How long before you really start describing a scene? - Page 2 - Writers Forum

Sam Winchester · 04-19-2008, 06:19 PM

What bank have you been in that has ANY carpet at all? Why would we care about the smell? We can't smell the words and know immediately what you're talking about. So, essentially, what you've done is waste two lines telling us something that we aren't going to get anyway. Everyone knows what a bank smells and looks like (generic ones, that is). Now, if your bank happened to be a fancy one, then you have reason to describe it.

I don't know about you, but I don't like re-reading over paragraphs. I like a story to flow. If I have to go back and re-read something, it hinders the whole reading process.

Sam.

Sam Winchester · 04-19-2008, 06:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jellyfish

By the way Sam, love this, "it's called storytelling not storyshowing."

Yeah, I thought it was pretty cool.

Sam.

Jax1108 · 04-19-2008, 06:39 PM

I have to agree with Sam. That little one liner doesn't really tell me its a bank.

Katastrof · 04-19-2008, 06:54 PM

I don't know. I think description adds color to story and with the right amounts it makes the story feel more vivid. While over-description is like piling tons of colors on until it's a distraction, too little description makes the story feel bland and generic.

lin · 04-19-2008, 07:11 PM

Quote:

William Goldman, a famous screenwriter once described a whole bar in one word: Shitty. And really that was enough to know all you needed to know especially if you the reader or the view have been in a shitty bar.

Very good point. And it's possible to get stuff across without even really describing anything at all.
"The sort of bar your ex-husband would choose to meet you in"
"Yeah, this devinitely your kind of place"
etc.

This ACTUALLY does activate the mind and memory of the reader, unlike slogging on and on through telling them a bunch of details.

Description can NOT really make us care about a plot we don't otherwise care about.

Quote:

am not an advocate for over-description

You could have fooled me. That's EXACTLY what your original lavish post on the primacy of description sounds like.

Nobody advocated eliminating it altogether. You're the only one that mentioned that. The gist is "the appropriate amount to do the job and suit your style".

the unique smell of paper, the catch of your foot on the nylon carpet.
That's just nuts, you realize?

Quote:

The key is to re-read and focus on the reader, not the writing.

And yet, that's exactly what you are doing here. Look at it.

djvincent3 · 04-19-2008, 07:31 PM

I fell upon this thread on accident, and have gratefully encountered a number of you with whom I have already corresponded. I am so enjoying this community. Thought I might chime in on the current topic. Of interest to me is how I agree with everyone, and yet detect a debate. So I have to dig a little deeper. I think this whole question of description/over description requires a sense of purpose to resolve. Just Jim alluded to this, as did Winchester, Jax1108, Ungood and on. Nevermore, I am a great fan of your descriptive skills, you are a master. These other folks, I think, ask, appropriately, for a sense of balance. I suggest, if it meets your purpose. I can imagine a piece as entirely pictures painted with words. I do not necessarily need a story. But within the Short Story genre, a story, I would suspect, is expected. I struggle with this myself, a new member, not yet posted anything, I think about some of my writing and wonder where it belongs. I love to capture a moment in writing that does not necissarily have a conflict and resolution; a climax, a moral. I wonder if others do not have a similar sense. I am in total agreement with Winchester when it comes to story telling. But, is all good writing "telling" a story. Perhaps it presents images, or circumstances which tease the reader to a particular feeling, or insight. There are many genres. Poetry, for example, does something wholly different from short story, while conveying meaning. I feel strongly that writing is seeking. And just what our purpose is, is not always evident. This is why I appreciate this forum. The conversation is wonderful. You all have me thinking about writing in a new way.

Jax1108 · 04-19-2008, 07:48 PM

It just seems that description has become a sort of amateur writer's trend or something. Many do it cause they think it sounds "writerly," and even if they argue they are not trying to sound that way, thats how it comes off. Cause honestly...barely any of it makes sense.
I always love Lin's posts. So much logic.

the unique smell of paper, the catch of your foot on the nylon carpet.
Uh...Oh I know! Im in a bank!! Um no. I could be anywhere. And that description does NOTHING for the setting or plot or anything else. Its a common, beginner's fallacy.

Ungood · 04-19-2008, 08:04 PM

Quote:

There is just something about the bricks of old New York alley, something about the way they shatter your teeth as the collection guys pound you into past with their brass knuckles

Quote:

The collection guys made sure that I knew I was three weeks behind on what I owed, after some aggressive talking in the alley they let me know I had been given an extension.

Quote:

The busted bulb of the old street lamp flooded the alley with dancing shadows filling the voids of view with monsters ugly beyond imagination. But I did not need any such fiends coming upon me as Gurno's collection crew held me down into the old bubble gum and spit laden concrete walkway. The acid order of two day old piss filled my nostrils as the first blow from the brass knuckles ripped into my kidneys.

Quote:

New York alleys, the meeting room all thugs and lowlifes, hence why the collection crew decided that thsi was where I was about to learn the dangers of being three days lay on my payments

Quote:

blood filled my lips as the brass knuckls slammed into my soft skin. The colelction biys were making sure that I learned real well about the dangers of late payments. By the time I got home that night an back to my apartment

Quote:

It was an alley they beat him in. He owed money and he was two days late. the guys hit him with brass knuckles. he bled.

All depends on how you want to say it, and Who will read this.

I guess. Are any of them really wrong?

Ungood.

Katastrof · 04-19-2008, 08:23 PM

I don't understand why every time someone asks a question about writing that it all of the sudden has to become a witch hunt. Never Tell! Always show or else readers will come with pitchforks to your house and burn you at the stake for being a bad writer! Always use dialog over description! If you don't, you'll be hung, drawn and quartered!

People, nothing is black and white in the world; it's all shades of gray. It's the same with writing; there is not one way to write. Like I said, the emphasis on dialog is a trend now, it wasn't always like that.

Just because amateurs are overly descriptive at first, does not mean that description in itself is bad.

JosephB · 04-19-2008, 10:11 PM

Read.

Truth-Teller · 04-19-2008, 10:30 PM

Describing a scene is important.

Describing a character is not.

Tiamat10 · 04-19-2008, 11:21 PM

Tell the story using as few words as possible. Someone already said this and that's the best advice I've seen. Write down everything you want to right down as you're creating your first draft. I have to emphasize that--write it all down.

After your first draft, go through the piece with a fine toothed comb and look at every sentence, every phrase, every adjective and adverb and ask yourself "Does this add anything to the story I'm trying to tell?" If it does, then ask yourself, "Can I use less words and still say what I want to say with this?"

A good exercise to learn how to really tighten your writing is to give yourself a word limit--say, 1000 words. Write your story however you want it, and then edit it down to under your limit. That'll help you to understand how to efficiently tell a story.

If you've written a first draft and absolutely refuse to cut more than a sentence or two, then I seriously doubt that you'll make it very far in the writing world.

BillyxRansom · 04-20-2008, 10:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tiamat10

Tell the story using as few words as possible. Someone already said this and that's the best advice I've seen. Write down everything you want to right down as you're creating your first draft. I have to emphasize that--write it all down.

After your first draft, go through the piece with a fine toothed comb and look at every sentence, every phrase, every adjective and adverb and ask yourself "Does this add anything to the story I'm trying to tell?" If it does, then ask yourself, "Can I use less words and still say what I want to say with this?"

A good exercise to learn how to really tighten your writing is to give yourself a word limit--say, 1000 words. Write your story however you want it, and then edit it down to under your limit. That'll help you to understand how to efficiently tell a story.

If you've written a first draft and absolutely refuse to cut more than a sentence or two, then I seriously doubt that you'll make it very far in the writing world.

Very useful advice. Most of these posts have been extremely insightful, and I appreciate it fully. My problem is not that I don't want to cut out any words or sentences. My problem is that I am holding myself back from writing because I don't know how much, too much or too little description, elaboration, and so on, would actually be.

How do I just get the story out there without worrying about the actual prose?

Ungood · 04-20-2008, 11:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BillyxRansom

Very useful advice. Most of these posts have been extremely insightful, and I appreciate it fully. My problem is not that I don't want to cut out any words or sentences. My problem is that I am holding myself back from writing because I don't know how much, too much or too little description, elaboration, and so on, would actually be.

How do I just get the story out there without worrying about the actual prose?

This might help you.

Write it...

Read it...

Realize: "This sucks!"

Re-Write until you finally say.. "hey.. this sounds pretty good to me"

Give to someone you trust to be objective, and willing to rip you a new one (respectfully).

Take their advice, Weigh it, measure it..

Edit your work accordingly.

Final Steps would be:

Submit your Work to a Publisher...

Receive Rejection Notice.

Ungood.

omginternetlord · 04-20-2008, 01:41 PM

Only put it in if it contributes on some level to the story.

Write to tell the story, not to show off your descriptive skills.