Hey, help me please. How do you write description in your novels? Not a character one, surrounding ones. How do you describe from 3 POV , the background of the novel?
5 Tips for Writing Great Descriptions
Hi there! Thanks for writing. I talk at length about this in my book The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers (See Chapter 4 / āBuilding Your Story World,ā Chapter 16 / Setting the Scene, and Chapter 21 / āChoosing the Right Detailsā for the majority of the discussion about description, but itās peppered throughout), so Iāll just give a brief rundown here. :)
Tip #1: Use concrete, sensory details
That means describing, with precision, a detail you can see/hear/touch/taste/smell. Avoid using vague words that are hard to visualize or sense, like āthe house was uglyā or āthe weather was bad.ā Instead, choose a sensory detail (or two) for your descriptions, for example āthe house was a wretched shade of salmon pinkā or āthe wind was blowing I could taste dust in my mouth.ā
Tip #2: Try not to over- or under-use descriptions
Itās common for beginning writers to either use no description, or go completely overboard. I give examples of both in my book. While thereās no hard rule about how much description is too little or too much (it depends a lot on the particular story, genre, and the writerās style), I personally like to include around 4-5 sensory details per page.
The idea is to give the reader a solid sense of where they are without going on and on, making them want to skim over as you carry on for paragraphs about the smell and texture of a doily.
Tip #3: Use more description during important parts of the story
Description draws your readers attention to what youāre describing. Use that to your advantage. If that doily contains a blood stain thatās a pivotal clue in your murder mystery, by all means spend three sentences describing the particular color red of the blood or the weird smell it emits. Where you linger, the reader will linger.
Tip #4: Use description to set the scene
Use more description at the beginning of a new scene, or anytime the location of your story changes. I talk about this in the section on transitions in my book. Summary gets a bad reputation in fiction, but these transitional paragraphs are the perfect time to paint the scene with sensory details about your characterās surroundings.
Tip #5: Pay attention to ācamera movementā
One common thing I see in writerās manuscripts is what I call ājerky camera movement.ā Hereās an example:
Jesse pulled into the driveway of the suspectās mansion around noon. A white, floppy dog barked ferociously in the window.Ā It was a warm, sweltering day. Jesse looked down and realized her shoe was untied. The house had three large columns in front, each wrapped with a gawdy red bow.Ā
In this example, the ācameraā moves from the driveway, to the dog in the window, to the āday,ā to Jesseās shoe, to the outside of the house. If that was your head, looking around the scene, youād get dizzy pretty fast. Hereās a smoother movement, starting wide and focusing in on Jesseās untied shoe.
It was a warm, sweltering day. Jesse pulled into the driveway of the suspectās mansion around noon. The house had three large columns in front, each wrapped with a gawdy red bow. In the window, a white, floppy dog barked ferociously. As Jesse approached the door, she looked down and realized her shoe was untied.
These arenāt perfect examples because Iāve dashed them off just now, but you get the idea :) Try not to make your reader seasick by making them look all over the scene (unless youāre trying to achieve that effect, for example, in a scene where your protagonist is drunk or discombobulated).
