The Secrets to Effective Descriptions in Novels

When you, as the author of a novel, describe a scene, character or setting, you’re painting a verbal picture for your reader. You’re using sensory detail to immerse your reader in your words. A well-written description should do the same thing as dialogue; it should move the story forward and add to characterization.

The secret to presenting descriptions in a novel is all about discipline and imagination. It may seem odd to relate those two things, but it’s important for the successful author to understand this association. The discipline, I’m afraid, is the responsibility of the writer while the reader gets the fun part, the imagination.

As writers we must discipline ourselves to give readers what it is they want to read. And this takes us to why people purchase novels in the first place. After all, they know its fiction, and therefore a lie. Don’t we spend most of our lives trying not to buy someone else’s lies? Why then would the reader put up his hard-earned money to purchase a stranger’s lie? It’s because novel writers take the reader on an adventure, someplace they can never experience, but only imagine. The reader uses his imagination to create personal pictures your words represent. These mental pictures are relevant to him and him alone, making the story more realistic and personal. His imagination does most of the author’s work of transporting the reader to that netherworld he craves.

Consider, if you will, a warm, sunny day with you racing down the open road in a sleek convertible. Your favorite music is blaring as your hair whips in the wind and the love of your life snuggles next to you.

Oh, I forgot to mention, the convertible is pea-green.

I just gave you too much information, didn’t I? The enjoyable picture you’d fashioned in your mind just slipped a notch, didn’t it? It might have been ruined altogether, because of one word too many. So it is with descriptions in your novels.

It’s all about their imagination, not your writing skills. You may be able to paint a wondrous image with your words, but its’ not about your words. It’s about the pictures the reader creates.

So, the true secret to describing anything is to discipline yourself to describe only those necessary things, and then to describe them with no more words than necessary to evoke the readers imagination.

Here are some tips on how to create your descriptions.

Blend, don’t list, characteristics. That is to present details within action. Instead of telling the reader about the many multicolored wildflowers in the field, have the protagonist picking the flowers. Have him mention the many colors, hand the multicolored bouquet he’s gathered to his love, etc. Unless they’re important to the story, don’t just describe the flowers use them within the actions of your characters.

Don’t describe too many things. Descriptions slow a story and the more of them you have, the worse your writing will appear.

When you do describe something, consider the not so obvious details and offer the reader something to spark their imagination. For example, you might mention not only the bright light seeping into the room from between the slats of the blinds, but how the plants on the desk arch their leaves toward the limited sunlight.

I’ve already mentioned descriptions slow scene. You might use one, however, if you wish to retard the action and give your readers a breather.

Use nebulous rather than specific words. This allows the reader to use their imagination. For example, she doesn’t have eyes the size of silver dollars, she has oversized eyes. The reader will determine for himself what “oversized” means.

Avoid flowery language , especially the abuse of adjectives and adverbs. His “gangly approach toward the cusp of manhood” might be reworded to say “he turned fifteen.”

A rule of thumb is a description should be kept to no more than four or five sentences. Never use five when two will do the trick.

Describe those things that differ every time you see one. There’s little need to portray a red rose, as it’s pretty much a red rose everywhere you go. (Yes, I know there are a million varieties, but when you write, “rose,” the identical image come to almost everyone’s mind.) An antique pocket watch, however, is unique almost every time.

Effective descriptions are difficult to master, but mastering the technique will lift your writing to a new level. Best of luck.
Until next time, I wish you only best-sellers.

C. Patrick Schulze

On Creating Good Bad Guys

Two of the three main character every novel needs are the hero and villain. The hero is the fuel for the novel and most writers feel his exploits need the most of the author’s time and effort. In contrast, the villain is often relegated to the task of an evildoer with little else to his credit.

As we create our heroes, we spend a great number of our allocated word count to create this bigger than life character that will engross our readers. We do the same for his love interest and often go out of our way to offer much detail about this character’s smoldering good looks and their budding respect and love for their emotional foil. The villain, however, is often not up to these standards of writing quality.

Many times a writer exemplifies their bad guys as superficial, narrow minded things whose only goal is to spread obstacles before our heroes and to create malevolence and mayhem wherever they can. This often leads to one-dimensional characters that can leave the reader with a sour taste toward your entire novel. This failure to create a complete antagonist makes it seem as if the threat he brings just isn’t tough enough for your hero. In turn, this can make the reader feel like the hero just isn’t as strong as he might be, and therefore less appealing.

When you invented your hero, did you look at someone you admired in life and imbue some of that person’s finer qualities into your protagonist? Did you take the time to get to know your hero in depth? Did you fill out that classic note card with the most minute of details so you even know how often he oversleeps? You probably did.

Did you go to the same extent of detail with your villain? Probably not. Most novice writers simply figure out what obstacles their hero needs to overcome and then paper-mache a character in place to perform those duties. This rookie mistake leaves the entire novel shallower than it need be. The secret to a good bad guy is to get to know him as well as you do your hero. And the secret to a good hero, is a good bad guy.

Why wouldn’t you choose one of those evil people you’ve met in your life and press them into service for your novel? The world is full of these real life charlatans and you’ve known as many of them as anyone else. There’s no reason you can’t utilize their characteristics, too.

The experienced writer considers as much about their bad guy as they did their protagonist. How often does your villain oversleep? If you don’t know, you’ve probably got some work to do yet. You should take the time to insure your reader understands the bad guy’s motivations as well as they do the hero’s. As we all know the villain won’t see himself as evil and, in fact, will feel perfectly justified in his efforts to thwart your hero. By showing your reader the villain’s logic and justifications, you’ll notch up the suspense within your novel and give your readers more opportunities to get involved with your writing. By creating a villain with intelligence, logic and complexity, you’ll construct the illusion he can beat the hero, thus building yet more excitement in your story.

Creating a good bad guy is as important as creating a good, good guy. Without a three-dimensional antagonist, your story will lack the depth and honesty your reader expects and deserves. So, get out your note cards, open up that database, review your annotations and make your villain as good at being bad as your hero is at being good.

Until we speak again, I wish you only best-sellers.

C. Patrick Schulze

How & Why to Use Conflict Types

In yesterday’s post, (click here), I discussed how the secret to a successful novel can be found within the conflict you create for your protagonist. Without conflict, you have no novel. It creates the backbone for your story.

Many novice writers are surprised to learn you don’t find conflict in the explosions, the typhoons, the meteors crashing into the earth. You find conflict in your characters’ emotional reaction to these stimuli.

There are two types of conflict, internal and external, and each brings different amounts of action and tension to your story. Internal conflict, a character at odds with himself, consists of the emotional or psychological predicaments a character faces and the impact it has upon him. In “The Da Vinci Code,” we saw Tom Hank’s fear of enclosed spaces, his claustrophobia. As a writer, you should employ internal conflicts that reflect those universal emotions in people; safety, fear, love, sadness and the like. This is one way to reinforce your readers’ emotional attachment to your story. External conflict, a character at odds with the world around him, is found in the emotional responses your characters experience relative to outside influences. These can be anything from a wound to a troll to a husband-beating wife. This reaction, I think, is the reason the Bruce Willis movies are so well-received. His responses to the many threats he faces are always entertaining, though realistic.

I once read a way to exemplify conflict when writing a novel and I apologize but I do not remember who said it. Regardless, he said to find your hero’s Achilles’ heel and crush it. The tendon is the internal conflict and the crushing is the external. Find your hero’s root emotional vulnerability and use it against him.
I watched the movie, “12 Rounds” the other night and the director handled conflict reasonably well. In one scene, the hero has a difficult decision to make. Should he allow the cops to kill the villain, who has kidnapped the woman in the hero’s life, or should he save the evildoer so his love will live longer. Of course, he saves the bad guy. It isn’t all the screaming, breaking glass and shooting that created the conflict, it’s found in the emotional decision the hero had to make – who lives and who dies – that created the tension. The external conflict came to life in how the hero responded to all the shooting to save two people. The internal conflict grew from his decision to save the bad guy. This combination of internal and external conflict is what you strive for in your novels.

Weakness is the origin of your novel’s conflict and also the source of your hero’s growth.

We’ve all heard our hero needs to grow during the course of the story and become a better person. By overcoming his flaw(s), his growth materializes. As the hero pin-balls from one issue to the next, he must face his fears and, with each new confrontation, he learns how to overcome that which frightens him. Without this growth, rooted in conflict, your reader is robbed of his expected satisfaction. And if your readers won’t be satisfied, why even bother to write the story?

If you have any questions, drop a comment and I’ll see if I can’t assist you on an individual basis.
Until we meet again, I wish you best-sellers.

C. Patrick Schulze
Twitter.con/CPatrickSchulze