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Some notes on description



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Tue Jul 02, 2013 11:30 pm
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Kale says...



For the purposes of this piece, I'm using "description" to mean "a collection of details", and so the descriptions I'll be talking about are not just limited to attributes. Because attributes are the most common type of description, however, they will be the primary focus.

"Show; don't tell" is a very common mantra I'm sure most everyone here has heard. Whether you wholeheartedly agree with it or not, the fact remains that showing, or describing, is a very important technique in crafting stories that are interesting to read. However, too much description bloats prose and makes it tedious to read, especially for those readers who are more interested in happenings, and so striking a balance between the showing and telling, or detail and summary, is important to keep a story engaging.

One of the most common misconceptions about description is that it must be long and involved. As a result, the most common mistake when describing elements is to group all the description together into a massive lump of details. What results is something I like to call a description dump, and these are bad because unless your reader is the sort who appreciates minutiae, your reader is going to start skimming, and if your readers are skimming, they've lost their connection to the story.

Description doesn't have to be long or involved, nor does it need to be grouped together into one lump sum of description. Rather, description can, and in my opinion should, be seamlessly incorporated into the narration itself so that the flow of events is never interrupted. How exactly you go about achieving this seamless flow is up to you, though there are a few things to keep in mind:

  • Precision
  • Concision
  • Relevance

Precision and Concision

Of the three, precision is perhaps the most important element in a good description, and it lends itself readily to crafting concise descriptions. The less you rely on generic descriptors, the more vivid the descriptions you employ become. One of the best ways to write precise descriptions is to rely more on vivid verbs, using as few adjectives and adverbs as possible. This also doubles as a good way to keep your descriptions concise, hence why these two are grouped together.

Be careful though: do not sacrifice accessibility for precision and concision. A word with absolutely perfect meaning is not doing its job as a descriptor if your reader does not comprehend it. Try to avoid sending your readers to a dictionary very often, otherwise you may deter them from reading the story.

Spoiler! :
Sending your readers to a dictionary every once in a while, however, helps expand their vocabulary. ;P

Relevance

Details should always be relevant in some way to the story, whether because they reveal important aspects of the character or situation, set the mood of a scene, emphasize a symbol or theme, or help establish the setting. Irrelevant details bloat the writing and distract from the relevant details, although irrelevant details are not always bad: they can be used to great effect to add flavoring to otherwise dry narration, though ideally you'd want all your details to be relevant in some manner.

There are two main types of relevance: immediate and not. When determining whether a detail is relevant, it's always a good idea to ask yourself "Does the reader absolutely need to know this?" If the answer is "yes", you should then ask yourself "Do they need to know it right now?" If the answer is "no", then the description is not immediately relevant and can be inserted elsewhere in the story, preferably where there's a dearth of description.

In general, you'll want to keep the number of immediately relevant details down to a minimum, otherwise you risk readers wondering why these bits of information are only being revealed now instead of earlier. The easiest way to avoid this is to reveal said details earlier in the story, and if you insert these relevant details unobtrusively into the story, you get this awesome thing called foreshadowing.

Miscellaneous

Your word choice and when you reveal details can have a huge impact upon the tone of your story, and stories that employ comedy in particular benefit from careful use of description. For example:

He flounced into the room, a flurry of ruffles and rose, and stood to attention by her dresser. "What do you think?" he asked, smoothing out the frilled abomination.

She glanced away from her mirror before resuming her preening. "I think you should ask for a refund."

"Come now," her brother said with a pout. "We can be a complementary pair at the party tonight."

Her voice was flat. "No."

"Please?" The skirt audibly swished as it kissed the floor where her brother knelt, eyes pleading.

"I am not wearing that."

I bet you thought the brother was wearing the dress. ;P

Ultimately, the one true key to mastering the use of description is practice. Lots and lots of practice. And so I bid thee, go forth and practice!

Now shoo!
Secretly a Kyllorac, sometimes a Murtle.
There are no chickens in Hyrule.
Princessence: A LMS Project
WRFF | KotGR
  








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