Monday, September 05, 2005
On Descriptive Writing
I borrowed this passage from a blog entry from conservative blogger Francis W. Porretto:
Many a novice fictioneer labors over description -- when to do it; how much of it to do; what to leave in and what to leave out -- as he does over no other aspect of the narrative craft. Strangely, the preponderance of the anxieties felt in this regard are unnecessary. Description is actually a much easier, and more easily comprehended, matter than most writers think.
Granted that first-class description can produce a unique effect:
Day was opening in the sky, and they saw that the mountains were now much further off, receding eastward in a long curve that was lost in the distance. Before them, as they turned west, gentle slopes ran down into dim hazes far below. All about them were small woods of resinous trees, fir and cedar and cypress, and other kinds unknown in the Shire, with wide glades among them; and everywhere there was a wealth of sweet-smelling herbs and shrubs. The long journey from Rivendell had brought them far south of their own land, but not until now in this more sheltered region had the hobbits felt the change of clime. Here Spring was already busy about them: fronds pierced moss and mould, larches were green-fingered, small flowers were opening in the turf, birds were singing. Ithilien, the garden of Gondor now desolate kept still a dishevelled dryad loveliness. [J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord Of The Rings, "The Two Towers"]
...one cannot over-indulge in such effects without losing the reader.
Why? Because of Brunner's First Law of Fiction: The raw material of fiction is people. More specifically, what your characters are saying, doing, and doing to one another.
Elmore Leonard, famed for his humor-laced thrillers, was once asked by a fan why he wrote so few descriptive passages, and kept them so short. Leonard smiled and replied, "I try not to write the parts that people skip."
Ponder that. The typical reader skips descriptive passages. Why? Not because they're badly written, though some surely are; they're skipped because most description contributes nothing to the forward movement of the story!
Remember how a typical reader chooses the books he'll read:
* He heads for the section(s) of the bookstore where he can find his favorite genre(s).
* He looks first for authors whose works have pleased him in the past.
* If he doesn't find any unread works by familiar, approved writers, he scans spines and covers for clever titles and provocative art.
* When a title or cover painting catches his fancy, he picks it up and reads the back-cover or dust-jacket blurb. If it fails to intrigue him, he puts the book back on the rack and resumes his search.
* If the blurb has, at the least, not dimmed his tentative interest, he opens the book to the first chapter and reads one or two pages. If these don't impress him, he passes on.
* If the first page or two engage his interest, he might riffle the pages of the book, scanning it for "density." That is, he looks to see how tightly the words are packed on a typical page. If it's too high -- that is, if descriptive and pure-narrative passages overwhelm dialogue and character interaction -- he passes on.
* Finally, if all the above tests have been satisfied and his funds will allow, he buys the book.
To be agreeable to the overwhelming majority of readers, fiction must concentrate on dialogue and active events in the lives of his characters. A writer who forgets or disdains this pattern and concentrates on description might get invited to a lot of faculty teas, but he won't sell many books.
For all of that, some description is necessary if you want the reader to see your fictional world vividly. But there are guidelines to make it plain when it's necessary, how much of it there should be, and what specifically one should describe. These guidelines are nicely synopsized in the imperative: Cultivate an eye for the telling detail.
(/end quote)
My comments on the passage:
The passage from Tolkein. Porretto uses Tolkein to show that descriptive elements, carefully chosen, can enchance the experience of reading. I believe this is a wonderful bit of narrative, but the problem with Tolkein, in my opinion, is that there are way too many passages like this that aren't so wonderful, which unfortunately undermines the point he's trying to make. But the point is still true - good description, sparingly used, enchances writing.
Also, I completely agree with his comments that "the reader skips long descriptive passages", and yes, his summary of how readers choose what books to read unfortunately mirrors how I choose which book I wish to read. He has me dead to rights.
Every Daria writer who isn't writing in script form should memorize these two sentences:
To be agreeable to the overwhelming majority of readers, fiction must concentrate on dialogue and active events in the lives of his characters.
And also
Cultivate an eye for the telling detail. Porretto puts this in boldface. In a few days, I'll explain why.
# posted by James @ 10:24 AM 
