I love sunrises. That first blush that ribbons across the horizon brings with it new hopes, new dreams, new chances to make this day more special than all the others that have gone before it.
Oh, I often grumble about getting up early to get to work. I admittedly have failed to see the beauty and promise in a new day–have even groused that the brilliant sun is too blinding for safe driving.
But on those days when I push the world away and sit on my patio enjoying a cup of coffee, I find immense peace and hope rising with the sun. No two are the same–nature doesn’t repeat itself often if ever.
I’m a descriptive author by nature, but readers, like my characters, don’t have the time or patience to savor such prose or such vistas at great length. So I often stare at sunrises and sunsets and the bounty of nature and try to think of a new way to describe them in my works–not just to bulk the work, but to use description to help convey my characters emotions, and either further or hinder their goals.
Writing description in today’s fiction is like adding spices to a dish–it needs to be used sparingly in sprinkles and dashes. Description can set the tone, the pace and the mood. It defines the setting. It can add tension and provide powerful metaphors.
Much like an over salted dish that ruins a meal, descriptive writing should be seamless and play as pivotal a roll as any other character. In short, description colors your characters’ world with vibrant life.
In modern fiction, who in your opinion in a great descriptive author?
Liz Kreger is really good at description. I’m amazed at Michelle’s description in her last two books. She gives me Wow! moments.
Description is a struggle for me. I like to do it in a fresh way when possible. And it’s best from the character’s pov — again, when possible.
Edie, I think that the best description of scenes, etc. comes right from the characters. Otherwise it tends to sound like author intrusion to me. However there are a lot of very good authors who use an omni point of view to set the scene before delving into the character’s point of view.
Jan, I love description too. Sometimes it’s almost like a character hovering in the background, weaving in and out of everyone’s lives.
And I always look for fresh too, like Edie. It’s fun trying to find a new way of describing something. I can tell from your blog, you’re a geat description gal!
Janette,
I enjoyed your blog, and I can totally relate to your passion for writing descriptions. There’s something about describing a story element in detail, bringing it to reader life that’s magical. My best to you in your career!
Diana Cosby
http://www.dianacosby.com
Oh, I agree, LaDonna. I think that without description, a story has shallow roots. And thanks!
Hey Diana!
We are alike in liking the richness description can bring to our literary world. Magical–I like that! Best to you!
I like M.J. Rose. She makes words sound erotic, the words themselves. Even when she’s not writing an erotic scene, even in her thrillers.
I really don’t know how she does it.
Oooooo … another member of the “Dark Side”. I tend to go overboard with my descriptions (as I’ve been often chided
). But I do love description. Not the long, rambling ones, although I used to love those as well, but the well thought out descriptions that paint a picture in my mind.
I get up at 5:00 and go walking with a friend of mine (weather permitting). We make the final turn for home near a bluff that overlooks Lake Michigan and we get there just as the sun is coming out. Spectacular. I’m with you … not a morning person if I can help it, but I try to rise early if we’re on the beach somewhere … if only to watch those sunrises over the ocean.
Exactly, spy. I’m glad someone else noticed that too about M.J. She has a way of evoking the senusal that is envious.
Liz, there’s nothing quite like a sunrise over water. The array of colors in that palate are awesome.
Hey, Jan! I love your theory behind writing descrips into fiction. YOu have given me a new perspective.
In fact just this morning I wrote a great bit on how a pink and gold sunset colored the cheeks of my heroine. And then I reread it and thought, Geez, my hero would never say this…so instead of tossing it I had my hero thinking there was something wrong with him to be fawning over the heroine with such prose. Ha!
A great descriptive author: Diana Gabaldon
I love her!!!
Thanks for the insight.
~Kimberly
Hi Janette!
I love sunrises and sunsets, especially over water. Or the mountains. Or the high plains. Okay, I love those times period.
I tend to go description light, maybe because of my screenwriting training. These may be odd choices, but I love the descriptions Robert Crais uses, and the sort of clipped ones Robert Parker employees.
Descriptions can also lend such under and overtones to the action fixin’ to happen!
Light,
Nancy
Hey, Kim! That works, lol. Can’t make those macho men wax too poetic.
Nancy, I knew you were a sunset sunrise girl.
Something very special in those times of day. I do like Parker’s economy of descrition. It fits his characters and stories.
Janette,
I’m late to the party (drat those digests!) but I agree – sunrise is the most beautiful part of the day. I just wish it didn’t come so early. lol
Favorite descriptive author? Kathleen Woodiwiss. From the first time I read A Rose In Winter, I fell in love with her prose.
Tracy G.
That was the first book I read of Woodiwiss’s too! I loved Rose in Winter, Tracy. She really could paint masterpiece word pictures.
Nice first blog, Janette.
I’m with you on the “less is more” description trail. I’ll skip entire paragraphs is too much like a sale’s catalog. Same with too much dialog – less is more. Nothing makes me toss a book faster than over-kill.
Author who I feel works description:Stephen King.
Thanks, Kathy! You’re right–too much dialogue can get annoying as well, for it deprives the reader of getting in the character’s head.
King is a master. He writes with an ecomony of powerful words.
Sorry I’m late chiming in, Jan. I like to make description work two jobs, grounding the reader and giving insight into the character, if I can. Because I write deep third person, the way my characters see things reveals their world view.
I am a fan of Terry Pratchett’s descriptions. He made a whole world come alive for me, so that I could almost find my way around Ankh-Morpork, should I find myself lost there (although as I’m not paid up with the Theives Guild, I probably wouldn’t last long, anyway), and recognize a few of the people I passed in the street.
That’s the way description should be, Michelle. Not just window dressing. It must be deeper than that and tie into the heart and soul of the story. I’ve not read Prachett, but I will look him up now.