101 TIWIK #7: Description: Borrow from Artists to Paint Your Picture with Words

Description is one of those concepts in writing that is easy to grasp, harder to execute.

For me, the key to learning how to describe well was understanding just what the goal of description is. When I was starting out as a writer, my tendency was to either put in too many details, and bog down the story, or leave too much to the imagination and leave the reader with an unclear idea of what I was trying to describe. I tended to describe more as a way of organizing information about the story world in my own mind, rather than considering what the impression would be on the reader. And that is the sole purpose of description in fiction: to paint a picture, or leave an impression, in the reader’s mind of the subject being described.

While the description in your story should rarely be limited to the visual sense (one of the first things they drum into your brain in riter skool is to use all five senses–sight, sound, smell, taste and touch–in your description), I’m going to use a very visual example to illustrate what I mean.

When an artist paints a picture, they don’t paint every single detail of the subject. Instead, they choose and emphasize key lines to convey an impression of the subject. For the art students reading this, I want to clarify that I’m not talking about the impressionists, but rather the fact that all art, from a pencil sketch to the most photo-real painting, conveys an impression of the subject rather than an exact replica.

So should it be in your written description. If a picture is worth a thousand words, one good sentence that paints a mental picture is also worth a thousand words.

I thought for some fun public humiliation, I’d share some of my earlier attempts at description as a way to show what I mean, and end with a more current example from DVBC, along with something from Robin Hobb to round it all out.

Here’s a line from the first pages I ever wrote on my first big project, when I was fourteen years old:

“The bubble vanished, and in its place stood five Pyxies. They stood about half the human height, and were lithe as a dancer. They had transparent wings.”

The trouble with this description is that it is too sparse. Can you picture what a Pyxy looks like? Are the right lines drawn about the subject to illustrate it in your mind? For me reading now, this brings up more questions about these creatures than answers. Are they humanoid? What do their faces look like? How big are the wings? Half of which human’s height–a five foot tall human or a six foot tall human? Are they pale? Dark? Do they have hair? And so on.

You may want your reader to fill in some of the blanks, but not all of them. If I were to re-write this today I might try this:

“The bubble vanished, and in its place five Pyxies hovered on gossamer wings. They were small creatures, only about two feet tall, with wide, dark eyes set in humanoid faces, and their skin glistened in the sunlight like oil on water.”

In close to the same word-count, I’ve revealed a lot more information about these creatures.

Here’s another example of my own writing, about ten years later:

“A wave of sound, smell, and heat rolled over him. The pod had actually been cool compared to the scorching Carina afternoon. Sweat popped out of the pores on his face, caking his powder and leaving contorted cracks on his face. His black wig became an oven and he found himself abandoning vanity and removing the hairpiece to reveal his own hair, dull brown, slicked and pinned tightly to his scalp.”

This is much more complete description than in the first example. You can almost feel the heat reading it. And the last sentence reveals character–he’s a vain man but he values comfort over vanity. The reader gets a glimpse of the person hiding under the wig. So far so good. One problem with this description is that it is lengthy. It uses a whole paragraph to say that the character is hot. If I were to re-write this, I would probably try to break up some of this description and weave it in with action. More importantly, this description of the character doesn’t leave the reader with a strong enough impression to identify the character later on, in another setting, one where, say, it’s not hot.

And another example, from Dream of a Vast Blue Cavern. This one better be good, right?!

“General Medoc, a tall man with a few white streaks in his dark hair, stood straight and stiff, speaking. His small mustache was trim. Every scale of his steel armor was in place. If Dynat’s Kinyara, standing beside him in her chaotic, feathery lava mesh, reached out and pushed against his arm with one of her long nails, he imagined Medoc might topple over.”

Bingo. This description, while far from perfect, does what description should do: it leaves the reader with a distinct impression of the character. You can’t help but take away from this paragraph the impression that Medoc is stiff, proper, orderly, organized. On top of that, you know what he’s doing, and there’s even a little description of another character, the Kinyara, thrown in there. If I had to critique this paragraph, I’d say that it’s still a little wordy. There are a lot of adjectives, and some of them could be cut.

Finally, let’s see how (in my opinion) the modern master of epic fantasy, Robin Hobb does it. This excerpt is from “Assassin’s Apprentice.”

“Standing on the garden path, in a simple shift, she looked at first glance to be little more than a girl. She was slender, and less tall than I, though I was not overly tall for my fourteen years. But her face was a woman’s, and right now her mouth was set in a condemning line, echoed by the brows knit over her hazel eyes. Her hair was dark and curling, and though she had tried to restrain it, ringlets of it had escaped at her forehead and neck.”

Not only do we have a clear physical picture of this character–petite, dark haired, wearing a shift, we also have an insight into her character. We can picture the frown. We get the sense of a character trying to be in control and failing. It’s brilliant.

The best way to test your descriptive powers is to rely on other people for feedback. It’s hard to tell if you’re painting a picture in your reader’s mind when you are the reader, because you already have a clear picture in your own mind. So enlist your writing buddies to read your descriptions, and then ask them to describe for you how they imagine the character. You might be very surprised by the results. If you can, try to figure out what details led to what impressions.

In short, good description leaves a firm impression of the subject in the mind of the reader.

Tomorrow: 101 TIWIK #7: Zap, Pow, Splat–Action! 

This post is part of a series of 101 Things I Wish I’d Known Before I Wrote My First Book. Start reading the series at the beginning.