INDESCRIBABLE
By Beth Bernobich
(c) December 2004
Without description, the reader is wrapped in a sensory blindness. And so we writers paint with words. Unlike the purely visual artist, we paint colors and sounds and scents and textures, all while we spin out a story.
Ah, but description can be a tricky thing. It's not enough to give a detailed inventory of colors and sizes and shapes. As with any other element in writing, you need to pick the right details. If you can, choose details that advance the plot as well as describe, ones that illuminate your characters, provide texture to the prose, and add emotional content to your scenes. The best descriptions are those that do two or three or all of these things, but try for at least two.
Make your descriptions vivid and dynamic. New writers tend to give static descriptions of their characters. Hair color. Height. Eye color. As an afterthought, they toss in the character's exact age. Go for the unexpected detail — the shape of someone's face, how their hands look, the way they stand or walk. Are they using cologne or perfume? Do their clothes fit? What does their voice sound like? Are their hands warm and smooth or cool and rough or something else altogether?
Remember to use all the senses for your descriptions. A story that is nothing but visuals has less impact than one including smell and texture and taste and sound. Show the reader how narrow the streets are, yes, but remember to let them know if the character can smell salt from the nearby harbors, or garbage from the alleys, or exotic spices from a vendor's stall. Do their clothes itch from the dry desert heat? Are they deafened and irritated by mid-day traffic, or oppressed by the unnatural quiet in a sparsely populated quarter?
Now that you have details, where do you put them? The right spot, of course. If you add description any old place, it tends to stick out like rocks in clay, interrupting the story's flow and distracting the reader from what's going on. For example, in the middle of a battle scene, we probably don't need to know the main character's eye color. Ask yourself not only "Does this detail add to the story?" but also "Does the reader need to know this detail right now?"
Blend your descriptions with the story and the scene and the character's situation. For example, suppose your character walks into her bedroom. Instead of giving us a laundry list of everything in the room, choose a few key details that strike a reaction (emotional or physical action) in your character. Perhaps she sees a book, which triggers an idea or recalls some painful incident from her past. Telling us that the walls are cream-colored is just window-dressing. Telling us that she always hated the cream-colored walls because they reminded her of that time she was lost in the snow storm gives us a bit of her past. Even better, you could tell us about the snow-storm and then having her think, Now that my jerk of a husband is gone, I'm free to paint the walls whatever color I like. That layers in emotions and story.
Another thing to consider when choosing which details and where to place them is POV. Your current POV character generally won't notice details about themselves — certainly not how their face looks. (The old mirror trick can be used, but with care.) So, write what the POV sees. More important, include details that would be important to that character. A mother who is close to her child would notice all kinds of tiny details about the kid, whereas the cold and distant cousin might not notice anything except how loud the kid cries, or the smell of its diapers. A military expert would notice different details about a battle than an inexperienced soldier. And so on.
When and where and how much description to use also depends on whether your POV character sees a place or character for the first or fiftieth time. When John gets introduced to his new boss, you can often pause for descriptions, especially if John has looked forward to this meeting. On the other hand, if John walks into his own house, where he's lived for twenty years, you might need to slip in the important details in smaller chunks — a word or phrase here and there.
Description also affects pacing. The more detail you include, the slower the story reads. A hectic battle scene is not the place for a minute description of the enemy's uniform and hair style. (Unless those details tell us something about that character or the events themselves, that is.) However a quiet meeting between two old friends who have not seen each other in decades might call for a word portrait, as the POV character takes stock of how his old friend has changed.
And speaking of word portraits, just as a painting uses tone and shadow and light to lead the eye, so too can a writer use words to lead the reader's attention to the most important details of a scene. Choose an order to your descriptions. Place the most important details in the most prominent position; don't bury them in the middle of a huge chunk of text.
The right description can make the reader go ah with delight. The right description can make a story breathe and move. We are artists with our words. Pick up your brush and make your first stroke across the canvas. §
