Writing How to depict scale?

[RaySizm]

I started a series in order for it to be practice for this sci-fi story that I really want to write (as I don't have a really good grasp on writing stories yet) but while writing chapters for this series, I'm reading through it and dissatisfied with how I portray these megastructures that exist in the story. They're these enormous deteriorating stone towers that dwarf any normal building in my head, but when I write, they only ever seem to be about the size of your average medieval tower but slightly taller. How do I describe the sheer size and scale of these buildings to put that fantasy feel into the story?

TLDR: How to make a building seem small or large without bashing the reader over the head with its description?

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

Megastructures? ... Do we talk about a Dyson sphere, Matrioshka brain, ring worlds, or just a simple ecumenopolis? In the latter case, I would recommend 40k and their description of hive worlds.

 

[HURGMCGURG]

You can use a flat measurement, describe how in awe a character is at its height or how they'd never seen something so tall, make some metaphors or similes, or describe like "it towered above, piercing the clouds above." or "it wouldn't have surprised [insert name] if it was visible from space, such was the enormity of the structure."

 

[MajorKerina]

I did that once with an infinitely-large library.

She looked up and up and up…She had to stop when she nearly lost her balance. A vast structure loomed beyond her sight into a sky dominated by its gray, ridged presence. In golden letters, each bigger than entire buildings, it said, "THE LIBRARY."...It was big. Really big. It took her a moment to grasp just how mind-bogglingly big. Just what her scanner could work with was larger than her entire home solar system. And that was just a microscopic speck out of what seemed to exist....The walk to the nearest section of the Library was about the length of a city block up sections of gray steps....The Library revealed itself to her all around. While she expected it to be massive from the outside, what she saw dwarfed her imagination. There were shelves after shelves in long rows, curving angles, and fluid geometric shapes. Books were everywhere and every color....

I remember a note later that areas had their own weather systems.

You could describe the toenail of a giant as falling off like a beaching whale crashing into the water. Having points of real world context for readers is good.

 

[Jemini]

I started a series in order for it to be practice for this sci-fi story that I really want to write (as I don't have a really good grasp on writing stories yet) but while writing chapters for this series, I'm reading through it and dissatisfied with how I portray these megastructures that exist in the story. They're these enormous deteriorating stone towers that dwarf any normal building in my head, but when I write, they only ever seem to be about the size of your average medieval tower but slightly taller. How do I describe the sheer size and scale of these buildings to put that fantasy feel into the story?

TLDR: How to make a building seem small or large without bashing the reader over the head with its description?

I've done this in my own story, which was more of a fantasy-type story in a land where humans are the bottom of society, elves are the middle class, and dragons are ultimately the rulers of the entire world.

I started by building up the queen of the fey realm, but I never had her show up until the 2nd book. But, all through the 1st book she kept getting talked about and her power was built up, and there was even a scene where she was seen far off in the distance... moving a world tree with her magic.

At that time, I gave a scale for said world tree. The best way is to give a scale perspective. the scale perspective was that this world tree being moved had a clump of earth scooped up with it and was being held together by the roots. Rather than describe the scale of the tree, I described the entire forest being held on that clump of earth the floating world tree was holding up and the fact that two entire elven villages could line up on a direct line between the outer edge and the base of the tree, as well as the fact that the tops of the trees were so dwarfed by the world tree above them that from a distance they just looked like moss on the ground.

So, that's the way. Put other objects in the scene the reader can relate to, and describe them in relation to the megastructure. Granted, I'm better at scaling organic things, not so sure what I would do with buildings.

 

[Friend]

... Do we talk about a Dyson sphere, Matrioshka brain, ring worlds,

I actually do have that latter bit, in a story I'll hold off from publishing. A ringworld. Plus cultivation. But that's not important.

I do though, go into a lot of description, pages worth. How standing within it and looking east or west, the land 'curves up' into the sky, to some point of indistinction. Imagine a band of land at Earth's distance from the sun, 2000 or more kilometers wide. Mere thousands of times Earth's surface area does not do it justice.

Edit: I realize my response did not directly answer what I quoted; so now I'll say it plain. Heck yeah, we talk about and describe anything or everything imaginable. Not because it's our own word salad, not because we think the reader will read it and love it, but because sometimes you just gotta say, ... a population can exceed a million billion. Or a thousand trillion. Or ... yeah you know.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

I started a series in order for it to be practice for this sci-fi story that I really want to write (as I don't have a really good grasp on writing stories yet) but while writing chapters for this series, I'm reading through it and dissatisfied with how I portray these megastructures that exist in the story. They're these enormous deteriorating stone towers that dwarf any normal building in my head, but when I write, they only ever seem to be about the size of your average medieval tower but slightly taller. How do I describe the sheer size and scale of these buildings to put that fantasy feel into the story?

TLDR: How to make a building seem small or large without bashing the reader over the head with its description?

Describe how they jut out from above the clouds like daggers toward the skies or how they eclipse the sun and blot the world in ever encroaching darkness.

You cant say "its as big as X" or "its fucking huge"

You need something to drive home how enormous they are. And how they effect the world with their monstrous size.

So you gotta get poetic.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

I've done this in my own story, which was more of a fantasy-type story in a land where humans are the bottom of society, elves are the middle class, and dragons are ultimately the rulers of the entire world.

I started by building up the queen of the fey realm, but I never had her show up until the 2nd book. But, all through the 1st book she kept getting talked about and her power was built up, and there was even a scene where she was seen far off in the distance... moving a world tree with her magic.

At that time, I gave a scale for said world tree. The best way is to give a scale perspective. the scale perspective was that this world tree being moved had a clump of earth scooped up with it and was being held together by the roots. Rather than describe the scale of the tree, I described the entire forest being held on that clump of earth the floating world tree was holding up and the fact that two entire elven villages could line up on a direct line between the outer edge and the base of the tree, as well as the fact that the tops of the trees were so dwarfed by the world tree above them that from a distance they just looked like moss on the ground.

So, that's the way. Put other objects in the scene the reader can relate to, and describe them in relation to the megastructure. Granted, I'm better at scaling organic things, not so sure what I would do with buildings.

Cool your story has a fae queen too? Man yours sounds pretty fucking awesome ngl.

All mine's done is get high and play pop the bubble with people's heads. Which i guess i dunno kinda had to happen otherwise she'd massacre every main character but the MC and destroy the planet. But still. I like stories like yours that has these epic scenes. Is yours the Tree of Aeons on? I should give it a read. But later, when i get my chromebook back. I cant stand reading novels on my phone. Makes my hands hurt

Anyway that is the way to do it yeah. Like i said in a post here too, you can't just say something us big. You gotta paint a picture. Show how it effects the landscape with its sheer size. For that you need to awaken you inner Bard and start getting metaphorical

 

[RaySizm]

You can use a flat measurement, describe how in awe a character is at its height or how they'd never seen something so tall, make some metaphors or similes, or describe like "it towered above, piercing the clouds above." or "it wouldn't have surprised [insert name] if it was visible from space, such was the enormity of the structure."

Honestly, I think I've got it down in terms of depicting the height of the structures in my story by now, and it turned out to be easier than I thought, as I had already sort of achieved the effect of height before I posted. However, I looked over it again and I realized my main problem was that I couldn't exactly describe it in terms of width. Like, I can see it in my head being super tall, but I have the most trouble when it comes to depicting the THICCNESS of the towers.

 

[HURGMCGURG]

Honestly, I think I've got it down in terms of depicting the height of the structures in my story by now, and it turned out to be easier than I thought, as I had already sort of achieved the effect of height before I posted. However, I looked over it again and I realized my main problem was that I couldn't exactly describe it in terms of width. Like, I can see it in my head being super tall, but I have the most trouble when it comes to depicting the THICCNESS of the towers.

Width is difficult. You can do such comparisons as "Reaching over the horizon" or "It was a building the size of a city" or "wide as a lake".

 

[Nyaa]

20,686,433,100 Bananas

 

[WhoCares]

I second suggestions for references etc but I think what you might be missing is the feeling of scale, rather than description. Gothic literature got that feeling of scale down really nicely, so it might be worth reading something like Castle of Otranto to get a feel for it. Otherwise, romantic poets like Wordsworth were good at conveying material descriptions through language as well.

The point is to try to convey the scale through the language itself. So consider the choice of words, figures of speech, sentence structure etc. As an example, repetition like: long, long, long, way up, does a crude job of giving a feeling of length. Essentially, try to get the reader to do the imagining for you, since precise descriptions might actually detract from the feeling of immensity i.e. if you state how tall Mt. Everest is, it might not feel as tall as it would if your character sees it stretching into the clouds.