Description is also Voice

I keep hearing people talk about descriptive narrative as though it's something different from internal dialogue. I suppose if you're writing some kind of literary fiction from an omniscient POV, it might be. But for the most part--especially in children's and YA fiction--it is the same thing.

Interiority and description are the same. It's all in the POV voice. It's all about what the POV character is thinking. Sometimes they're thinking about their feelings and motivations, sometimes they're thinking about what they're seeing/hearing etc.

All of it needs to be written from the mindset of the POV character.

Remember this poem by Wordsworth?

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

This is good practice to think about description in your own writing. Imagine a huge field of daffodils. Now ask yourself, how would a lonely or depressed person see that field verses an angry person, a betrayed person, or a happy-go-lucky person. Then write the description through their eyes and in their voice.

It's easy to try too hard to write a snarky narrative voice, but then when it comes time for description, wax into an eloquent Dickensesque voice. 

It should be all the same voice. 

All writers struggle with this, so practice and always keep it in mind.

The Devil is in the Detail

My husband's company owns a cabin up in the mountains about an hour from our home. We got a turn to stay there over Presidents Day weekend. HOLY LUXURY!

Here are a few pictures of my favorite features:

The cool sink in the guest bathroom

Amazing beams in the main room.

Nifty pull-up toilet
flusher.

The light over the jacuzzi
tub.

Count 'em - 3! shower
heads in the master bath.

Lichen that hitched a
ride into the cabin on the stones
of the fireplace mantel.

Which doors are the refrigerator and
which is the pantry?

*Special thanks to blogger for randomly configuring the pictures into it's own idea of an arrangement. 

What does this have to do with writing, you might ask. Well, I'll tell you.

From these small bits of detail, you probably get a better idea of the kind of place we stayed at than if I would have posted a landscape view of the whole cabin.

It's the same with writing--especially description. Often, a few small but carefully chosen details can convey more to the reader than paragraphs of descriptive eloquence.  

And to finish it off, a nice pic of me and two of my young'uns in the hot tub.

When Weather Turns Bad

Weather Check: Warm and muggy. Hopefully we'll get some thunderstorms this morning.


I've been noticing a terrible trend in weather lately. It seems to be turning against people--mostly main characters. As I read some YA literature and especially manuscripts, I keep coming across phrases like, "She opened the door and the heat assaulted her."

Now I'm all for personification, but I am starting to wonder why weather has become so vengeful against main characters.

So let me just say a few things about weather.

Don't let your weather become cliche. If you take the time to mention weather in your writing, it better be for a reason. Why does it matter if it is the third day in a row of 100 degree heat? What is important about the fog settling over the village? What does the first rain of the season symbolize? How does the bone-chilling cold affect what happens next?

Take rain. Why make it rain in your book? Well, here are a few reasons: Atmospherics, rain can be mysterious, isolating, depressing, confusing.... Rain can symbolize a cleansing, a rebirth. Rain can be a plot device to force the main character into certain situations. Rain is a great equalizer, it falls on both the just and the unjust, the dead and the living. Rain can restore life. Rain can also bring flood, destruction, exposure and death.

Above all, how does your POV character feel about it? Every description has to be told as it relates to your main character. A character who just moved from Arizona to North Dakota will feel differently about the winter snow and cold than a local.

Sometimes I think writing tips have been so drilled into our minds that as writers we go out of our way to say something the hard way instead of the simple way. I believe that often phrases such as "The heat assaulted her" and "the cold swallowed him" are ways to avoid using the word "was" and not deliberate attempts at personification for literary purposes.

Such wording often feels awkward and forced, especially when the next sentence doesn't relate to the weather at all. It makes one wonder why the heat is so angry at her. And if there is no reason for the heat's unwarranted attack, why phrase it like that?

It's okay to use the word "was" occasionally: "It was so cold my fingers were immediately numb and I couldn't manage the zipper on my coat." Even better is if the the love interest has to move in close to help with the zipper and the cool vapors of their breath mix together. See?! Now the weather relates to the main character, moves the plot forward, and carries symbolic meaning.

So try to remember, weather is never just weather.

Death by Description

Weather Check: Nice and sunny. Perfect for my bike ride. And with any luck it will cloud over and rain the moment I get home. I have a lot of writing I need to do today.

Description. The story needs it to survive, but too much can kill it. Here are a few tips I've found helpful when writing description:

- Description should match the POV character. In my mind, this is the number one rule. Everyone sees things differently based on their own unique life experiences. Take that into account when writing description. 

A girl walks in wearing a tight, low cut dress and sparkly Jimmy Choos. What's a guy going to notice first? What is a girl? An environmentalist will notice things differently than a factory worker. A person from the country visits the city--what do they see?

- There is a fine line between too much and too little. Too little and the reader is disoriented. Too much and the reader is bored. Readers only need a taste, then let their imagination fill in the rest. 

Too much detail tires the reader's mind as they try to align their mental image with the detailed description in the book. Obviously some fantasy and science fiction requires more description for world building, but the same general principle applies.

- Many writers feel the need to describe a new location/character/feeling in full detail the first time it's introduced. What if you were listening to a friend tell you about a conversation she had, and she started off with, "I was talking with Jane at the beach, she was wearing a navy-blue tankini with a matching swim skirt, fire engine red flip-flops, she had her hair in a pony tail and her skin was moist with sunscreen, and she had braces, and tortoise-shell reflective sunglasses, and her green, floral beach towel was spread out on the sand..."? 

All you need to give the reader is the part that's important to the POV character. You can fill in other details later.

- An exception to the above rule is when the description is needed to show the difference from the norm. A hot dog is a hot dog. No need to describe it. Unless it's different. A starving kid finds a withered half eaten hot dog in a dumpster--then you might want to describe the smell, the look, the taste.

- Break up description with action or dialogue.

- A general rule of thumb: use only two to three senses per description to avoid sensory overload.

- Avoid cliche. How many icy-cold fingers, rolling waves, and cars crunching on gravel do we need. It's a challenge, but writers have to come up with new and different ways to describe common things.

**Incidentally, the dictionary.com word of the day is: longueur - a dull and tedious passage in a book or performance art. Hmmmm....