So, let’s talk about the most engaging ways to include description in your writing and suck your readers into your world with the force of a hurricane that they are begging not to release them. Onward.
How To Avoid Over- or Underdoing It:
First of all, do readers need to see everything exactly the way you see it?
No. Definitely not. For instance, if you are talking about a character walking into a Starbucks, your readers don’t have to know exactly how that particular Starbucks is set up in order for them to picture the setting and your character moving through it—unless they do.
What I mean by that is, if it is important to a later description or plot point that the space be set up a certain way, you need to describe that important detail as early as possible. Otherwise, your reader will have imagined the space one way (that is almost guaranteed to be not what you are picturing), and then when you describe something happening in a way that conflicts with their image, they are confused and thrown out of the story.
Too many situations like that and they close your book, never to open it again.
However, if a description is not going to be relevant, let your reader picture it however they want! Reading is an immersive experience—there’s a reason the hobby has survived and even flourished for over a hundred years after the invention of moving pictures. It’s the closest we get to true virtual reality. So let your readers be part of the experience. That’s why they love reading!
Besides, excessive descriptions of things that don’t matter will only slow down your pacing and make your reader silently beg for something to actually happen in the story.
That doesn’t mean you can’t include very detailed descriptions. But if you do, you need to make the things you talk about relevant in some way. And you do that by filtering them through the emotions and reactions of your character (because you’re using Deep Point of View, right?).
Here are some guidelines to help you decide if you are using description appropriately.
Include descriptions that matter as soon as possible.
We think in pictures and first impressions matter.
The moment you mention a character or a place, the reader begins to form an image in their mind. If you don’t tell them what details matter (height, hair colour, or that bum leg they’ve had since the war that means every pair of pants is too long on one leg, for instance), when you mention something later that conflicts with that image they’ve created, it will be nearly impossible for them to change their image. So every time you mention the thing that conflicts, it will throw them out of the story while they remind themselves what you are talking about.
This applies to both settings and character descriptions.
Make sure the descriptions are included in a relevant way.
This means that your descriptions will include conflict or reactions from your character’s POV.
In order to prevent the dreaded info-dump, instead of long paragraphs of description, insert relevant descriptions as action beats amongst the dialogue or character actions.
For instance, instead of introducing a new character with a full paragraph of physical traits, clothing, and back story, introduce them with maybe a sentence of what the character sees (tinged with words that reveal the character’s emotional reaction to them) and then insert other relevant descriptions and back story as action beats when it becomes relevant.
Instead of showing us everything in a scene immediately, only show us the things that the character notices in the order they notice them or when it becomes important to the action.
In Deep POV, if we as readers see something, it’s because the character sees it. (Conversely, if your character can’t see something or gather information in a certain way, neither can we unless you pull the camera back to a more omniscient point of view. Be careful doing this unless you do it throughout as a literary device.)
If the character notices something, it’s probably because it is unusual or relevant to them in some way. And if it matters to them, they are going to have feelings about it which can be revealed through the choice of words you use to describe it.
For instance, if you just met someone you find attractive, you are going to have a different reaction than if you are talking to that same person when you have a bad history with them, and the words you use to describe them will be different.
Use as many senses as possible to describe things.
Most writers depend heavily on the senses of sight and sound, which we have been trained to use for storytelling because of movies. But scents are an extremely powerful way to evoke emotions (think the smell of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies or the gagging stench of rotting manure).
Besides those, you have taste, touch, and the internal sensations evoked by emotional reactions. We often call these “visceral reactions.” If you describe a clenching gut, grinding teeth, or knotted shoulders, we subconsciously feel those things ourselves. In other words, we become your character. And we must keep reading to find out how the tension is released.
(This is exactly why virtual reality will never replace reading completely.)
You’ve probably heard the term “show, don’t tell.” That’s what we’re going for, here. Show us enough to make your setting and characters real and alive to us, while not overloading us with details that will never matter.
Here’s an example of a piece of action that is all telling, no showing:
I went to a café this morning and bought a cinnamon bun and coffee, then sat and read my book while I ate it. The barista didn’t like my book, which bothered me.
You have a visual in your head immediately, right? It might not be very detailed, but I bet you pictured the coffee shop, the cinnamon bun, the coffee, and the book. Even the barista. However, you’re not particularly invested in the scene, and it will likely be difficult to remember much about it later. Not to mention, if there are important details about the scene—say, the name of the book, the gender or race of the barista, or even the name of the coffee shop—that will come up again later in my story, you’ll have no idea what I’m talking about. And you’ll likely have pictured the whole thing differently than I did, anyway.
That’s fine, when those things don’t matter. But when they do, you need to mention those details as early as possible, using as many senses as possible, and filtered through as much emotional conflict as possible.
However, on the other end, we have:
I walked up the street, admiring the vista of the Cool Beans storefront. A hand-chalked sign on the cobblestone sidewalk advertised a special on mochaccinos.
I stopped and stared at the facade. A black awning shielded the brick-sided building, and through the picture windows, dozens of people filled up nearly every available table, typical for a Saturday. In front of the windows, the round wooden cafe tables on the patio were just as full as the ones inside. Planters of geraniums between the tables offered the meagre illusion of privacy, and an iron boundary fence separated the patio from the common folk on the sidewalk. I went up to the glass door and walked in to the sound of chiming bells.
I’ve just written 121 words to describe this scene and, as lovely as this coffee shop is in my mind, the only part that really matters could have been said in 25—enough to tell the reader where I was going, the general atmosphere of the place, and what I did (went into the coffee shop). If my reader needed to know all that other stuff about the coffee shop, I could have included it in more relevant ways, but in this case, they don’t.
Not only that, every detail in here is visual or auditory. Walking into a coffee shop is a very sensory experience, and I should have included some other sensory details.
What’s missing here? Motivation and conflict. You have no idea why I’m going there (other than a vague, obvious one—that I probably want coffee) or anything about my character besides the fact that I have extraordinary powers of observing small details. I also care a lot about those details, taking the time to admire or notice everything about a place enough to remark on it in my mind before I go on to the next thing I intend to do. (This could be useful if you are trying to reveal that about a character, but if that’s the case, I probably should have included some kind of reactionary comment about how I feel about the setup, or whether something could be done better, or anything else that reveals my character and why I noticed these things.)
Here’s something a little more balanced with a focus on action and using sensory details as supporting elements.
I could smell the coffee before the hand-chalked sign for Cool Beans even came into view. My mouth watered at the thought of squishy-sweet cream cheese icing dripping over the edge of a delicious golden cinnamon bun. By the time I got to the till, my stomach was gurgling loud enough that a woman at a nearby café table glanced at me in alarm. Behind the counter, a perky barista in short red pigtails and a green apron rang up the order.
“That will be three-fifty, please.” She grinned as though she’d just told me I’d won the Nobel Prize.
I tucked my worn paperback copy of Pride and Prejudice under my arm and dumped my change in one hand, then sorted through it with the other.
The barista eyed my book. “I hated that movie.”
“What?” I tried not to lose count of my change while my brain searched for the meaning to her words.
Somewhere at the other end of the counter, there was a clink of porcelain hitting Formica and the aroma of warm cinnamon grabbed me by the nose. I handed the barista the cash, straining to see if the cinnamon bun at the pickup counter was mine or if someone else claimed it.
“Your book,” she said, bringing my attention back. “They made a movie, and I couldn’t stand it. Not the 2005 one, anyway. But Colin Firth. Now he’s a dreamboat. For an old guy.”
“Uh … yeah. I guess.”
I was too hangry to say what I was really thinking right then, so I accepted my receipt and hurried away to pick up my cinnamon bun and almond milk latte. But my stomach was off. I mean, how could anyone dis Keira and Matthew? They were a match made in heaven, obviously.
The coffee shop was full. I picked up my order and found a table away from the others near a window. After getting settled, I opened the book to get lost in Mr. Darcy, but all I could think of was how that barista—that modern girl who wouldn’t know what the art of civility was if it slapped her in the face—had insulted my perfect man. I loved the 2005 movie very much, thank you. It was the best one. Period. End of story.
But now, every time I saw Mr. Darcy’s name, when I wanted to picture Matthew Macfadyen, all I could see was nasty old Colin Firth. I took a bite of my cinnamon bun, and it tasted like warm mushy cardboard on my tongue. She’d even ruined my cinnamon bun!
This would all be solved very nicely if Jane Austen had ever described her characters’ looks. Then there would be no debate as to who is the best Mr. Darcy.
I glanced at the barista, but she had already gone on to the next customer. She was completely oblivious to how she’d ruined a perfectly good book-cation for me.
The first, telling example that described essentially this scenario is 33 words. The last one is 488*. However, the first one is BORING. The last one is full of conflict and specific descriptions that immerse the reader and bring the whole scenario to life. Every word reveals character, setting, conflict, and more, making us part of the scene and telling us about the people involved.
As I poked fun of in the example, in an older style of writing, it was common not to give many details about setting and character descriptions. In modern times, we want a little more. (In other books, it was common to give WAY TOO MUCH. I’m looking at you, Victor Hugo. But that was for a different audience. One without television and where picture books were hard to come by.)
Remember, we shouldn’t be smothered under an info-dump. But we also don’t want to experience “talking head syndrome”—the situation where character dialogue goes back and forth on the page with little to no descriptive detail given to invest us in either their emotions or the setting.
KC Storytellers 