How did you improve your descriptive writing?
- Thread starter Arn_Squid
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You can't do it without a few things. Read more (not just books, but also manga (today's comic art is garbage)) to help you visualize things. Next, research. For example, if I write "mobile artillery". What would I mean, towed artillery or self-propelled artillery vehicles? Both may technically fit the word, so you need to know the exact term. Don't worry; as you continue to research and read, your vocabulary will grow naturally, even against your will.
Feedback is also very helpful; don't be afraid to ask people to rip your writing to shreds. You are trying to improve, so no big deal if you are doing bad work now, but you also need to understand why what you are doing is not working. Use body language to emphasize certain parts of the dialogue or reaction. Instead of writing "he said angrily," you could spice things up and show the veins bulging in the character's face or neck while keeping his voice even.
This is why you need to read manga (serious stuff like Usogui, Berserk and such, not everyday isekai. Nothing wrong with isekai, but the point is to look at art). It will help your creative process to visualize certain things.
Lastly, take my advice with a grain of salt. I am by far the worst writer around here.
Your idea is great, thank you! I haven't thought about reading manga to improve my descriptive writing. ?
D
Deleted member 172779
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Me? I don't know.
Here is a short story of A-Squid, hope this make your day better:
A creature bottom of the ocean, which horrifies humanity into their absolute core. No one able to defy, and deny the in the face of reality.
On a plain ocean surface, which is calm, along with many fishermans getting their daily quota.
"Get going, this is a big catch!" One fisherman shouts, he throw a fishnet to the ocean. Which captures many small fish.
They pull the fishnet full of fish onto the boat, and begin put the captured fishes into a container full of Ice.
As they were busy on how much they catch. A low grumble coming from the Ocean. Which it gets every fisherman attention. They look toward to the calm ocean surface.
A shadow slowly rise from the depths, it became bigger as it get close to the ocean's surface. Once it finally surface, a tip of a fin can be seen, then their gigantic body with slimy skin, paired with giant tentacles, and blue eyes stare at the fisherman boats.
"SHIT RUN! IT'S THE SQUID!!!" Many fisherman begin driving their boat fast as possible, until a distance where the Squid can't reach with its tentacles.
Here is a short story of A-Squid, hope this make your day better:
A creature bottom of the ocean, which horrifies humanity into their absolute core. No one able to defy, and deny the in the face of reality.
On a plain ocean surface, which is calm, along with many fishermans getting their daily quota.
"Get going, this is a big catch!" One fisherman shouts, he throw a fishnet to the ocean. Which captures many small fish.
They pull the fishnet full of fish onto the boat, and begin put the captured fishes into a container full of Ice.
As they were busy on how much they catch. A low grumble coming from the Ocean. Which it gets every fisherman attention. They look toward to the calm ocean surface.
A shadow slowly rise from the depths, it became bigger as it get close to the ocean's surface. Once it finally surface, a tip of a fin can be seen, then their gigantic body with slimy skin, paired with giant tentacles, and blue eyes stare at the fisherman boats.
"SHIT RUN! IT'S THE SQUID!!!" Many fisherman begin driving their boat fast as possible, until a distance where the Squid can't reach with its tentacles.
John_Owl
Per aspera ad astra.
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Practice makes perfect. This doesn't mean always writing, however. Learning new descriptors is enough, and adding them to your common lexicon. I did this by describing everything in my head. How would you describe that crow in writing? Just a crow? Or is it a large, black corvid, sharpened beak pecking and tearing at carrion as it seeks it's next meal?
Further, words that may not seem like descriptors can indeed be descriptors (notice I don't say "adjectives"). There's a big difference between "It's a crow" and "it's a corvid", not technically as crows ARE corvids. But the *FEEL* of the words are different and can change the sentence.
Finally, I know it's often repeated but... READ. Just as an artist will view others' works and, rather than seeing it as a whole, they can look closer to get ideas for techniques, tools, and more, so too can writers from other writers.
Further, words that may not seem like descriptors can indeed be descriptors (notice I don't say "adjectives"). There's a big difference between "It's a crow" and "it's a corvid", not technically as crows ARE corvids. But the *FEEL* of the words are different and can change the sentence.
Finally, I know it's often repeated but... READ. Just as an artist will view others' works and, rather than seeing it as a whole, they can look closer to get ideas for techniques, tools, and more, so too can writers from other writers.
okashihime
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Heya.
Not sure if this advice will help but here is something find helpful:
Before you start writing, try to visualize the image in your head in full details: Is it a forest? How tall are the trees? Are they packed close, is the canopy blocking the sun, are there vines? animals? insects? What about colors?
When you have a good mental image, or if for some reason you decide to use a image reference for that scene, sit down and describe everything you can think about that. Everything. The shade of the bark, the shape of the leaves, the color of the dirt, anything else you can think. After that, other senses: The smell, the touch, temperature, light conditions.
Once that is done, you might as well try to think of metaphors and similes. Adding adjectives to scenery can be very effective here.
When you're done, go back and read everything you wrote. Then trim it to fit your story needs. Remove the unnecessary descriptions, keep the metaphors that add ambiance and makes sense, use only as much of the description you think will set the stage for the scene and nothing more.
After a while of doing this exercise, it gets easier to think of descriptions and write then. Well, at least that I what I found out for myself.
Here's what Stephen King wrote about descriptions on this book: On Writing.
Description is what makes the reader a sensory participant in the story. Good description is a learned skill, one of the prime reasons why you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot. It’s not just a question of how-to, you see; it’s also a question of how much to. Reading will help you answer how much, and only reams of writing will help you with the how. You can learn only by doing.
Description begins with visualization of what it is you want the reader to experience. It ends with your translating what you see in your mind into words on the page. It’s far from easy. As I’ve said, 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. If you can do this, you will be paid for your labors, and deservedly so. If you can’t, you’re going to collect a lot of rejection slips and perhaps explore a career in the fascinating world of telemarketing.
Thin description leaves the reader feeling bewildered and nearsighted. Overdescription buries him or her in details and images. The trick is to find a happy medium. It’s also important to know what to describe and what can be left alone while you get on with your main job, which is telling a story.
I’m not particularly keen on writing which exhaustively describes the physical characteristics of the people in the story and what they’re wearing (I find wardrobe inventory particularly irritating; if I want to read descriptions of clothes, I can always get a J. Crew catalogue). I can’t remember many cases where I felt I had to describe what the people in a story of mine looked like—I’d rather let the reader supply the faces, the builds, and the clothing as well. If I tell you that Carrie White is a high school outcast with a bad complexion and a fashion-victim wardrobe, I think you can do the rest, can’t you? I don’t need to give you a pimple-by-pimple, skirt-by-skirt rundown. We all remember one or more high school losers, after all; if I describe mine, it freezes out yours, and I lose a little bit of the bond of understanding I want to forge between us. Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s. When it comes to actually pulling this off, the writer is much more fortunate than the filmmaker, who is almost always doomed to show too much… including, in nine cases out of ten, the zipper running up the monster’s back.
I think locale and texture are much more important to the reader’s sense of actually being in the story than any physical description of the players. Nor do I think that physical description should be a shortcut to character. So spare me, if you please, the hero’s sharply intelligent blue eyes and outthrust determined chin; likewise the heroine’s arrogant cheekbones. This sort of thing is bad technique and lazy writing, the equivalent of all those tiresome adverbs.
For me, good description usually consists of a few well-chosen details that will stand for everything else. In most cases, these details will be the first ones that come to mind. Certainly they will do for a start. If you decide later on that you’d like to change, add, or delete, you can do so—it’s what rewrite was invented for. But I think you will find that, in most cases, your first visualized details will be the truest and best. You should remember (and your reading will prove it over and over again should you begin to doubt) that it’s as easy to overdescribe as to underdescribe. Probably easier.
One of my favorite restaurants in New York is the steakhouse Palm Too on Second Avenue. If I decide to set a scene in Palm Too, I’ll certainly be writing about what I know, as I’ve been there on a number of occasions. Before beginning to write, I’ll take a moment to call up an image of the place, drawing from my memory and filling my mind’s eye, an eye whose vision grows sharper the more it is used. I call it a mental eye because that’s the phrase with which we’re all familiar, but what I actually want to do is open all my senses. This memory search will be brief but intense, a kind of hypnotic recall. And, as with actual hypnosis, you’ll find it easier to accomplish the more you attempt it.
The first four things which come to my mind when I think of Palm Too are: (a) the darkness of the bar and the contrasting brightness of the backbar mirror, which catches and reflects light from the street; (b) the sawdust on the floor; (c) the funky cartoon caricatures on the walls; (d) the smells of cooking steak and fish.
If I think longer I can come up with more stuff (what I don’t remember I’ll make up— during the visualization process, fact and fiction become entwined), but there’s no need for more. This isn’t the Taj Mahal we’re visiting, after all, and I don’t want to sell you the place. It’s also important to remember it’s not about the setting, anyway—it’s about the story, and it’s always about the story. It will not behoove me (or you) to wander off into thickets of description just because it would be easy to do. We have other fish (and steak) to fry.
Bearing that in mind, here’s a sample bit of narration which takes a character into Palm Too:
The cab pulled up in front of Palm Too at quarter to four on a bright summer afternoon. Billy paid the driver, stepped out onto the sidewalk, and took a quick look around for Martin. Not in sight. Satisfied, Billy went inside.
After the hot clarity of Second Avenue, Palm Too was as dark as a cave. The backbar mirror picked up some of the street-glare and glimmered in the gloom like a mirage. For a moment it was all Billy could see, and then his eyes began to adjust. There were a few solitary drinkers at the bar. Beyond them, the maître d’, his tie undone and his shirt cuffs rolled back to show his hairy wrists, was talking with the bartender. There was still sawdust sprinkled on the floor, Billy noted, as if this were a twenties speakeasy instead of a millennium eatery where you couldn’t smoke, let alone spit a gob of tobacco between your feet. And the cartoons dancing across the walls—gossip-column caricatures of downtown political hustlers, newsmen who had long since retired or drunk themselves to death, celebrities you couldn’t quite recognize—still gambolled all the way to the ceiling. The air was redolent of steak and fried onions. All of it the same as it ever was.
The maître d’ stepped forward. “Can I help you, sir? We don’t open for dinner until six, but the bar—”
“I’m looking for Richie Martin,” Billy said.
Billy’s arrival in the cab is narration—action, if you like that word better. What follows after he steps through the door of the restaurant is pretty much straight description. I got in almost all of the details which first came to mind when I accessed my memories of the real Palm Too, and I added a few other things, as well—the maître d’ between shifts is pretty good, I think; I love the undone tie and the cuffs rolled up to expose the hairy wrists. It’s like a photograph. The smell of fish is the only thing not here, and that’s because the smell of the onions was stronger.
We come back to actual storytelling with a bit of narration (the maître d’ steps forward to center stage) and then the dialogue. By now we see our location clearly. There are plenty of details I could have added—the narrowness of the room, Tony Bennett on the sound system, the Yankees bumper-sticker on the cash register—but what would be the point? When it comes to scene-setting and all sorts of description, a meal is as good as a feast. We want to know if Billy has located Richie Martin—that’s the story we paid our twenty-four bucks to read. More about the restaurant would slow the pace of that story, perhaps annoying us enough to break the spell good fiction can weave. 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. If the reader wants to know more about Palm Too than can be found above, he or she can either visit the next time he or she is in New York, or send for a brochure. I’ve already spilled enough ink here for me to indicate Palm Too will be a major setting for my story. If it turns out not to be, I’d do well to revise the descriptive stuff down by a few lines in the next draft. Certainly I couldn’t keep it in on the grounds that it’s good; it should be good, if I’m being paid to do it. What I’m not being paid to do is be self-indulgent.
There is straight description (“a few solitary drinkers at the bar”) and a bit of rather more poetic description (“The backbar mirror… glimmered in the gloom like a mirage”) in my central descriptive paragraph about Palm Too. Both are okay, but I like the figurative stuff. The use of simile and other figurative language is one of the chief delights of fiction—reading it and writing it, as well. When it’s on target, a simile delights us in much the same way meeting an old friend in a crowd of strangers does. By comparing two seemingly unrelated objects—a restaurant bar and a cave, a mirror and a mirage—we are sometimes able to see an old thing in a new and vivid way. Even if the result is mere clarity instead of beauty, I think writer and reader are participating together in a kind of miracle. Maybe that’s drawing it a little strong, but yeah—it’s what I believe.
When a simile or metaphor doesn’t work, the results are sometimes funny and sometimes embarrassing. Recently I read this sentence in a forthcoming novel I prefer not to name: “He sat stolidly beside the corpse, waiting for the medical examiner as patiently as a man waiting for a turkey sandwich.” If there is a clarifying connection here, I wasn’t able to make it. I consequently closed the book without reading further. If a writer knows what he or she is doing, I’ll go along for the ride. If he or she doesn’t… well, I’m in my fifties now, and there are a lot of books out there. I don’t have time to waste with the poorly written ones.
The Zen simile is only one potential pitfall of figurative language. The most common— and again, landing in this trap can usually be traced back to not enough reading—is the use of clichéd similes, metaphors, and images. He ran like a madman, she was pretty as a summer day, the guy was a hot ticket, Bob fought like a tiger… don’t waste my time (or anyone’s) with such chestnuts. It makes you look either lazy or ignorant. Neither description will do your reputation as a writer much good.
My all-time favorite similes, by the way, come from the hardboiled-detective fiction of the forties and fifties, and the literary descendants of the dime-dreadful writers. These favorites include “It was darker than a carload of assholes” (George V. Higgins) and “I lit a cigarette [that] tasted like a plumber’s handkerchief” (Raymond Chandler).
The key to good description begins with clear seeing and ends with clear writing, the kind of writing that employs fresh images and simple vocabulary. I began learning my lessons in this regard by reading Chandler, Hammett, and Ross MacDonald; I gained perhaps even more respect for the power of compact, descriptive language from reading T. S. Eliot (those ragged claws scuttling across the ocean floor; those coffee spoons), and William Carlos Williams (white chickens, red wheelbarrow, the plums that were in the ice box, so sweet and so cold).
As with all other aspects of the narrative art, you will improve with practice, but practice will never make you perfect. Why should it? What fun would that be? And the harder you try to be clear and simple, the more you will learn about the complexity of our American dialect. It be slippery, precious; aye, it be very slippery, indeed. Practice the art, always reminding yourself that your job is to say what you see, and then to get on with your story.
Description is what makes the reader a sensory participant in the story. Good description is a learned skill, one of the prime reasons why you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot. It’s not just a question of how-to, you see; it’s also a question of how much to. Reading will help you answer how much, and only reams of writing will help you with the how. You can learn only by doing.
Description begins with visualization of what it is you want the reader to experience. It ends with your translating what you see in your mind into words on the page. It’s far from easy. As I’ve said, 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. If you can do this, you will be paid for your labors, and deservedly so. If you can’t, you’re going to collect a lot of rejection slips and perhaps explore a career in the fascinating world of telemarketing.
Thin description leaves the reader feeling bewildered and nearsighted. Overdescription buries him or her in details and images. The trick is to find a happy medium. It’s also important to know what to describe and what can be left alone while you get on with your main job, which is telling a story.
I’m not particularly keen on writing which exhaustively describes the physical characteristics of the people in the story and what they’re wearing (I find wardrobe inventory particularly irritating; if I want to read descriptions of clothes, I can always get a J. Crew catalogue). I can’t remember many cases where I felt I had to describe what the people in a story of mine looked like—I’d rather let the reader supply the faces, the builds, and the clothing as well. If I tell you that Carrie White is a high school outcast with a bad complexion and a fashion-victim wardrobe, I think you can do the rest, can’t you? I don’t need to give you a pimple-by-pimple, skirt-by-skirt rundown. We all remember one or more high school losers, after all; if I describe mine, it freezes out yours, and I lose a little bit of the bond of understanding I want to forge between us. Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s. When it comes to actually pulling this off, the writer is much more fortunate than the filmmaker, who is almost always doomed to show too much… including, in nine cases out of ten, the zipper running up the monster’s back.
I think locale and texture are much more important to the reader’s sense of actually being in the story than any physical description of the players. Nor do I think that physical description should be a shortcut to character. So spare me, if you please, the hero’s sharply intelligent blue eyes and outthrust determined chin; likewise the heroine’s arrogant cheekbones. This sort of thing is bad technique and lazy writing, the equivalent of all those tiresome adverbs.
For me, good description usually consists of a few well-chosen details that will stand for everything else. In most cases, these details will be the first ones that come to mind. Certainly they will do for a start. If you decide later on that you’d like to change, add, or delete, you can do so—it’s what rewrite was invented for. But I think you will find that, in most cases, your first visualized details will be the truest and best. You should remember (and your reading will prove it over and over again should you begin to doubt) that it’s as easy to overdescribe as to underdescribe. Probably easier.
One of my favorite restaurants in New York is the steakhouse Palm Too on Second Avenue. If I decide to set a scene in Palm Too, I’ll certainly be writing about what I know, as I’ve been there on a number of occasions. Before beginning to write, I’ll take a moment to call up an image of the place, drawing from my memory and filling my mind’s eye, an eye whose vision grows sharper the more it is used. I call it a mental eye because that’s the phrase with which we’re all familiar, but what I actually want to do is open all my senses. This memory search will be brief but intense, a kind of hypnotic recall. And, as with actual hypnosis, you’ll find it easier to accomplish the more you attempt it.
The first four things which come to my mind when I think of Palm Too are: (a) the darkness of the bar and the contrasting brightness of the backbar mirror, which catches and reflects light from the street; (b) the sawdust on the floor; (c) the funky cartoon caricatures on the walls; (d) the smells of cooking steak and fish.
If I think longer I can come up with more stuff (what I don’t remember I’ll make up— during the visualization process, fact and fiction become entwined), but there’s no need for more. This isn’t the Taj Mahal we’re visiting, after all, and I don’t want to sell you the place. It’s also important to remember it’s not about the setting, anyway—it’s about the story, and it’s always about the story. It will not behoove me (or you) to wander off into thickets of description just because it would be easy to do. We have other fish (and steak) to fry.
Bearing that in mind, here’s a sample bit of narration which takes a character into Palm Too:
The cab pulled up in front of Palm Too at quarter to four on a bright summer afternoon. Billy paid the driver, stepped out onto the sidewalk, and took a quick look around for Martin. Not in sight. Satisfied, Billy went inside.
After the hot clarity of Second Avenue, Palm Too was as dark as a cave. The backbar mirror picked up some of the street-glare and glimmered in the gloom like a mirage. For a moment it was all Billy could see, and then his eyes began to adjust. There were a few solitary drinkers at the bar. Beyond them, the maître d’, his tie undone and his shirt cuffs rolled back to show his hairy wrists, was talking with the bartender. There was still sawdust sprinkled on the floor, Billy noted, as if this were a twenties speakeasy instead of a millennium eatery where you couldn’t smoke, let alone spit a gob of tobacco between your feet. And the cartoons dancing across the walls—gossip-column caricatures of downtown political hustlers, newsmen who had long since retired or drunk themselves to death, celebrities you couldn’t quite recognize—still gambolled all the way to the ceiling. The air was redolent of steak and fried onions. All of it the same as it ever was.
The maître d’ stepped forward. “Can I help you, sir? We don’t open for dinner until six, but the bar—”
“I’m looking for Richie Martin,” Billy said.
Billy’s arrival in the cab is narration—action, if you like that word better. What follows after he steps through the door of the restaurant is pretty much straight description. I got in almost all of the details which first came to mind when I accessed my memories of the real Palm Too, and I added a few other things, as well—the maître d’ between shifts is pretty good, I think; I love the undone tie and the cuffs rolled up to expose the hairy wrists. It’s like a photograph. The smell of fish is the only thing not here, and that’s because the smell of the onions was stronger.
We come back to actual storytelling with a bit of narration (the maître d’ steps forward to center stage) and then the dialogue. By now we see our location clearly. There are plenty of details I could have added—the narrowness of the room, Tony Bennett on the sound system, the Yankees bumper-sticker on the cash register—but what would be the point? When it comes to scene-setting and all sorts of description, a meal is as good as a feast. We want to know if Billy has located Richie Martin—that’s the story we paid our twenty-four bucks to read. More about the restaurant would slow the pace of that story, perhaps annoying us enough to break the spell good fiction can weave. 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. If the reader wants to know more about Palm Too than can be found above, he or she can either visit the next time he or she is in New York, or send for a brochure. I’ve already spilled enough ink here for me to indicate Palm Too will be a major setting for my story. If it turns out not to be, I’d do well to revise the descriptive stuff down by a few lines in the next draft. Certainly I couldn’t keep it in on the grounds that it’s good; it should be good, if I’m being paid to do it. What I’m not being paid to do is be self-indulgent.
There is straight description (“a few solitary drinkers at the bar”) and a bit of rather more poetic description (“The backbar mirror… glimmered in the gloom like a mirage”) in my central descriptive paragraph about Palm Too. Both are okay, but I like the figurative stuff. The use of simile and other figurative language is one of the chief delights of fiction—reading it and writing it, as well. When it’s on target, a simile delights us in much the same way meeting an old friend in a crowd of strangers does. By comparing two seemingly unrelated objects—a restaurant bar and a cave, a mirror and a mirage—we are sometimes able to see an old thing in a new and vivid way. Even if the result is mere clarity instead of beauty, I think writer and reader are participating together in a kind of miracle. Maybe that’s drawing it a little strong, but yeah—it’s what I believe.
When a simile or metaphor doesn’t work, the results are sometimes funny and sometimes embarrassing. Recently I read this sentence in a forthcoming novel I prefer not to name: “He sat stolidly beside the corpse, waiting for the medical examiner as patiently as a man waiting for a turkey sandwich.” If there is a clarifying connection here, I wasn’t able to make it. I consequently closed the book without reading further. If a writer knows what he or she is doing, I’ll go along for the ride. If he or she doesn’t… well, I’m in my fifties now, and there are a lot of books out there. I don’t have time to waste with the poorly written ones.
The Zen simile is only one potential pitfall of figurative language. The most common— and again, landing in this trap can usually be traced back to not enough reading—is the use of clichéd similes, metaphors, and images. He ran like a madman, she was pretty as a summer day, the guy was a hot ticket, Bob fought like a tiger… don’t waste my time (or anyone’s) with such chestnuts. It makes you look either lazy or ignorant. Neither description will do your reputation as a writer much good.
My all-time favorite similes, by the way, come from the hardboiled-detective fiction of the forties and fifties, and the literary descendants of the dime-dreadful writers. These favorites include “It was darker than a carload of assholes” (George V. Higgins) and “I lit a cigarette [that] tasted like a plumber’s handkerchief” (Raymond Chandler).
The key to good description begins with clear seeing and ends with clear writing, the kind of writing that employs fresh images and simple vocabulary. I began learning my lessons in this regard by reading Chandler, Hammett, and Ross MacDonald; I gained perhaps even more respect for the power of compact, descriptive language from reading T. S. Eliot (those ragged claws scuttling across the ocean floor; those coffee spoons), and William Carlos Williams (white chickens, red wheelbarrow, the plums that were in the ice box, so sweet and so cold).
As with all other aspects of the narrative art, you will improve with practice, but practice will never make you perfect. Why should it? What fun would that be? And the harder you try to be clear and simple, the more you will learn about the complexity of our American dialect. It be slippery, precious; aye, it be very slippery, indeed. Practice the art, always reminding yourself that your job is to say what you see, and then to get on with your story.
Cheers,
Okashihime.
Edit: Added useful info on the spoiler. :P
Last edited:
CharlesEBrown
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You may not need to. Write the level of description you feel you need for your story. Not everyone can (or should) be, say Robert Jordan in "Key to Time" (honestly, aside from two characters, knew more about how the setting looks, feels, and even smells like by the end of the first book), but also, unless you only write short stories, you should avoid being as vague as, say , H. P. Lovecraft (who left a lot of things as "indescribable" or "outside of human awareness" and really only put in atmospheric details).
Tsuru
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Time to repeat my advice.
Writing = Drawing.
Do it more. Repeat infinitely.
And look at other people work.
ps : studying is stealing knowledge of teachers and predecessors.
Read - a lot - and attentively, too. Adapt to the genre you're writing: lurid Gothic horror? Lean into the flickering lights and gleaming cobblestones slick with damp. Tense character drama? Dial it way back, short, apt and evocative slices of character or place. Probably, you need to describe a lot less than you think. Check out Stephen King's On Writing (or listen to the audiobook, he's a great reader) - he's got great advice on descriptive writing. Avoid adverbs! (Ah! I just saw somebody posted in spoilers King's bit on description. It really is excellent!)
At a higher level, consider whether the description actually adds anything to the narrative: does it tell you anything about the character? Or flesh out the setting in some meaningful way? Like, Crook's room in Of Mice and Men: everything in his barn-side room says something about the character that lives there. Or, Tolkien's endless descriptions of trees and leaves that build up this immense sense of Middle-Earth being a real and living place.
That's the theory, anyway. As a rank amateur, my own use of description in writing remains a work in progress.
ThrillingHuman
always be casual, never be careless
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"that's schizophrenia 101", exclaimed the great witch.
Comatoast
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What I usually do is think of the feeling I want to convey and use certain words that coincide with that feeling.
For example, If you want to make it feel more large, You could describe the shadow as titanic and go in to depth on the feeling hopelessness as they TRY to escape the tentacles grasp, Hammering home how large it is.
You could also go with a horror route, leading out of the calm with the bored fisherman by using something like "despite this however, something lurked below the surface. Something so dangerous that, while they still had breath, they were already dead."
Hans.Trondheim
Low energy is king!
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I always tell my students to read their fave novels and take note of how it is written. Then, try applying it to their own writing, and mix it with their styles.
More often, it results to a descriptive style that is uniquely theirs.
Ananias5
Well-known member
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- Jan 20, 2021
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With writing, you have all the power. Which also means you have to create your own style and voice. Readers will either like it or hate it. No voice is perfect. For instance, it’s why people hate AI writing. Because AI has its own voice, reading it in everything becomes repulsive.
I start off with the rough draft. This is only meant for me because it will have errors and ideas that I might drop.
Then, I re-read the chapter and edit the best I can.
Next, I put it in Grammarly and edit it better.
Here’s where I shift it up.
I then erase most of the filter words.
Assume/Assumed
Believe/Believed
Could/Could’ve
Decide/Decided
Experience/Experienced
Felt/Feel
Hear/Heard
Know/Knew/Knowing
Look/Looked/Looking
Noticing/Notice/Noticed
Note/Noted
Realize/Realized
Remember/Remembered
Saw/See/Seen/Spot/Spotted
Seem/Seemed
Smell/Smelled
Sound/Sounded
Taste/Tasted/Tasting
Thought/Think
Touch/Touched
Watch/Watched/Watching
Wonder/Wondered
I only keep those words in sentences that my characters are speaking. This indirectly creates a unique voice for the narrator. It also forces me to think outside the box and be more creative with my descriptions.
This part used to take forever, but once I got the hang of it, I realized my writing adapted.
Next, it’s back to Grammarly. This part is much quicker because I’ve already edited the majority of the story.
At this point, I use a text-to-speech app and have the story read to me. This helps me remove repetitive sentences and some that feel unnecessary.
Once I change it, it’s back to Grammarly. At this point, it’s just to triple-check everything.
Lastly, I’ll use the text-to-speech one more time, and if I’m satisfied with the chapter, it’s ready.
CarburetorThompson
Fuel Atomization Enjoyer
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- Jan 27, 2022
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Depends on what you’re trying to emulate in your writing.
If you’re trying to write like an Asian light novel, focus on bare minimum descriptions that leaves a lot to the reader‘s imagination.
A lot of western writing, or published non light novels, will put more emphasis on descriptions. If you’re trying to write like that you might want to remind yourself to utilize all five senses, especially the under utilized ones like touch and smell that aren’t mentioned as often.
If you’re trying to write like an Asian light novel, focus on bare minimum descriptions that leaves a lot to the reader‘s imagination.
A lot of western writing, or published non light novels, will put more emphasis on descriptions. If you’re trying to write like that you might want to remind yourself to utilize all five senses, especially the under utilized ones like touch and smell that aren’t mentioned as often.
TreasureHouse
Well-known member
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My favorite exercise is to yoink a book that i really like, blow off the dust, and open to a random page or a section I like.
Then read the page of the story and then reverse engineer/write similar scene with my own characters, dialog, and setting.
Then read the page of the story and then reverse engineer/write similar scene with my own characters, dialog, and setting.
Prince_Azmiran_Myrian
🐉Religious zealot exhorting Dragons for Jesus🐉
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Consider the reader experience.
How do you want them to feel about this object, setting, scene, outfit, or character. (Or whatever it is you're describing.) Cater the descriprion to that feeling you want to create.
Don't make it too long, doesn't always need to be an isolated paragraph or sentence. Can integrate into the flow.
How do you want them to feel about this object, setting, scene, outfit, or character. (Or whatever it is you're describing.) Cater the descriprion to that feeling you want to create.
Don't make it too long, doesn't always need to be an isolated paragraph or sentence. Can integrate into the flow.
I can't seems to like my own writing voice though...?
Ananias5
Well-known member
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- Jan 20, 2021
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I think everyone feels that way at first and even after you've been writing for years. Don't worry about it too much, and just write for the fun of it.
It doesn't matter what you create some people will like it and others will trash it. Do what makes you happy.