Descriptive Writing

[fcassie74]

I myself once was really bad at writing descriptively, but after I practiced over and over I think I got good at it. Could I do it right now without a plot.... I WISH!

[moderntimes]

We learn by doing. Today I wrote a chapter where the principals are having lunch in a restaurant, described the restaurant, decor, the menu, and so on, what they ordered, eating during the conversation, which is of course the main thrust of the chapter.

[sammi8764]

I try hard. I find that, for me, listening to piano music (or any music really) helps stimulate my mind, so I listen to music and think about placing myself in the scene I'm writing. If my character was standing on a sidewalk in the fall and heard a bird singing, for instance, I would imagine myself on that sidewalk. Example:

My feet trudged along the dirty sidewalk, avoiding the pieces of trash and gum that clung stubbornly to the cement. The only pretty color my downcast eyes saw was the fire-orange of the autumn leaves. I liked stepping on them, hearing that loud crunch of the dead leaf. The breeze was a bit chilly, so I pulled my jacket closer together and tightened my scratchy red scarf. I glanced up at the morning sky, the sun glowing warmly, ready to light the day. Apparently the sun wasn't the only thing excited for the day; a little bird, a robin I think, landed on a tree branch next to me and chirped. Its rust colored feathers ruffled as it prepared for it's good morning song. The melody was a happy one, with high notes and crescendos. It made me smile. If that little bird could wake up singing, ready to start the day, then so could I. I started whistling along with the bird. It looked in my direction and then continued its song. I laughed and continued on my way, whistling my version of the bird's tune and smelling the fresh pumpkin pie in Mrs. Polk's kitchen window.

[moderntimes]

Your descriptions are eloquent but some readers might consider them slightly overblown, too detailed with an excess of adjectives. But this is your style and it's literate, excellent descriptions.

I just finished my 3rd novel (completed this week, tonight finished a thorough review and edit). My novel is modern American private detective fiction, so the style is a bit more abrupt and sharp than your example:

Homicide Detective David Meierhoff and I were drinking beer, hanging out at a picnic table on the front patio of the West Alabama Ice House. I had my regular Budweiser longneck but David was experimenting with one of those trendy new brews that came in a slender faux-metallic bottle and featured pushy TV commercials with lots of CGI and bold graphics. I speculated silently whether both beers were filled from the same vat, his bottle simply costing a half buck more.

It was a normal spring afternoon in Houston, about ninety-two degrees. But we had a good breeze, humidity was thankfully low, and our beers were frosty cold.

Meierhoff and I were concentrating intensely on being unproductive, idly watching traffic rumble along the street in front of the tavern and less idly observing the newest barmaid, TJ. She had curly blonde hair, bright blue eyes, a voluptuous figure, and looked about sixteen, although I knew she already had a BA and was working toward her master’s in marketing.

We’d been here a while and thus far had spoken not a word between us. This is often a good thing, saying nothing. You and a friend simply relax and let the world circumscribe its insane spiral past your field of view and, for a while, you’re immune. Or pretend to be.

[sammi8764]

There are many different types of descriptive writing. Some, like yours, I do believe, tend to deal more with reality, the concrete things in the scene, describing the items in the scene physically, if that makes sense. And there's the kind I write, which focuses more on the feelings and emotions the objects in the scene produces. Erin Morgenstern, author of The Night Circus, does this a lot in her book, which is probably one of the reasons I love it so much. I can see how it could be perceived as too wordy and having too many adjectives, like you said, but I believe it is simply a preference. But thank you for the compliment regardless.

[moderntimes]

Regarding feelings and emotions, here's a segment that occurs just after my protagonist has just witnessed a very graphic and brutal murder scene:

Diorama in blood, meant for us to absorb, for us all to bear witness.

I stood there a moment, stunned, unthinking. Then the stench and blasphemy and evil overtook me and I turned quickly, out the apartment door, choking, spitting up anything in my stomach onto the little lawn. Acidic coffee was all I could offer but the spasms persisted.

Hunched over and dizzy, I eventually regained my balance, deep breathing until I was fairly certain I wouldn’t simply run down the street screaming, continue running and screaming until I was spent, spent of energy and spent of the sordid life in which I found myself this day.

Instead, I steeled my resolve and walked back inside where Homicide Captain Joe Duggan and Detective David Meierhoff were patiently waiting.

------------- as you can see, our descriptive styles are quite different. But of course I'm writing a modern crime novel and your excerpt is obviiously from a more mainstream and sedate theme. So by comparison, here's a short sequence of description from one of my mainstream short stories:

I tilted the seatback and slumped, hunching my shoulders and burrowing my head in a fruitless retreat from events to come. But I really didn’t know what might occur and for that I was fearful. I could scarcely comprehend what I was doing, flying to Detroit to meet a man I did not like and witness the grave of a woman whom I had loved. How I’d persuaded myself to undertake this pilgrimage was beyond me.

A wide montage swept beneath the wing of the plane as it bore its way north into the central expanse of the American heartland. We were above the rolling clouds and I could see how they shadowed portions of the terrain beneath, casting alternating dapples of bright and dark onto those living there. From my point of view it seemed trivial, a bit of occasional shade, sunlight else, but in fact great sections of countryside were wrought with constant evolution, change affecting life and perceptions of that life by all who were fixed upon the earth.

Toward the horizon a squall line, rainclouds welcomed by farmer and cursed by those who vainly hoped for a sunlit Saturday picnic. Yet I could cover the storm with my open hand. It was in the perspective, and perspective brings wisdom, they say. Perhaps, but what perspective, what process led me here?

Of course I knew precisely what it was. Time’s arrow, its relentless and inexorable needle piercing us always, despite our futile efforts to turn the blade aside.

That, and Hamlet’s fell sergeant, Death.