Merciful heavens, it snowed again last night. I suppose it might be possible to view such an event in one of two ways. Egad, more dad-blasted snow on top of an inch of sleet? Or, perhaps, Oh, how pretty! And much less than the forecast called for; aren't we lucky? A mighty force is the attitude, as is the adjective. How a person, place, or thing is presented can have lasting impact on the mind of the reader; the power can be used for good or ill. Consider the coat that I spied last week, pieced together from what appeared to be upholstery leftovers. I could tell you that it was a cabbage rose-printed nightmare direct from the diseased imaginings of a demented seamstress . On the other hand, I could also say that it was an eye-catching design that made clever use of found fabric. You see? Our descriptions have power. A wise author will choose the most important detail as a focal point, letting the rest flow from there. The CMOS warns against using any language t...

I used to waste a lot of time on my first draft. I agonized over each sentence. I filled it full of stuff I would later cut or alter. Revision layers took forever to complete, especially repetitive words. My first drafts are now skeletons. I gradually add muscle and skin and dress the bones in the revision layers. I start with a conflict outline and a timeline (which I generally mess up somehow anyway and have to go back and fix). When I sit down to write a scene, I start with: Date, Time, Location, (Type of ) Conflict # _____ Dick needs to convince Jane to do something. Date, Time, Location, (Type of) Conflict # _____ Jane is caught snooping around Dick's office. For me, scenes are visual. I see the characters moving around the room or characters talking to one another. My first draft consists of dialogue and choreography with a tiny of hint of description. It looks a bit like a screenplay. Dick (insert tag) “ ....” Jane (insert tag) “...” Dick enters (describe ...

Last month, I got together with a big group of friends. We’re all writers of one kind or another and you couldn’t ask for a better convergence of personalities. We meet at various houses, supposedly for lunch, but it goes beyond that since “lunch” usually lasts around 3 or 4 hours. We gathered at a perfect house. Not a humongous house like those around a country club. Not a cozy lake house overlooking Lake Travis. The house was perfect because it so very much reflects the owner. It’s bright; it’s funky; it’s elegant; it’s colorful; it’s warm; it’s inviting. It’s HER. You could be blindfolded, taken to this house, and when you saw it, you’d know whose home you were at.  Now that’s something to keep in mind when you’re establishing character. The character’s home tells a lot about that person. It’s not black or white. It tells you about the character. Also keep in mind that every character’s home, office, car, etc. doesn’t have to match your tastes. They should match the tastes ...

Sometimes, I come across stories so heavy with thick description that the stories move at a dirge pace…if they move at all. A writer might, for instance, introduce a new character and then suddenly halt the story to provide a paragraph or more of character description—from race, hair color, height, and weight to personality and attire. When I see this, I talk to clients about weaving description organically into the story. Everything hinges on the story . As you are describing people, locations, buildings, etc., it’s important to ask yourself, “What descriptions are integral to the story I’m telling?” Once you get answers to that  question, then ask yourself, “What is the best way to weave these descriptions into the story so that they develop people, locations, buildings, etc. and , most importantly, keep the story moving?” ----- Writing in 140 is my attempt to say something somewhat relevant about writing in 140 words or less. ~~~~~~~~~~ Shon Bacon is an author, editor, an...

Immediately inside the door she saw a red carpet. At the end of the carpet sat a gray cat, licking a paw. A clock pendulum ticked and tocked on a nearby table. Classic Stickley, judging by the table’s bold, clean lines. Beside the table an orange shawl had been tossed over the arm of a leather chair. Two feet to the left of that… Okay, I’ll spare you. If you’ve done any amount of reading in your life you’ll recognize in the above description a wall of words that many readers will choose not to scale. Or perhaps you won’t recognize the wall at all, because as a reader you’ve always skirted around it. In her September 18, 2009 Blood-Red Pencil post, our own Maryann Miller cautioned us to keep such laundry lists pocketed when our characters first enter a room. But now you’re a writer, not a reader. You are eager to get on with the good stuff! And it’s just so tempting, isn’t it? Put your character in the room, show her glancing around at this, that and the other thing in an active vo...

Think about your descriptions. Sometimes it's the little things that say the most. As an example, read this sentence by V.S. Naipaul in Guerrillas : "A triangle of white light was advancing from the porch into the sitting room, over the curling edge of the electric-blue carpet, which lay untacked on the terrazzo floor." "Porch" and "sitting room" evoke almost genteel images. "Electric-blue" seems rather modern. But the words that really get to the core are "curling edge" and "untacked." Without those minuscule details, the sentence would have a whole different meaning. What could you say about an object or a scene or a character that would be so right-on it would be unforgettable or would bring that image into sharp focus? Look at this from Rumer Godden in Black Narcissus : "The woman's face was Chinese, brown and withered like a ginger root; she wore dark blue clothes, a necklace of turquoises and sharp little...

There is nothing more pleasurable than to read a book where the description and exposition is seamlessly woven into the narrative instead of an intrusion into the story. How many times have you skipped over the “grocery list” of description when a new character entered a room, or skip-read pages of “story set up” so you could get back to the action? A good piece of advice I received from a creative writing instructor was to never stop a story to describe a room or a character. Utilize the POV of one of the characters to introduce details of a room or a person, and let them notice a little at a time while something interesting is happening. Use description to show character, establish mood or somehow move the story along. The story should not stop for description or a set up. Some authors seem to think they need to explain a lot to the reader before they allow the story to proceed. That is often true in science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction. It’s almost as if the author does...

If you describe people, don’t just plop the description down in a long passage and pause the story. I see this a lot in novels. I will be reading along, enjoying the story, and out of the blue, a paragraph or more will fall that stalls the story and tells me - in pinpoint accuracy - the look of a character or what he/she is wearing. I either cut or suggest that a writer cut out some if not most of these descriptions because many of them are not integral to the story. There is no need to tell the height, weight, etc., of every new person that comes onto the scene, and if it is important, then you want to integrate it into the story seamlessly. There should be a “reason” why the material is pertinent to the story at hand. For example - bad is plopping a whole paragraph into the story in which you describe someone being overweight simply because that character shows up in your story. Good is while this character is sprinting like an Olympian, you tell us about that character being ov...