The second lesson from The Art and Craft of Writing, available for paid subscribers, along with the related video.
Where does your story take place? In a blank white room?
Because blank whiteness is going to be what the reader sees if you don’t fill in a location.
In contemporary stories—particularly thrillers—very little description is used. This is because the book takes place in an environment the reader knows. “A hotel room” or “the local convenience store” is all that is needed to convey an entire setting to the reader. Any more setting than this might take away from the non-stop flow of the action.
This method only works, however, if your story is grounded in the familiar. If your story takes place in a historical, science fiction, or fantasy setting, it is up to you to set the stage.
To this end, we shall discuss two description techniques that can help draw your reader into the richness that is the alternate reality you wish to convey.
Description Technique 1: Senses
When I started writing, I used to swap the pages I finished that week with two writer friends. We would read each other’s work and send back comments. My friend’s comments were almost universally the same. They constantly complained that I had not included any sense impressions except for sight.
”What does it sound like?” They would ask. “What does it smell like?”
At first, I added additional sense impressions at their urging. With time, I began to remember to do it myself—but it was an artificial process. I had to go back after my first draft and deliberately add them.
Now, the majority of the time, I remember as I am writing the scene the first time.
You might ask: Why? What’s the big deal about sound and smell, and maybe taste or feel?
The answer: The more vivid the description, the more real the experience of reading about it feels.
Imagine you had someone in a virtual reality suit, and you wanted to convince them that your program was the real world—not necessarily to delude them but to entertain them. No matter how realistic your visuals, if they heard and smelled their living room—the old sock their son left by the rocking chair, the odor from where their daughter had not properly cleaned up after the dog, the sound of their neighbors arguing—they would never be entirely swept away by your vivid waterfalls and grand vistas.
But what if you could make them hear the roar of the water and smell the resin of the newly-broken pine? That would go much further to convincing them that they were truly in your scenario. What if they could feel the cool breeze? What if they could taste the icy, mineral-laden water?
When it comes right down to it, how do we tell where we are? By the sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and feel of things. Those are the methods we use to collect information. If those senses were fooled, we would come to the conclusion that we were somewhere else.
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