Description can bring layers of atmosphere and authenticity that drops the reader fully inside the world of your story.
But sometimes writers assume that the only way to create a world for the reader to inhabit is to include loads of detail.
But too much description can bog your readers down and make them confused about what they should pay attention to and what’s merely ornamental.
If you don’t select what goes into your description, it will strike the reader as arbitrary or gratuitous.
So the question is, what goes into your descriptions? And what stays out? What’s the criteria?
In this episode, I’m giving you four guidelines to help you write dazzling descriptions that create vivid, lasting impressions on your reader.
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Episode at a glance:
[2:29] Hear common missteps writers make with description, including overloaded and extraneous description, vague description, and clustered description.
[5:32] Point of view determines the way you describe things. You want to make sure your description is anchored in the character’s consciousness, mood, and the way he or she experiences what he or she is observing.
[8:34] Physical perspective refers to the time of day, season, and the spatial range from which the character is observing what he/she sees. Is the viewer close or far away? Where is your character spatially, as he or she is observing what’s being described?
[11:06] To avoid inert, sluggish description, create images. Using a before and after example from The Great Gatsby, learn how to orchestrate lush, concrete, and specific details into a stunning images.
[15:48] The most effective descriptions are concrete and specific. Description is not a still life. A great description activates the reader senses – colors, textures, shapes, contrasts, smells.
Links mentioned in this episode:
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
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