Descriptive Writing

[cooltodd]

You know descriptive writing, right? Where you describe something so well that a person can imagine it in vivid detail. Can you do that? Are you good at that?

Do you have any paragraph sample? Could you write one right now?

I'm not too good at it, and we had to do a descriptive writing exercise in class today. I think mine was horrible.

[DuchessAngel37]

The only time I every do this, or I should say, when I bother to do it, is when I'm writing some kind of love scene, or something seriously dramatic. Fights, finding something, stuff like that.

At the moment, my best descriptives are love scenes, because when I'm in the mood (no pun intended), I tend to write a bunch of them at once, then later I fit them into whatever story I need them for. I've written like 6 in the past few days.

[Authorgen]

You know descriptive writing, right? Where you describe something so well that a person can imagine it in vivid detail. Can you do that? Are you good at that?

Do you have any paragraph sample? Could you write one right now?

I'm not too good at it, and we had to do a descriptive writing exercise in class today. I think mine was horrible.

Yes, I can do that:

Here is an example from a story I wrote about two years ago.

In the congested west side downtown Los Angeles area, across the street from the Bonaventure Hotel, the giant clock that touched the sky in Persian Square on Fifth and Olive Street rung out five strokes, alerting the working class in towering buildings that the hours of their labor had come to an end. Motor coach operators from city transits, metro links, and shuttle buses from the Marriott and Embassy Suites Hotel and Hertz Rent a Car, with stern faces lined the streets as they waited impatiently for passengers to get on board--for crime played its best at dusk.
Breezy winds swirled and rolled cans and empty bottles along the curbside as debris swept across the eastside Metropolitan area of downtown Los Angeles, a little run down community on the outskirts of Japan town across the Mission Bridge outside Aliso Village, which was a small population of winos, homeless, ex-offenders, and two-dollar prostitutes. Right outside a Chinese Laundry, two broken down-looking derelicts, which could barely stand on their feet, squabbled in the streets over a couple of white dress shirts one found in the trash barrel.
The traffic on wall Street had slowed down to observe a hand full of LAPD Officers in dark printed uniforms who were doubled over, questioning a big, fleshy African- American woman of dark-skin, who weighed approximately four hundred pounds; she was sitting stark-naked on a bed of newspapers under the stairwell of a brick building with her legs opened, exposing her hairy jungle. It appeared that she was either raped or perhaps prostituting. On the next block over on San Julian Street, a tall fragile, shabby black wino with one leg, who wore nothing but a raggedy white shirt and brown corduroy cutoffs, screamed for help as he tried to hobble away on crutches from two black teenage boys who ran behind him pointing switchblades.

[MatthewAlexander]

I am actually so bad at descriptive writing. For some reason the words just don't come out the way they should.

[zylon]

yeahsame goes for me , i just not able to find the right vocabulary, so i just end up using broad terms

[hopeingod]

Something to consider is the approach that Hemingway took. Here's an article that might help: http://augustwainwright.com/how-to-writ ... hemingway/ Being too descriptive is pointless, he often commented, and displayed in his articles and writing. Stay on point, don't veer off course or distract.

[anomalocaris]

I'm on board with Hopeingod. Overdone description can detract, rather than enhance your writing. I've worked with a lot of beginning writers who don't understand 2 really basic concepts. The first is that you don't want to describe everything in a scene. You want to pick and choose the details that enhance the mood you're trying to create. The second is that words have both literal meanings, and connotations you won't find in the dictionary, but which come from common usage. A good example of the latter -- a young writer I was working with wrote a scene where a man was intimidating a woman, and grabbed her and "twirled her around." Technically it was accurate, but it totally broke the mood because we normally think of twirling as a light-hearted or dance related thing. So, you have to choose words carefully and consider all aspects of them.

I think a good exercise in description is to choose a scene (or look at a photo) and describe the exact same scene in three or four different ways, choosing details each time, to produce 3 or 4 different moods. For example, take a woodland scene at night, and make it spooky, romantic, dangerous, and peaceful.

[hopeingod]

I'm on board with Hopeingod. Overdone description can detract, rather than enhance your writing. I've worked with a lot of beginning writers who don't understand 2 really basic concepts. The first is that you don't want to describe everything in a scene. You want to pick and choose the details that enhance the mood you're trying to create. The second is that words have both literal meanings, and connotations you won't find in the dictionary, but which come from common usage. A good example of the latter -- a young writer I was working with wrote a scene where a man was intimidating a woman, and grabbed her and "twirled her around." Technically it was accurate, but it totally broke the mood because we normally think of twirling as a light-hearted or dance related thing. So, you have to choose words carefully and consider all aspects of them.

I think a good exercise in description is to choose a scene (or look at a photo) and describe the exact same scene in three or four different ways, choosing details each time, to produce 3 or 4 different moods. For example, take a woodland scene at night, and make it spooky, romantic, dangerous, and peaceful.

I reconsidered my use of the word "distract" and your use of the word "detract," anomalocaris, and they seem to suit the point. You don't want to draw away or divert the mind or attention. Neither do you want to diminish the importance or value. I found, that, as a reporter for three dailies, descriptive writing was just beginning to be birthed, called "New Journalism" which uses fictional techniques to illuminate or dramatize. I employed some of it, and still found, as Hemingway did, that when I refused to describe emotions, the readers were well able to do it themselves.
David

[booklover30]

Yes I can actually. Especially if the image that I want to paint is fresh in my head. Also as a writer I think anything you do starts off bad in your head. I know for me no matter how much I write I always think maybe it could be a little bit better. But just remember to try putting in as much detail as possible with out becoming too redundant and you should be fine. Detail is a books best friend.

[moderntimes]

Well, I'm a writer and working hard (not just right now, ha ha) on my 3rd mystery novel. Here's the beginning paragraph of that new novel, "Blood Vengeance":

The efficiency apartment was neat and spotless, maintained by someone who obviously took her student life seriously, a young woman with pride in her modest surroundings. Inexpensive bookshelves, filled to capacity with paperbacks and collegiate texts, lined the walls. Stacks of notebooks, a pristine desk and office-style cubicle, laptop and printer, family photos. A small flatscreen TV and combo DVD player on one shelf. Nearby bed made up, sheets tucked. Adjoined kitchenette gleaming, dining counter and two bar stools the same. Bathroom next, also clean, bright.

I had two principal objectives... First, to of course show the scene. Second, to use flat words and emotionless description to contrast the next paragraph, which is quite graphic and vivid, and harshly describes the fact and details of the murder of the young woman who lived there. So there's a contrast between the neutral phrasing in para 1 and the bloody words of para 2.

Here's a more eloquent description, words and phrasing chosen to provide the reader not just with specific details but the "flavor" of a sedate and lovely small college campus:

St. Vincent college sported a gracious campus, easy lawns and curved walkways, comfy places to sit and chat along your way. Students who were certainly older than the thirteen they appeared, teachers and staff also younger than I, maybe a few old timers in their forties creeping along. Was it only a few years ago that I was immersed in a similar student life? UT was mammoth by comparison but all colleges look the same, I think. A mixture of intellect, learning, and youth. Plus lots of fun, hopefully. I envied the kids, their lives ahead of them. But how many might squander their opportunities as I had? How many would emulate me in that most vital of studies, life itself, and resolve themselves into abject failures? Only time and raw chance would tell.
I followed the directions that Sister Mary Frances gave me, strolled halfway across campus to the Liberal Arts building. Like most structures on a college campus, it was conventional, educational, somewhat boring, but friendly nonetheless.

Finally, the description of two lawmen, one a Texas Ranger, the other an FBI agent. My general idea is to show them both as smart and capable but different types, and how their appearance was critical to their inner image. I also want to have some fun here as well:

First thing I saw when entering the conference room was boots. A pair of hand-tooled beauties decorated with an Alamo theme were propped on the table. The boots were worn by Texas Ranger Arvis Danforth. He was about six-three, slender and athletic, salt-and-pepper hair cut just long enough to offer a Western take without being gaudy, a perfectly trimmed mustache to balance. Danforth was a handsome man with the weathered appearance of someone as used to the saddle as his Ranger issue SUV. His attire was completed by light brown slacks with a law enforcement-style stripe down the leg, a white Western-style dress shirt, bolo tie, a silver Lone Star badge on his belt, and a fine leather holster that matched the boots. In the holster was a big 1911 .45 pistol, a Kimber I thought.
Ranger Danforth was sitting next to a man who appeared his polar opposite. He was FBI Special Agent Ed Scudder, an older guy, unkempt grey hair, a well-used tan overcoat, slightly rumpled appearance. Agent Danforth bore a striking resemblance to actor William B. Davis, the subversive Cigarette Smoking Man from X-Files. And the fact that Danforth was a chain smoker didn’t help dispel the image. He’d told us that he would often get stopped by people in airports, asking for his autograph.
“What do you do?” I had asked. He smiled, shrugged. “I just sign ‘Bill Davis’ and thank them.”

[hopeingod]

Another essay on Hemingway's style well worth the time to read: http://blogs.cofc.edu/farrells/files/20 ... ingway.pdf

[randomcheerio]

Something to consider is the approach that Hemingway took. Here's an article that might help: Being too descriptive is pointless, he often commented, and displayed in his articles and writing. Stay on point, don't veer off course or distract.

Thanks for posting that article. It was a great read! I even pinned it to one of my pinterest boards for future reference.

[moderntimes]

Hemingway was iconic of course. And a pretty nasty person. Amazes me always, such a great writer but an ass inside. Oh well. Y'know, he was pals with James Joyce in Paris. They had a routine when they went out drinking -- Joyce, being the genius he was, would insult someone, pick a fight, they'd go outside, and Hemingway would then beat up the insulted guy. True.

Incidentally, I grew up in Kansas City, when I was stringing for the Kansas City Star, I lived in the same area where Hemingway did when he was an "ambulance chaser" reporter for the Star. His small apartment was 4 houses down from mine!

It's quite a unique thing -- go inside the Star main building (1818 Grand Ave -- I'll never forget that address) and on the wall, the Star's war correspondents are on plaques. And for WW-I, "E. Hemingway". And if you go straight out the main front door and cross Grand, enter Spead's Bar and there will be the photo of Hemingway on the wall. We'd always head there after the paper went to bed (11pm).

[hopeingod]

The book I read, "A Summer in Paris" by Morely Calahan, opened my eyes to the real Hemingway, who some of us may have imagined as being the primary focus of Parisian society of the 1920s. That group of writers was known as the Lost Generation, the name supposedly an indication of their disillusionment with war. While Hemingway liked posing as a boxer and super macho man, the author wrote that he may very well have been a closeted gay. The dirty laundry of many expats, Calahan spelled out. Fitzgerald married a mentally ill, tortured, alcoholic woman, Zelda, and though it is not entirely confirmed, he tried to hang out with Hemingway to distract others from his real self, an inwardly struggling, repressed homosexual, as was Hemingway, according to Calahan. All those Lost souls lived in Paris to hide their true selves. For instance, Henry James inward change caused him to grow vulgar in his writing and Gertrude Stein, Calahan wrote, really had nothing to convey.

[moderntimes]

Well, mmm... I think that there's a sort of trend in expose books that always want to portray the unhappy male as a closeted gay. There's simply no proof whatsoever that Hemingway was gay. I've heard first-hand accounts of his "exploits" in KC when he was a reporter for the Star, and they all talked about a hard drinking borderline alcoholic man who was a talented writer but not a nice person to be around. You had to be his wingman or he'd shun you. Brutal in reality, artistic in his writing. But not gay nor ever having the signs of such, closeted or not.

Realize I'm old enough to have met people who knew him well, as I worked for the KC Star as a stringer when young and knew quite a few reporters well. I also grew up and lived all my life (when there) in the "Westport" district, haven for artists, musicians, and then, a close-knit gay population. Working in the performing arts (a semi-pro singer who had a ballet dancer girlfriend) I also knew many gays, many old enough to have known Hemingway but none who ever mentioned him.

There are just some thuggish people who hate gays but aren't closeted. They are straight but simply hate gays. Hemingway was, I think, one of those types.

Maybe I'm wrong but hey, I'm wrong a lot.