Room description

I'm having a really hard time discribing my character's rooms without doing a block of description. Any tips?

I find a block of description is less annoying than the other way people do it. Trying to casually describe things. For example: "that's silly!" Marcus said as he sat down on the turquoise chair that matched the carpet. (repeat with every other line)

It's obvious. Just get the description out of the way and move on with the story. It doesn't have to be a block, just don't mention things that aren't relevant.

I agree with the point about relevance. I think that if you ask yourself why you're describing the room, it'll be a lot easier to write a description that doesn't bog down the narrative too much. I mean, description for the sake of description is never a good thing (unless you're writing a descriptive essay, maybe, and even then, there's usually something underlying it.), so think about why you're describing the room. Is it to give us insight into your MC's character? Then focus on the things that show who s/he is - books, posters, general style, etc. Is it to awe us with the grandeur of the fantastic setting? Then focus on vivid imagery to capture that grandeur in as few words as possible. Is it simply to give us grounding for the character's interaction? Then a small, sparse, one-line description should suffice.

I do disagree with one point, though, Ducati - the integrated description isn't so bad, I think, so long as it's used correctly. Obviously, adding tags to dialogue with every line isn't a good idea, but neither is a block of description of an environment that the characters don't interact with at all. If the characters are somewhere, there should be a reason for that setting - even if it's just for mood purposes.

~Annie

I agree that it's not so bad to have it all at once. However, I think one important thing is to make sure everything you're describing (and I mean every word) is important to the storyline. A lot of times you can whittle it down to be just a couple of lines that will move the story along just as much as a two paragraph chunk. For instance, instead of:

"The room was a deep purple. She refused to conform to her mother's standards and paint the walls a cookie-cutter eggshell white. As if in continuation of that same rebellion, every inch of wall space was covered with posters and drawings she'd done in class. There was no mistaking she was an artistic soul. The bed was unmade, the royal blue quilt splayed everywhere. Her dresser stood against the far wall, littered with oddities and a random assortment of makeup she never used. The mirror held more pictures, and was rarely used for its intended purpose. She plopped down on the bed."

It could easily be compacted to something like:

"You could barely tell the walls were a plum purple but for all the overlapping posters and doodles she'd done in class. Her dresser was a mess, she noted. She was hardly ever much for cleaning, though. She plopped down on her unmade bed."

A lot of times less words are better. Just some food for thought.

Less is more. I have to post again to clarify that. The reader should create the world for themselves with a little help from you. Reading is should be just as much a creative process as writing.

Have the characters move around the room or notice things particular about the room. And make sure you're describing interesting things.

Um... yeah. Forgive me, I'm being vague. Not to seem self-centered, but how about some examples?

In FREAK, I did this:

The servant led her from the main part of the house to an unused portion, where it was so cold that ice slicked the floors and the freak had to be careful not to slip. Finally, when the freak could see her breath mist up in front of her, the servant stopped and flung open the door.

“This is your new room.”

The freak blinked.

It was gray and dingy with only a bed, a small pot, and a tiny wood stove in the corner. The bed had no sheets and mouse droppings covered the mattress. A quick look over the room told the freak where the mouse was--off in the corner, a frozen mouse carcass lay, quite undisturbed.

So I'm constantly including the character (the freak) in this description. Instead of using merely adjectives, I use verbs and nouns whenever I can. It's not just cold... ice slicks the floors. More than that my character has to be careful not to slip. So I'm always including her in it, even when it's just a simple description. Even in the last paragraph, which is almost exclusively omniscient, she notices things that only she would notice. The first thing she notices is color. She notices color all the time--she loves color! So it's fitting that she notices this first. And she is viewing the room relatively unemotionally, as it is. So it seems like she's withdrawing from it. Yet, she is still there all the time.

It doesn't have to be just for the evil-sounding scenes though. This works everywhere. Consider:

The freak had discovered it quite by accident. She was given instructions to clean a room in the east wing, but as she walked there, she missed a turn and got lost. She was retracing her steps when she saw a giant spider web.

After some looking, the freak spotted the spider up towards the ceiling, resting on the silvery strands. “Are you looking for food?” the freak asked, her voice harsh from disuse. When the spider ignored her, she said, “Well, there is no food. You should go.”

The spider considered her for a long moment with beady black eyes and then dropped down, landing on the hard tiled floor. Glancing back at the freak, it scuttled around the corner.

She followed.

Just as she caught up with the spider, it disappeared under a large door. She glanced up. On the front of the door in peeling letters were the words, “Banned Art.” The door looked like it had been locked once a long time ago, but now an iron key rusted in the keyhole.

“Silly spider,” she murmured to the door. After checking the hall for the menservants, the freak set down her bucket, full of cleaning supplies, and tested the door.

It swung open.

Carefully, she slipped the key in her pocket and looked through the room. Though the walls were painted white, they were cluttered with abstract paintings featuring strange combinations of purples and pinks and greens, all twisted together in lovely shapes that reminded her of dancing flowers. And, in the middle of the room, trapped in a cage of silvery spider webs, was the bird.

It wasn’t like any bird the freak had had seen before. Instead of being small and demure, like the finches and sparrows that had once perched on her fingers, this one was large with a sharp beak and long spindly talons. Every barb could be seen in its outstretched wings and the statue wasn't white either; it was made of black marble, speckled with silver metallic flakes. And its eyes were made of silver, a tiny piece of onyx put in for the pupil.

She fell in love with it immediately.

She couldn’t come and visit the bird very much, but it appeared in her dreams many times, rescuing her from endless fields of dancing white statues and red carnations. And she would fly, resting on its back, surrounded by lovely blue skies and antique airplanes.

...as you probably guessed, FREAK is very surreal and dreamlike. XD Anyway! Once more, there's an emphasis on what she would notice. Plus! I integrated a story into the description, which is always a plus. But! You'll notice that I always tie the character into this. As I said before, she loves color. But birds are also a recurring theme, so when she notices this bird, this is Big. And then there's just the regular description of the room. As you probably guessed from the description, she has a funny, often beautiful way of looking at the mundane. The descriptions don't merely describe the room... they describe her. From the colors to the birds to flashes of life (spiders, flowers), this portrays the character's love of life and beauty. And this is good. When you can "read" a character without having the character endlessly rant about her situation of life or her troubles, you know it's good.

Also! As the last paragraph quoted hints, she doesn't just forget her surroundings. She brings it with her. When you describe a setting, you want readers to remember it. So your characters, ideally, should define the settings and vice versa.

The trick is to be subtle. And never forget your character.

Great. Thank you very much! Now I can start writing again.