How to pull off descriptions
New authors always describe the scene and place every object on the stage before they press the play button of their novels. And I feel that it happens because we live in a world filled with visual media like comics and films, which heavily influence our prose.
In visual media, itâs really easy to set the sceneâyou just show where every object is, doesnât matter if theyâre a part of the action about to come or not. But prose is quite different from comics and films. You canât just set the scene and expect the reader to wait for you to start action of the novel. You just begin the scene with action, making sure your reader is glued to the page.
And now that begs the questionâif not at the beginning, where do you describe the scene? Am I saying you should not use descriptions and details at all? Hell naw! Iâm just saying the way youâre doing it is wrongâthereâs a smarter way to pull off descriptions. And Iâm here to teach that to you.
#01 - What are descriptions?
Letâs start with the basicsâwhat are descriptions? How do you define descriptions? Or details, for that matter? And what do the words include?
Descriptions refer to⌠descriptions. Itâs that part of your prose where youâre not describing somethingâthe appearance of an object, perhaps. Mostly, we mean scene-descriptions when we use the term, but descriptions are more than just scene-descriptions.
Descriptions include appearances of characters too. Letâs call that character-descriptions.
Both scene-descriptions and character-descriptions are forms of descriptions that we regularly use in our prose. We mostly use them at the beginning of the sceneâjust out of habit.
Authors, especially the newer ones, feel that they need to describe each and every nook and cranny of the place or character so they can be visualized clearly by their readers, right as the authors themselves visualized them. And they do that at the start of the scene because how can you visualize a scene when you donât know how the scene looks first.
And thatâs why your prose is filled with how the clouds look or what lights are on the room before you even start with the dialogues and action. But the first paragraph doesnât need to be a simple scene-descriptionâit makes your prose formulaic and predictable. And boring. Let me help you with this.
#02 - Get in your narratorâs head
The prose may have many MCs, but a piece of prose only has a single narrator. And these days, thatâs mostly one of the characters of your story. Who uses third-person omniscient narrator these days anyway? If thatâs you, change your habits.
Anyway, know your narrator. Flesh out their character. And then internalize themâtheir speech and stuff like that. Internalize your narrator to such an extent that you can write prose from their point-of-view.
Now, I donât mean to say that only your narrator should be at the center of the sceneâfar from it. What I mean is you should get into your narratorâs head.
You do not describe a scene from the eyes of the authorâyouâbut from the eyes of the narrator. You see from their eyes, and understand what theyâre noticing. And then you write that.
Start your scene with what the narrator is looking at.
The dark clouds had covered the sky that day. The whole classroom was in shades of grayâquite unusual for someone like Sara who was used to the sun. She felt the gloom the day had brought with itâthe gloom that no one else in her class knew of.
She never had happy times under the clouds like that. Rain made her sad. Rain made her yearn for something she couldnât put into words. What was it that she was living for? Money? Happiness?
As she stared at the sky through the window, she was lost in her own quiet little corner. Both money and happinessâand even everything elseâwere temporary. All of it would leave her one day, then come back, then leave, then come back, like the waves of an ocean far away from any human civilization in sight.
All of it would come and goâlike rain, itâd fall on her, like rain, itâd evaporate without proof.
And suddenly, drops of water began hitting the window.
You know it was a cloudy day, where it could rain anytime soon. You know that for other students, it didnât really matter, but Sara felt really depressed because of the weather that day. You know Sara was at the corner, dealing with her emotions alone.
Itâs far better than this,
The dark clouds covered the sky that day. It could rain anytime soon.
From her seat at the corner of the room, Sara stared at the sky that made everything gray that day. SheâŚ
The main reason it doesnât work is that you describe the scene in the first paragraph, but itâs devoid of any emotions. Of any flavor. Itâs like a factual weather report of the day. Thatâs what you donât want to doâwrite descriptions in a factual tone.
If you want to pull off the prior one, get to your narratorâs head. See from their eyes, think from their brain. Understand what theyâre experiencing, and then write that experience from their POV.
Sara didnât care what everyone was wearingâthey were all probably in their school uniforms, obviously, so I didnât describe that. Sara didnât focus on how big the classroom was, or how filled, or what everybody was doing. Sara was just looking at the clouds and the clouds alone, hearing everybody just living their normal days, so I mentioned just those things.
As the author, you need to understand that only you, the author are the know-it-all about the scene, not your narrator. And that youâre different from your narrator.
Write as a narrator, not as an author.
This brings me to filler words. Now, hearing my advice, you might start writing something like this,
Sarah noticed the dark clouds through the window. She saw that theyâd saturated the place gray.
Fillers words like âseeâ, ânoticeâ, âstareâ, âhearâ should be ignored. But many authors who begin writing from the POV of the characters start using these verbs to describe what the character is experiencing.
But remember, the character is not cognizant of the fact that theyâre seeing a dark cloud, just that itâs a dark cloud. You donât need these filler wordsâstraight up describe what the character is seeing, instead of describing that the character is seeing.
There were dark clouds on the other end of the window, which saturated the place gray.
Sarah is still seeing the clouds, yeah. But weâre looking from her eyes, and her eyes ainât noticing that sheâs noticing the clouds.
Itâs kinda confusing, but itâs an important mistake to avoid. Filler words can really make your writing sound more amateurish than before and take away the experience of the reader, because the reader wants to see through the narratorâs eyes, not that the narrator is seeing.
Character-descriptions are a lot harder to pull off than scene-descriptions. Because itâs really confusing to know when to describe them, their clothing, their appearances, and what to tell and what not to.
For characters, you can give a full description of their looks. Keep it concise and clear, so that your readers can get a pretty good idea of the character with so few words that they donât notice youâve stopped action for a while.
Or can show your narrator scanning the character, and what they noticed about them.
Both these two tricks only work when a character is shown first time to the readers. After that, you donât really talk about their clothing or face anymore.
Until thereâs something out of the ordinary about your character.
What do I mean by that? See, youâve described the face and clothes of the character, and the next time they appear, the reader is gonna imagine the character in a similar set of clothes, with the same face and appearance that they had the first time. Therefore, any time other than the first, you donât go into detail about the character again. But, if something about your character is out of ordinaryâthere are bruises on their face, scars, or a change in the way they dressâdescribe it to the reader. Thatâs because your narrator may notice these little changes.
Clothing is a special case. Some new authors describe the clothes of the characters when theyâre describing the character every time the reader sees them. So, I wanna help you with this.
Clothing can be a way to show something about your characterâa character with a well-ironed business suit is gonna be different from a character with tight jeans and baggy t-shirt. Therefore, only use clothing to tell something unique about the character.
Refrain from describing the clothing of characters that dress like most others. Like, in a school, itâs obvious that all characters are wearing school uniforms. Also, a normal teenage boy may wear t-shirts and denim jeans. If your character is this, no need to describe their clothingâanything the reader would be imagining is fine.
Refrain from describing the clothing of one-dimensional side-charactersâthereâs a high chance youâve not really created them well enough that they have clothing that differs from the expectations of the readers. We all know what waiters wear, or what a college guy who was just passing by in the scene would be wearing.
You may describe the clothing of the important character in the story, but only in the first appearance. After that, describe their clothes only if the clothes seem really, really different from the first time. And stop describing their clothes if youâve set your character well enough in the story that your readers know what to expect from them in normal circumstancesâthen, describe clothes only when theyâre really, really different from their usual forms of clothing.
I think there was so much I had to say in this article, but I didnât do a good job. However, I said all that I wanted to say. I hope you guys liked the article and it helps you in one way or the other.
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