By: K.M. Weiland
You can’t write
a good setting without a good description. That’s the way it rolls. In written
literature, what is setting if not description? How do you
convey it without description of some sort? For something so relatively
intuitive, setting descriptions can end up being surprisingly tricky to detail
effectively.
For one thing,
you have to be able to perfectly visualize the setting in your mind
(yay,
Pinterest!). For another, you have to be able to choose only the most
pertinent details and then—hardest of all—organize those details into some kind
of coherency that will allow your readers to share your perfect
visualization.
(And we won’t
even get into the fact that you first have to choose settings that are relevant, interesting, and thematically pertinent. Oh, and accurate.)
Today, let’s
examine each of these possible pitfalls and how they might be rendering
your setting descriptions less effective than they could be.
3 Ways to Ruin Your Setting Descriptions
1. No Filter on
the Details
If you’re like
me, you have a cinematic imagination (when I was young, I called the stories I
imagined “my movies”). You see every detail of your settings in
larger-than-life Technicolor (complete with light filters and slow-mo when
necessary). Quite admirably, you want to share that vivid sensation with
readers, down to the very last detail.
So you write
something like this:
Rose tiptoed into Max’s office. Now where
would he keep top-secret spy gadgets?
The room was perhaps thirty feet square, the
walls a serene shade of blue somewhere in between a springtime sky and a
robin’s eggshell. The carpet was two shades darker.
A monstrosity of an executive desk sat in
the middle of the room, in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, curtained in
velvet that looked to be two shades darker itself. Behind the desk, an eerily
empty leather-padded chair stood guard over the humming black HP computer with
its 36-inch touch-screen monitor. A printer, a scanner, three phones, even a
fax machine filled up one side of the desk.
Bookcases lined the walls, crammed so full
that hundreds of extra books had to lie sideways along the shelves’ front edge.
Above the bookcases, fully a dozen framed photographs glinted from behind
glass: three diplomas, five awards, two pictures of family, and one of a fluffy
cat.
The back of room, near the door, was
tastefully crowded with overstuffed furniture: a couch, two glass-topped
end tables, three gorgeously comfortable leather chairs. Flowers in blue and
purple cut-glass vases wafted scents of rose and jasmine from every corner.
Ready for some
action yet? This isn’t a terrible description. It definitely creates a detailed
picture of the office. It even offers a few interesting insights into Max. But it’s also
excruciatingly long (and I’ve seen ones that are even longer!). Readers were
ready for Rose to find the super-secret spy stuff after the first paragraph.
Even worse? This
much detail at the wrong time, in the wrong place, can actually end up stunting your
readers’ ability to evocatively visualize the scene. The most powerful
descriptions are those that give readers the tools to build their own settings, rather
than force-feeding them the author’s vision, detail by detail. All you need are a few well-placed telling details to help readers see
the whole scene at a glance.
2. No Organization of Details
. . .
To read the rest
of the post, click here:
~*~
If you missed my latest writing and
marketing tweets, here they are again:
- Emotional Wounds Thesaurus Entry: Wrongful Imprisonment - WRITERS HELPING WRITERS™ http://ow.ly/Yj2oF
- Author Marketing Mastery #7: Building the Necessary Author Marketing Collateral - Where Writers Win http://ow.ly/Yj2yE
- Most Common Mistakes Series, Pt. 47: Ineffective Setting Descriptions - Helping Writers Become Authors http://ow.ly/Yj2D5
- Making Structure Visible | TWO WRITING TEACHERS http://ow.ly/Yj2S9
- Go Teen Writers: 36 Plot Ideas for your Novel http://ow.ly/Yj2Th
- The Writer's Life: Supporting Characters: Allies - Killer Nashville Magazine http://ow.ly/Yj2UV
- Improve Your Writing Platform (or Author Platform) in 30 Days | WritersDigest.com http://ow.ly/Yj2Xn
- Scrivener Tips And Turning Failure Into Entrepreneurial Success With Joseph Michael | The Creative Penn http://ow.ly/Yj2YI
- Fiction University: Creating an Author Business Plan: Identifying Your Audience http://ow.ly/Yj39O
- Instagram Account Switching: This Week in Social Media : Social Media Examiner http://ow.ly/Yj3cf
- February 2016 Author Earnings Report: Amazon’s Ebook, Print, and Audio Sales – Author Earnings http://ow.ly/Yj3e9
- 50 Things Under 50 Bucks To Promote Your Book, Part 2 | Author Marketing Experts, Inc. http://ow.ly/Yj3fy
- 5 Reasons Writers Need Google Plus, Even Though New Google + is Awful http://ow.ly/Yj3hD
- Fanfiction or Plagiarism? Better Make Sure. | Indies Unlimited http://ow.ly/Yj3jo
- Why Indie Authors Need a Business Hat - The Book Designer http://ow.ly/Yj3lQ
No comments:
Post a Comment