I write a lot of descriptions.
Sweeping panoramas, tiny details of foreshadowing few will notice—it can take whole paragraphs, or one or two carefully picked words. It’s a process of layering, comparing and implying: doing everything you can to make your audience see what you see.
That’s the purpose of descriptions: to make the audience see what you see. It seems like an obvious statement, but many descriptions do anything but that. let's use an example:
"There was a duck in the box. It was rubber and yellow."
How much information do you get out of this? You have the bare details. Technically you can imagine a yellow rubber duck in a box, but it doesn’t catch your attention. It’s nothing special.
At some point you might need this kind of description: maybe to portray sarcasm, to highlight a character’s lack of enthusiasm, or perhaps to invoke a “well duh” moment. But usually, you won’t want to write descriptions this way.
Let's try again:
“A duck sat in the box, the yellowest, glossiest rubber duck you could wish for.”
This has a lot more character. It presents an enduring, almost childish tone. We feel the delight and understand that the gift is appreciated. It also provides clues to the receiver's personality in general.
Or you could do it like this:
"It was a duck. A dead-eyed, yellow rubber duck in a box."
Feel the seeping displeasure? See how the receiver kind of looks like a jerk?
The amount of personality you can pack into this without altering the raw information is amazing. You could rework the sentence again and again, giving it new meaning every time through the construction and word choice alone.
The point of descriptions isn’t to present raw facts; it’s to infuse the facts with as many layers of information as possible, building the image until the reader sees it as clearly as you do. Distill emotion and tone into it, make it carry your story as powerfully as any moment of action.
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