Once more with feeling – some notes about description

What’s description for? I’ve been working with an author and one of her issues was her use of description.

Is the purpose of description to show the reader what something looks like? The setting, for instance?

Yes, partly. But there’s a lot more it can do.

My author wrote detailed paragraphs about a cafe the characters visited, the food they ordered. When the characters went for a bike ride in the country, there were long paragraphs about the scenery. We were definitely ‘there’ – a guidebook couldn’t have done it better. But the descriptions were flat. Something was missing.

The reader of a novel doesn’t want a guidebook. In a novel, description can perform another important function, besides showing us around. A novel is an experience, usually through a character’s consciousness, and description is one of the ways to involve us in their internal world.

Good description isn’t simply a list of stuff. It’s things the viewpoint character is noticing because they are important in the moment, things that echo a character’s mood or anxieties or the problems they’re grappling with.

Here’s an important question to ask when writing description. What do your viewpoint characters notice and why?

Sitting in my study, right now, I notice the bookshelves need dusting. That’s annoying, but every time I consider dusting, I think of the manuscript I should be writing, or research I should do. I’m telling you there’s dust (oh boy, is there dust), and I’m also telling you why I tolerate it (it’s only dust and I have bigger priorities).

Description is also a fantastic tool for the writer to suggest themes. If my theme is the passing of time, I’ll tell you about the dead Kindle I use as a coaster for my tea mug, which still has the screen saver from the day in 2013 when Husband Dave accidentally shut the car boot on it. You can subtly direct the reader to notice ideas, suggested by the character’s thoughts in the moment (entropy, advancing technology). The dead Kindle also shows something about my personality – I hate throwing things away. And I’m creative – I use things for their unintended purpose.

Purpose. Let’s linger on that word. In good writing, every idea has a purpose. The writer knows how they’re handling the reader’s senses and emotions. It’s an experience that is precisely directed, like a stage illusion. The writer knows what they want you to look at, to think about, to feel. They also know what’s irrelevant and distracting.

Emotion gets our attention – and it’s memorable. We’re hard wired for it – as are most social animals. Ask anyone who trains dogs or horses.

This means you can use emotion to teach the reader about the character and whatever situation they’re in. You can also use a character’s emotional reactions to help the reader remember a detail that will be important later. If a man with a missing finger will be a big aha, the reader needs to notice him, but not too much. So draw our attention to the missing digit, and tie it to a feeling that seems relevant and significant at the time. Then reveal him again later, with writerly sleight of hand.

Description of characters’ physicality is often underused. Again, the missing piece is often the viewpoint character’s reaction or feeling. If you tell us about a character’s hairstyle or build, could you also use it to let us know what it’s like to be in the room with them?

‘He had close-cropped hair that looked military. He was tall. Elliot could imagine him shepherding a normal-sized person easily through a crowd, walking behind them like a protective exoskeleton, parting the masses with his arms. A belly swelled over his waistband. This did not make him look soft. Quite the opposite.’ (From Ever Rest)  

While we’re talking about description, here’s an element you mustn’t miss out. At the start of a scene, the reader needs several Ws –

Who is there.

What they are doing.

When the scene is taking place – night, day, a rough idea of the time of year.

Where they are.

It’s surprising how many writers leave this out. The reader is actually blindfolded when they enter a scene, with only your voice to guide them. So you need to load this information fast – in the opening paragraphs, unless there’s a deliberate reason to keep it a mystery. (Usually there isn’t.)

I’ve read so many manuscripts where I was bumbling around confused because people were appearing suddenly and talking, and I didn’t know they were there. Or I’m unsure what the surroundings are. Someone puts a cup of coffee on the table, but is the table in a café, an office, on a mountainside or in somebody’s home? And where are they, geographically? Often writers will supply the place-names, hoping they will do all the descriptive work, but, my dear, there are several Birminghams and lots of Olympic parks. Readers like to know which country they’re in.

Also, they want to know what the place means to the character. Is it home? Is it a place the character might move to? Is it a place they never wanted to see again? Each feels different. Emotion gives vital context.

So if you want to pep up your descriptions, look for the details you can pin an emotion onto.

Go for the feels.

There’s a lot more about writing in my Nail Your Novel books – find them here. If you’re curious about my own work, find novels here and my travel memoir here. And if you’re curious about what’s going on at my own writing desk, here’s my latest newsletter. You can subscribe to future updates here.

Two days of writer’s block unlocked a character’s secret

I’ve spent the last couple of days blocked about a scene in Ever Rest. Solving it became a bit of a saga – and an unexpected and rather important answer.

The first symptom I noticed was irritation. A character in a scene I was revising was annoying me. I quickly figured out why. In previous scenes I’d been writing from her point of view. Although I had a strong idea of what she wanted from the inside, when viewed by another character she was a blank nothing. She didn’t feel like real flesh and blood. I couldn’t describe her.

(I’m not talking here about whether her eyes are blue or she likes sharp suits – the physical attributes we can bestow almost without thought. I mean the essence of her. A good character description makes you understand what it’s like to be in their presence. For instance: this is from William Boyd’s Brazzaville Beach, which I’m currently reading:

She had unusual eyes, the upper lids seemed heavy, as if she were dying to go to sleep but was making a special effort for you… She was very thin. I imagined that in the right clothes she would look elegant. I had never seen her in anything but a shirt and trousers.’)

A presence
So I needed to give my nebulous character some physical heft to make her more real. I considered which actress might play her in a movie, no one seemed right. I considered whether real-life friends or acquaintances had a quality I could borrow to start her off. No one fitted. She remained faceless, presenceless.

A name
Perhaps I’d given her the wrong name, which had then conjured the wrong impression about her. I wondered whether to rechristen to appreciate her afresh. I rolled some possibilities around. None seemed to suit her better than her existing name.

Accessing a difficult personality
I’ve often written characters who I found hard to access immediately; this is the challenge of creating people who are not like you. Gene in My Memories of a Future Life was the stubbornest beast to channel. Writing his dialogue was like trying to guess the desires of an inscrutable and unpredictable monarch – endless patience and guesswork. When I made the audiobook, he gave my voice actor unsettling dreams.

A line she would not say
So I did what I often do in that situation – began editing, guessing new dialogue, and hoped the character would join in. In the first draft she’d asked an important question – and this became the sticking point. Now, she wouldn’t do it.

I tried all sorts of segues to allow it to arise naturally, but it felt fake. I tried the opposite – to let her avoid tackling the situation so that another character could step up. That wasn’t right.

A hole in my knowledge – and the clue

It was clear the problem went much further than her physical presence. There was a hole in my knowledge of her. Despite all the work I’d done on what she wanted or didn’t want, there was something important I hadn’t yet identified. I was writing someone whose true motives and feelings were very unclear to her, and confused. And this scene was bumping up against it.
The lines she wouldn’t say were the clue.

And then I got it. They weren’t my block after all. They were hers. They were the issue she didn’t want to confront – and didn’t realise.

Two days it took me to guess that minx’s heart. But now I have, I’ve pinned her down. I’ve found the inner voice that justified her during this scene. I knew what she’d say. And it fits. It flows. And not just with her, but with the overall arc for that episode of the story. Understanding this question about her was a valve to let the entire narrative flow again.

And so…
I’ve reminded myself of three principles I consistently return to:

1. The truth about a scene may lie much deeper than we think. Even with a lot of preparation work, there may be more to learn. We must listen to the instinct that something is wrong.
2. The thing your character refuses to say or do may not be a story problem. It might be their most important issue. Try working with it.
3. So much of our work is done away from the page, from carrying the problem with us as we walk to the station, from thinking, refining and persisting.

And my character? Now she’s not bland at all. She’s in a lot more trouble than I’d suspected.

There’s more about characters in Writing Characters Who’ll Keep Readers Captivated: Nail Your Novel 2.

Thanks for the pic Smabs Sputzer

Has an episode of writer’s block helped you solve a problem? What do you do if a character refuses to enact the plot? Do you have any tips on how you create fictional characters? Let’s discuss!

Novels aren’t movies – how to handle passage of time in prose

Do you learn your storytelling from movies as much as from prose? Many of us do. While certain principles translate well between the two story media, others don’t.

I’ve already discussed a few general points in a previous post – scenes with a lot of characters and shifting point of view  , dialogue   and description. Today I’m going to look at passage of time (modelled here by Dave).

When is it?

One of the key questions when we come into any scene is this: when is it happening?

Movies and prose handle this in different ways.

Suppose your story features a man who’s refurbishing a derelict bar. In a movie, it’s shown with a sequence of scenes. In one, he is getting to work, pulling old cupboards off the walls and uprooting obsolete appliances. In the next scene, it’s clean, the floorboards are sanded and he’s opening for business.

Because film is an external storytelling medium (we watch it from the outside) we accept that this cut is telling us several days or weeks have passed. We know we don’t stay with the characters for every second of their experience.

But in prose, a cut like this might feel too abrupt. Because prose is internal, and we walk in the characters’ shoes, a sudden jump in time can feel like too much of a lurch. We need a linking sentence or two to ease the way, drawing attention to what’s changed. Many writers who are weaned on movies leave these details out.

A sense of time

As well as evidence that time has passed, we also need a sense of it passing. If you have other characters or storylines, you can cut away to them, then return to your bar, which is now finished. This might create the gap you need.

But if your story follows just one character, you need to create the passage of time in your narration.

If we watch a movie we’ll do this ourselves. We’ll assume the character spent a week or a month working on the bar non stop. In prose, we need you to add this element, even if it’s only two lines, saying ‘I had no time to worry about anything. I was sanding, sawing, painting, ordering crockery. I flopped into bed at night and rose with the dawn.’ Indeed this is the prose version of the movie technique of condensing a sequence of events into a montage. (See, there are some techniques that translate well!)

Filling gaps

Prose fiction has to fill more gaps than a movie does. In prose, we need to keep the connection with the reader’s mind, rather than chopping the experience into pieces.

What examples of passage of time have you liked – both in movies and in prose? Let’s discuss!

Novels aren’t movies – how to write great description in prose

Do you learn your storytelling from movies as much as from prose? Many of us do. While certain principles can be learned well from both media, others can’t.
I’ve already discussed a few points in previous posts – scenes with a lot of characters, short, choppy scenes and point of view and dialogue. Today I’m going to look at description.

Description in prose aims to give the reader an experience. It fills in the specifics. Description in scripts or screenplays – and novels by writers who don’t read a lot of prose – is often labels or generics. Let me show you what I mean.

Objects
The writer who is more tuned to movies might describe ‘1970s furniture’, or ‘a battered car’. But a great description in prose will talk about the chair shaped like a giant egg, the Toyota with a mismatched door and an unlevel fender.

People
The movie-fan’s description of a person might be ‘a man in his 60s’, or ‘a well-preserved lady’.

But what does that look like? In prose, it’s the writer’s job to show us – and not just the physical basics of blue eyes, age or a dapper dress sense.

A great piece of prose description will put the person in the room with you, with expressions and impressions that give them life.
Here’s John le Carre from A Small Town in Germany:
Bradfield was a hard-built, self-denying man, thin-boned and well preserved, of that age and generation which can do with very little sleep. *

Places
A writer who doesn’t get a steady diet of prose tends to describe a street as ‘rough’ or ‘average-looking’ or ‘smart’. They might use place names, such as ‘Fenchurch Street’ or ‘Friedrichstrasse’. These names do add a certain atmosphere, but they are little more than labels. They don’t create the experience for the reader.

You need to identify what you want the reader to conclude about the street – and supply the specific details that will let them conclude it. The rough street might have overturned dustbins or litter on a balding patch of grass. The smart one might have front doors painted in expensive shades of sludge. If you want an ‘average’ street, decide what makes the street average and describe that.

That doesn’t mean you can’t also observe that it is ‘average’ – indeed, it might suit the personality of the narrative to add a judgement. But you have to qualify what ‘average’ is. My idea of average won’t be the same as yours – and might not suit your narrative at all.

Versatility of prose
And indeed, prose description can do more than just tell us what’s there. If you’re showing the weather, you can use it to add atmosphere – it can be like music to underline a mood. If you’re writing a description of a person from a character’s point of view, show what jumps out at them, and use it to illuminate their personality or situation. Perhaps he is meeting his girlfriend again after spending time away. Is it like seeing a tunnel back to their old life? Is she less glamorous than he imagined because he’s now moved on? Is she a poignant blast of comfort, showing how lost he now feels?

What’s in your head? Put that on the page
Many writers who make this mistake usually have an impression in their mind’s eye. So you have to make sure to put it into the reader’s imagination. Examine what you want them to see, and write it.

*There’s a longer discussion of this point in Writing Characters Who’ll Keep Readers Captivated: Nail Your Novel 2
Thanks for the pic Daniela Vladimirova

Let’s discuss! do you find it tricky to write good description? Do you have any tips that helped you?