Mistic Pets

Welcome to Issue 19
Created by The Mistic Pets Team

Decent Descriptions
Written By Caustic

A good description is a powerful way to really suck a reader in to whatever you're writing. Whether roleplaying or on your own, it's an essential skill that needs to be mastered; of course this also means that a bad description can turn a reader away completely.

I'll focus on the two opposite sides of descriptions: too much and too little.

Too Much
This happens when you launch into a thick paragraph and you find yourself writing only about a droplet of blood on the floor, or some other simple thing that's blown out of proportion. While you do want your reader to be able to clearly visualize the scene, over-writing is confusing, boring, and very hard to take seriously. It's often described as "purple prose".

"Edward in the sunlight was shocking. I couldn't get used to it, though I'd been staring at him all afternoon. His skin, white despite the faint flush from yesterday's hunting trip, literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface. He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare. His glistening, pale lavender lids were shut, though of course he didn't sleep. A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal."
From "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer

This is purple prose at its worst (at least compared to books I've read). This paragraph is especially unnecessary because Edward is not a new character; we were introduced to him earlier so he's already been described to us. However, even if this were an introductory paragraph it'd still be terrible. It's so long and drawn out that it loses any real meaning, and rather than being in awe of the mental picture the writer was trying to make me see, I'm bored. Each sentence is basically a repetition of the previous one, just with different adjectives. A better way to write it would have been:

"Edward in the sunlight was shocking. His skin, pale despite a faint flush from yesterday's hunting, glimmered in the sunlight, and he lay still as a statue in the grass."

While still overly romantic, those two sentences conveyed just as much information and carried more impact than the long-winded paragraph. In writing, less is more; if you can eliminate a word, do it!

Too Little
Overwriting may be dull and tedious, but inadequate descriptions can be just as frustrating to read. Often, they're either choppy and ruin the story's flow, or simply confuse the reader because what's going on hasn't been explained properly. For example, "There was a castle in the distance," leaves you wondering a whole number of things because there are many kinds of castles. Describing every turret and tower will take you into the realm of over-writing, but you need to at least give a basic picture. For example:

"A huge mass of dark stone dominated the horizon. Towers, with roofs pointed at the top like witch's hats, shot up into the sky, the most distinguishable features at such a distance. The entire castle was set on a high hill so it looked down upon the surrounding land."

Not only does this give the reader a decent idea of what this castle looks like, it leaves room for their own imaginations to "finish" the picture and creates a dark sort of mood -- pretty good for three sentences.

Other Tips
These don't really fit into the two categories above, but I've found these tips helpful in my own writing.

-- Use powerful verbs. If your writing is littered with tons of adverbs (quickly, powerfully, etc) then your verbs might be too weak.

-- The thesaurus is both your friend and a great temptation. Using the same words repeatedly is just bad writing, but so is digging through your thesaurus and using every single synonym you can find to replace certain words (see the Twilight excerpt). Also make sure the word you use actually means what you want it to; not all synonyms are perfect!

-- Show, don't tell. This is pretty much the number one rule for writing descriptions. Don't just say that "It was a hot one hundred degrees outside," tell me what's happening. "I walked outside and a blast of heat hit me," is a better (if not perfect) way to convey that it's hot.

Keep practicing, because that's the only way you'll improve! Read a lot and write a lot; you'll be surprised at how your writing matures and better plots and characters come to your mind.

Comments

Written By Ace

I'm pretty bad at descriptions, so thanks for writing this!

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