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Administrator
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- Apr 8, 2010
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Major Things: -- Revision. -- An FAQ. -- Need more.
- Overview
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Description is a huge part of your story as a whole. If you want readers to enjoy themselves, you have to make sure that they can understand and see what is going on in their minds. Vivid imagery that flows well within your writing is difficult to come by, and it takes quite a bit of practice for one to perfect a descriptive style of their own.
First of all, description should never be overused. Sometimes, if you describe too much in one particular scene, it will bore the reader and they’ll become uninterested. Obviously, this is not what you want to happen if you’re a young author. Use description wisely in certain areas – areas that I will be teaching you about in the following posts.
However, before we begin. What is description? Description is the way an author paints a picture of what is going on for the reader, kind of like a movie. Using description, one must understand that you are painting a picture for the reader and that you must describe only what is necessary.
For example, if I describing a dinner, I would not want to describe the fork and silverware while overlooking the actual dinner at hand. Still, this is going to be covered in the next few posts. Description isn’t all that difficult to understand, but it takes time and practice in order to perfect the perfect way of using it.
- Characters
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The next part of the lessons on description will focus mainly on characters. Characters play an important role in your stories, and, most of the time, they will cover around half of your description as a whole. Showing a reader what a character looks like and such with great imagery is extremely important; it helps the reader become more connected on a mental level because they know what the character at hand looks like.
However, do not fall into the trap of describing things in a list-like fashion. Incorporate your descriptions throughout all of your writing, instead of piling them all onto the reader at once. Mix the description of your characters in with your surroundings. Doing so will allow you to create a complex and vivid assortment of descriptions and give your readers a good picture of your characters.
Characters change over time. Yes, they do. Remember to update your readers on your characters’ appearance every now and then so that the reader has a chance to fully get to know whoever you’re describing. The bond between a character and a reader can only be helped if you have amazing descriptions of your protagonist and a personality that relates, too.
The final part of describing characters is to remember the time period and the world at hand. Phoenix covered “The World” in later sections, but this is different. Remember that your characters should not have guns or anything like that, because that’s not the time period. Learn this. Realism is key.
- Surroundings
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The surroundings are the second half of the description category. In order to have your story feel more real to the reader, a great description of the world is needed. Over-description normally has authors falling victim to its spell here, for it is the easiest of all to ramble on about.
When describing your surroundings, make sure that you’re only describing what you’re characters would notice and such. Don’t go too far into things and describe unnecessary objects, because that can only lead to a mess of unorganized words that are telling the reader about one million things at a time. Instead, focus on the more important things and the things that you, or the reader, would notice.
An example: If I were walking down a dusty abandoned road. What would I notice? Mainly, I would notice the run-down homes, the lowly people, and the sounds that accompanied both. However, if you go into detail about, say, a door and how it’s oak and not maple, then it’s unneeded and shouldn’t be included. Make sure to only encompass things that play a part in the scene or that, as I’ve said, you would see.
Describing the surroundings takes more work than describing characters, but it's also more open to the imagination. The descriptions of the surroundings have endless possibilities, and creating an absolutely amazing description will take time and effort, but it can be done. Remember, descriptions are important.
- Mood
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The surroundings are the second half of the description category. In order to have your story feel more real to the reader, a great description of the world is needed. Over-description normally has authors falling victim to its spell here, for it is the easiest of all to ramble on about.
When describing your surroundings, make sure that you’re only describing what you’re characters would notice and such. Don’t go too far into things and describe unnecessary objects, because that can only lead to a mess of unorganized words that are telling the reader about one million things at a time. Instead, focus on the more important things and the things that you, or the reader, would notice.
An example: If I were walking down a dusty abandoned road. What would I notice? Mainly, I would notice the run-down homes, the lowly people, and the sounds that accompanied both. However, if you go into detail about, say, a door and how it’s oak and not maple, then it’s unneeded and shouldn’t be included. Make sure to only encompass things that play a part in the scene or that, as I’ve said, you would see.
Describing the surroundings takes more work than describing characters, but it's also more open to the imagination. The descriptions of the surroundings have endless possibilities, and creating an absolutely amazing description will take time and effort, but it can be done. Remember, descriptions are important.
- List o' Colors
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Here are a variety of synonyms available for describing things with a color.
Red: Cardinal Cherry Coral Crimson Flame Flushed Inflamed Maroon Pink Raspberry Rose Rosy Ruby Salmon Scarlet Vermillion
Yellow: Amber Apricot Beige Buff Butter Buttercup Canary Citron Cream Golden Lemon Peach Straw Tawny
Purple: Amethyst Fuchsia Gridelin Lavender Lilac Magenta Mauve Mulberry Orchid Plum Solferino Violaceous Violet
Brown: Almond Amber Beige Bronze Chestnut Chocolate Cinnamon Coffee Copper Hazel Mahogany Rust Tan Sandy Taupe Tawny
White: Cream Frost Ivory Milky Off-white Eggshell Oyster Pearl Snowy Icy Achromatic
Green: Apple Beryl Celery Chartreuse Emerald Forest Kelly Lime Mint Sea Verdigris Viridian
Orange: Apricot Copper Flaming Gold Mustard Peach Persimmon Rust Tangerine Topaz
Black: Atramentaceous Brunette Coal Ebony Inky Jet Licorice Murky Onyx Pitch Sable Shadowy Sooty
Gray: Ashen Dappled Silver Steel
Blue: Aqua Azure Beryl Cerulean Cobalt Indigo blue Navy blue Peacock Powder blue Robin’s egg blue Royal blue Sapphire Sky blue Steel blue Teal Turquoise
- Emphasis
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Emphasis is one of the key features of the description; while not as obvious as the other attributes of a good description, it is a necessity that will add a lot to your story. While you might not notice it within a story, you will notice it when it is not there. And this is what makes it necessary. Using emphasis can be hard for new writers, because it involves lots of experimentation to find the right level of drama. You use it according to the structure of the story, or at least, I find that it works best like this.
Let me explain:
If you want to write a scene where an important character is dying, then you want to make it very slow, very sad, very dramatic.
You want to pick out the sadness of the situation, individually pick out every tear, lengthen out the moment, to give room for the moods of the characters sitting by the deathbed. And then, as the man dies, structure it out very carefully. What I did when killing off a character that wasn't quite a main character, but was more important than a second character, is I first described how he died. This can be very short.
Simply tell of the killer, and how he raised the sword in his hands before plunging it into the victim, or the assassin, raising the gun from a distance, holding his finger on the trigger, and pulling. Or cancer. Slowly attacking the victim until his or her heart finally stops ticking. Then I described the feeling of slipping away from the physical world. The feeling of descending away from everybody there, slipping away from the world. Breaking apart from reality. No dark, no light, no colour, nothing. Then I described the mental world, the last thoughts that person has. The realization that it will all go away, soon that he or she will know no more.
And...of course...we need an FAQ. We also need more reserves on the next thread.
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