Description, description, description

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DESCRIPTION, DESCRIPTION, DESCRIPTION

It's kind of impossible to write a story without description. Well, not really, but if I were to read a book with zero descriptive words in it, I'd put it down and never pick it up again. So you could say description is vital when creating a story, without it it'll be beyond readable.

A book with no description isn't a book.

Its monotonous.

Dead.

For example: "She drank her drink."


I'm a nosy bitch.

First off, what drink was she drinking? What was she drinking it out of? How was she drinking it? Slowly to match her emotion? Quickly to suggest anger?

"She picked up the Costa coffee cup and slowly gulped it down, savouring in the chocolatey froth that sent a flood of warmth through her tired body."

See what I did there? I changed a boring four word sentence into two lines. Two lines packed full of description.

You know where she bought her drink from without directly saying "she bought her drink from Costa." You know how she drank it, slowly because she was exhausted. You know what she was drinking without saying "She drank her hot chocolate." You know she was cold, because drinking it instantly made her feel warm, implicating the weather outside is most likely poor.

Now don't get me wrong, doing this in every sentence may become slightly too much. But mixing it up every now and then is the best way to make a story interesting to read.


Short, snappy descriptive sentences can also be effective if limited. "There was blood on the wall."

You could always go on to describe afterwards the way the blood was "splattered" onto the wall. "On the previously crisp, white wall was now a crimson spray of blood, as though a painter had flicked his brush and let the colour fly in every direction."

However, my pet peeve when I'm reading a story is continuous detail that I don't want to know or even necessarily need to know.  "She picked up her red pen, her sleeve, which was also red, rode upwards and showed her also red scratch on her arm."

Why do I need to know about all of this red? And why have you written it as though I am thick?

If it was really significant, describe red to me differently. "She picked up her red pen, causing the sleeve to her blush coloured jumper to rise upwards, allowing the people watching her to notice the inflamed scratch on her arm."

Boom. Change it up to make it less repetitive, and spread out the descriptive words. Trust me, it makes it flow better without making the sentence appear too much.

Another thing:

"She ran."

"He danced."

"She was sad."

NO, NO, NO, AND NO!

Why, just why would you use those words in that way? Particularly all the time, which believe me I have seen in plenty of stories here on Wattpad. Again, I'm not saying you can't ever use these short sentences, because they do get to the point rather easily, but using them all the time is boring and suggests that you as a writer haven't got much else to say, or simply can't be bothered explaining further.

"She picked up her pace, forcing herself to run faster."

"He danced with such passion, everyone in the room stopped to stare at him."

"She swallowed down the huge lump in her throat and wiped away the tears threatening to fall from her puffy eyes."

MUCH BETTER!

Now you can see that description really sets the tone for the reader and allows them to really imagine what is happening in your book. They can really feel as though they are the character you're writing about, and that is one of the best things a writer can achieve. I'd be over the moon if someone was so engrossed in my story that they could visualise it to that extent.


So what I'm saying here, is that without descriptive words it would be hard to imagine in your head what the writer was trying to say in more depth.

Therefore cram as much as you can, (without being too excessive of course) in order to really set the scene for your reader.

Let them know how your character is feeling, how the room looked like when they walked in, how the girl looked and dressed like and describe it in as much depth as you can without it becoming too much of a blabble.

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⏰ Last updated: Apr 05, 2021 ⏰

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