Descriptive writing is used in stories; it is used so that your reader can see what your character is seeing, feel what they're feeling, hear what they're hearing and so on, so it is a big part of writing skill.

Do you practise a lot of descriptive writing, or does it just come naturally to you? What exercises did you or do you do, to help nurture your descriptive writing?

How can you better your descriptions; and do you think you can use too many in your writing, or is it important that your reader can picture everything in detail as you describe it?

First, I want to say that I'm looking forward to better answers than I can give to this question because I find that I usually "Tell, don't Show" which is the opposite of what you're supposed to do. But, I have been descriptive in my writing before, it just takes extra effort, I have to think "ok, I want them to see what I'm seeing". I just take the picture or movie that is in my mind while I'm writing and I try to describe it a bit in words. A silly answer, I know, but like I said I struggle with this too.
Hopefully I can still give some advice about to what level you should be descriptive:
Try to use 'small' phrases and terms that invoke *looks up definition to make sure I have the right word* or convey certain feelings and thoughts such as "his voice echoed" The fact that his voice echoed makes the reader think of an open place, and if it's in a cave, it will add to the creepy awesomeness, if it's in a castle, it adds to the majesticness or forbidding of the palace or castle. So what I mean is, little words sometimes have big consequences on how people will visualize and think about the setting. I totally am not good at utilizing this technique, but I'm pretty sure it's something that could help make your writing (and mine!) more descriptive without using a whole paragraph to talk about it.
That being said, in some cases it's fun to learn about something. If there is an epic monster about to attack your character a few lines describing him are in order. People want to know what the fight's going to look like, it'll help a lot if they know what the combatants look like and whether they have special abilities (these should be at least partially explained, I think), and how strong/powerful they are. And even describing beautiful (or forbidding) landscapes is good, and adds to the story and sometimes gives me the feeling "I wish I was there" or "I'm so glad I'm not there!", but I lose interest if the author rambles too long (like Tolkien does sometimes, but I still love his stories! ). Well, I hope my massive post is at least worth the time it takes you to read it, I hadn't meant to go so long... God Bless and I hope someone with more knowledge is able to answer you!

We have a Podcast coming out today which will talk about descriptions.

*Claps hands* Oh boy! Something to listen to while folding laundry! I'll be sure to download that!

Thanks for the reply, Wolf; and I enjoy reading monster posts.

It isn't actually something I struggle with too much, however I do worry about being over descriptive in my writing, as I love describing! I hope we can get a good discussion going about it though, because there are always new things to learn! So thanks for contributing.



I'm looking forward to it!

Whoa, I did write a monster post... well, a little one anyway... I'm glad you enjoyed reading it even though I sort of misunderstood the scope of your question, I think it helped me think through some things just writing it!

*Chuckles* It doesn't matter, it was on topic, and I'm glad it helped you think things through!

Yeah, it seems that writing things out really helps me think sometimes. All the same, I'm hoping to see some more posts here!

Yea, we got a good discussion going on HWSF about it. *Hint hint*

Are you still trying to get me to join that forum? Well...I don't know...maybe instead we should just rally those that frequent the fantasy forum more than the sci-fi one, and make this one better than that one!

*Has thoughts on this but needs to go to bed, but subscribes to topic so he can poke and remind self to post thoughts.*

Andrew

*Will be sure to remember to poke Andrew if he forgets.*

Our local chapter of the Mythopoeic Society discussed Book 4 of The Lord of the Rings (the second half of The Two Towers) last Saturday; while I was reading it to prepare for the meeting, it struck me (again) just how good Tolkien is at descriptive writing. There's a constant (at least in the bits that aren't action sequences ...), palpable presence you sense from his distinctive descriptions of sights, sounds, smells ... We would do well to try to imitate him.

I just wanted to touch on one thing before I jump into descriptive writing. I think "show, not tell" often gets a bad rap because people think it is talking about description, but show not tell is talking about dialogue, about what your characters do. Obviously saying "Bob was angry." is telling, while having Bob shout at his wife, thus showing that he was angry, is showing. But that's a sideline

Description is a hard thing to get right, at least for me, because I have images for everything in my book, up in my head. When I write I don't usually write descriptive writing of characters, places, foods, settings, or anything because I know what they look like so the passage looks complete to me without description. Usually I will go through a scene after I've written it and identify things that the reader needs to know what they look like and add description through afterwards.

For me, my descriptive writing has been helped lately by reading/writing poetry/essence maps. That's more abstract description, but it still gets you in the right frame of mind, thinking about what something is, and how you can describe it to the reader so that they can see it as vividly as they can. The trick is how to get a rich description without inundating the reader with a ton of details they don't necessarily want.

An author who strikes a really good balance, I feel, is Stephen Lawhead. I've only read one of his books, and actually couldn't follow the story at all because it was second in a series (I didn't know this when I started the book), but the description was excellent. There's one passage in particular in "The Bone House" where Lawhead is describing some creatures the MC has run up against. Excellent excellent descriptive writing.

Andrew

I have that problem too! That's a really good solution to that problem. *makes note*

Thank you for commenting, Andrew!

Yes, an author who my Mother reads a lot of said that when she is writing a book, she surrounds herself with books by good authors; then she sees all the different writing styles and descriptive styles, so she has a balanced feel for it. I thought that was a good idea.



That's a good idea. *Also makes note*

I often find that too much description bores me in some books, unless the words are vibrant and give me a beautiful picture, or are words not used very much.
C S Lewis didn't go totally into detail on certain things because he wanted it to be up to the reader to use his/her imagination.

J R R Tolkien wrote as if he had to get every 'fact', every detail in the most accurate way.

Some people don't use enough description though, and it makes the reader get lost sometimes, wondering where the scene is taking place.

If you read a book like Auralia's Colors, you'll see what I meant by writing description beautifully.
When I began reading the book, I drank up the wonderful descriptions because it was a unique style that brought vibrant pictures to my mind.

Good thoughts, Emilyn. It's about getting a good balance, I think, between too little, and too much.

Umm ... If Tolkien had described every detail, the books would have been many times longer than they were. But he worked very hard to show a lot of detail while making every detail add to the richness of the work and be described perfectly. For example, in the passage I was thinking of when I mentioned him earlier, he describes a circle of flowers on a small hill in Ithilien as looking like a crown. This is the sort of touch I would never think of making, for which I especially admire him.


Concur!

Tolkien, however, is one of those authors that gets hung up on description at times, I believe. I know it is taboo for me to say such a thing, but ya'll know how I feel about Tolkien, so I have no qualms in saying it.

*Does not know what Airi thinks about Tolkien, and wants to know. PM? *

Sure, Elanor!! You PM whatever you want to know. I love talking, you know.

Ok, I will tomorrow, as I'm just going to bed now. Thanks!

Night! Sweet dreams.

Tolkien was something of a perfectionist (as even a casual glance through the old drafts later published as The History of Middle Earth will reveal), and his background in early English literature and in mythology, and his passion for philology, definitely show. He isn't the "fast read" that the modern world seems to demand; if you read too quickly you'll miss both the brilliant flavor of his prose and most of the substance ... as I found when I stopped skimming over most of the Frodo/Sam/Gollum bits to get back to the less tense but more exiting adventures of Merry, Pippin, and the rest of the Company, and started working my way through Book 4.

(But no, I haven't been here long enough to encounter your views of Tolkien before either.)

*smiles * He was a brilliant man. Authors who understand writing well get the added attention that I study the men, not just their works. I have sat at the feet of the man quite a bit, but I also recognize he wasn't perfect, and his stories are not flawless. Good and deep, yes, but not flawless. That is a very simple overview, anyways.

In what way? Are you saying that Tolkien would write description in such a way that would detract from the story?

Not necessarily detract, since it was always written about something "on topic", if you pardon the HW expression, but rather... Sometimes Tolkien went into detail on things that could have been left out in order to help propel the story line. It’s not that there is anything wrong with the description, but rather, that it would arguably have been wiser to not include certain descriptions to allow the reader to focus on the storyline at hand.

That could partly be due to the era in which it was written, I remember reading that the publisher's son read the books (he was about ten or so) and loved them, recommending them for children his age...but nowadays hardly anyone has the attention span for them (myself included sometimes, but I still love the descriptions when I do pay attention to them ).

Yes, I think that is true, but I have a very long attention span. Like most any other writer, I think there are things that Tolkien could have done to improve his stories. It's not an insult, its critical evaluation. I have been a reviewer for Into the Book and I write reviews for Film Reviews by People (not to mention the library work I do which requires a sharp, critical eye). In essence, it is my job to filter things through a fine clothe. Tolkien's books are good, his world building unbelievable. However, there are still some things he could have altered.

That's cool you get to do that stuff.
I definitely agree there are things he could have altered to improve the stories...I just can't think of what right now, I would have to read them again, and even then I wouldn't really be able to decide because there could be meaning behind something I can't see...but that doesn't matter, we're in agreement that neither he, nor his books were/are perfect.

Nope. Not perfect. Brilliant and genre changing, but not perfect.

Agreed.

Interesting. I must remember to study this sometime.

Let me know what you find out.