#1: Descriptive Writing
by Metara
Never mind spelling, punctuation or grammar - any muppet can get those right if they're using MS Word, and it doesn't have much to do with quality of writing anyway. In fact, descriptive writing is the number-one technique flaw on FanFiction.Net. We can all recognise when it's done badly, but it's quite another matter to explain what's good and why. Still I said I'd have a go, and so I'll have a go.
Professional authors have discussed the difference between "showing" and "telling". Telling is when you hand the reader a bunch of simple facts: the character is X feet and inches tall, has Y-coloured eyes and wears Z. This is the most fundamental mistake made by new or inexperienced authors, and the result is a piece of writing that lacks emotional depth. The best authors don't just give you a list, they use metaphors and imagery to show you how things are.
Say "John's eyes were green" (to take a common example). That just tells the reader a fact. And "green" on its own can mean pretty much anything - what kind of green? Light or dark, warm or cold?
But what if "John's eyes were the colour of grass beneath the summer sun"? Your reader can at once imagine that particular shade of green, and the image also shows you something about his personality: John becomes a warm, friendly, open character that the reader will like.
And if "John's eyes were like chips of jade, brilliant and cool", not only can we see a different shade of green, but John becomes a much less friendly person, coldly clever, dedicated to his task, maybe willing to step on other people to get his own way.
Both times, I could have just said "John's eyes were green", but I would have missed out on such a lot...
The original version of The Shadowmaster introduces the character of Dark Link in the following way:
He was dressed in a smoky gray tunic, had shining black hair and a dark complexion.
And that was it. I think this is just a perfect example of what I'm talking about! It's certainly not very memorable - you could just as well fill in a form (gray tunic, CHECK, black hair, CHECK, shiny, CHECK...).
In the rewritten Chapter 17 of ELOZE, the introductory description of the same character goes:
A dark naked form lay sprawled on its front, half in and half out of the mirror's frame--nearly invisible in the poor light afforded them in the castle cellars. It was almost perfectly black, from the ink-dark hair that hung over its face to the velvety black of its bare skin that sparkled with a fine coat of ice.
Notice the language used, and in particular the metaphors. Metaphors and similes are what stops your writing being a list of characteristics: when you want to describe an unfamiliar thing, find something familiar that it's like. Slick as ink and smooth as velvet - the reader gets a sense of the character that you can almost touch! And that brings me to another point: use all your senses. All of them. Don't just say it's a bright spring day - give your reader the taste of green growing things, the golden warmth of the sun, the silvery trill of the blackbird in the hedge.
Of course the above quote happens to be from ELOZE, which is rather umm, flowery at times. But even with the simplest language, you can write something that says a lot more than it appears to.
This is from my Sonic fanfiction story Redux, which I tried to write in a much harsher style:
The room beyond is dark and musty. Ria flicks on a fluorescent light which takes some seconds to kindle. I look around, seeing a room of medium size, furnished only with a single rickety table. Boxes of all sizes are stacked in corners and against the far wall. There is a window so covered with dirt and cobwebs that I cannot see anything through it aside from a weak gray glow.
There aren't many metaphors in sight, so what is it that stops this from turning into a list? Let's just pause and take a look at what it's telling us, aside from the obvious! To the eye the room is mysteriously "dark", while "musty" lets you taste the stale old air: this is a place of secrecy. And yet it looks so ordinary on the surface: "of medium size, furnished only with a single rickety table"... it makes you wonder what mysteries COULD be hidden here? The dirty, covered-over window is a sign that more is here than meets the eye. But the light "takes some seconds to kindle" - this place will not reveal its secrets so swiftly...
Everything, and I mean everything that you write, should have more than one layer to it. Who cares if the field is full of yellow corn and the old gnarled tree is heavy with apples? What can that tell us about the story? Show it through your character's eyes and color it with his mood.
Five words that further the story are better than five hundred words about the texture of the apples, even if they are very nice apples.
Of course there are as many writing styles as there are writers. But descriptive writing is basically finding new ways of seeing. Use all the senses - say what things sound, feel or smell like as well as how they look. But don't get carried away; make sure you're saying something that's worth saying.
Places can be an important background to the character. If you use a character's thoughts to describe a place, you can show the reader not only where the character is, but how he's feeling. Some authors don't even bother to describe their setting, aside from telling us it's a cavern or a military base or whatever, and that just kills the story for me. It's my feeling that the background is often just as important as the characters. So if you're one of those people who waxes lyrical about the emerald aura of your Mary-Sue's eyes, try applying some of that poetic ability to the character's surroundings, too.
And now, some good local examples (that aren't shameless self-promotions, that is). This is by QQQ (and read Cold Burns if you haven't already done so)
Puddles of muck and oil lined the road sides. His feet sank into them up to the ankles; he hadn't noticed until now how dirty his black boots were getting. Turning away he headed off up the road sticking to the shadows. The orange sky glinted off his face and already he looked more haggard than ever in his life. This realm was truly as hellish as all the legends went. The stones, the sky, the air were all an attack on his sanity. They begged him to turn to evil and then further, from evil to chaos. That was this realm's true intentions to remove every last drop of sanity from his blood.
In this extract we can clearly see how the environment is influencing Sub-Zero's mood. The dirtiness of his clothes mirrors the dirtiness of his soul. This place is out to get him. Description of the environment merges with description of the character, so that not only do you see the scene, but you can imagine just how Sub-Zero is feeling right now. Poor guy...
Here's something by Wynn:
All around were tables with heaps of unidentifiable arcane trinkets, closets full of dust-shrouded diagrams and vials of murky liquids, shelves piled over with moldy books and transcripts on yellowed parchment. One man's treasure is another man's refuse, but Seron doubted anyone possessed of his sanity could find value in the rubbish strewn across this room.
It might look simple on the surface, but delve a little deeper and you see why the whole thing holds together so well. The theme here is age ("arcane", "moldy", "yellow"), mystery ("unidentifiable", "dust-shrouded", "murky") and trash ("trinkets", "refuse", "rubbish").
There is one caveat: beware the Eye of Argon. Just because you know what "refulgent" means, don't assume you should use it.
This ELOZE quote is legendary.
Like the sudden turn of the tides upon an estuary, when the water for a moment seems to stop its endless progression down towards the sea before flowing backwards up its hoary banks and lashing the long-suffering plants with the salt-sea spray, so too was the change from dawn to day as the sun, having passed beneath the earth lighting up the underside of the world, now raised its burning golden head above the desert's rim and poured onto the sand pure molten gold...
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