The Deadly Description Mistake You Must Avoid

Want to be sure you don’t lose your reader within the first 10 pages?

Then heed this word of warning:

Don’t let your description become dead boring.

Think about it: How many ways can you describe sunrises, sunsets, moonlight peeking through tree branches?

Now, if you can handle description the way Charles Frazier (below) does in his debut masterpiece, Cold Mountain, you’ll never lose my attention.

“The hayfield beyond the beaten dirt of the school playground stood pant-waist high, and the heads of grasses were turning yellow from need of cutting. The teacher was a round little man, hairless and pink of face. He owned but one rusty black suit of clothes and a pair of old overlarge dress boots that curled up at the toes and were so worn down that the heels were wedgelike. He stood at the front of the room rocking on the points.”

Some writers make you want to emulate them. Frazier makes me want to surrender and simply read.

Here’s why his writing works:

It makes you forget you’re reading.

If you can come close to what he does above—go for it.

But if your goal is to get your reader to think, “Hey, this writer is eloquent,” you’re missing the point.

Readers want to lose themselves in your story—not be bombarded with flowery writing.

Instead, try this: Suggest just enough to engage the theater of your reader’s mind.

Nothing can compete with that.

A perfect example comes from the late great mystery writer John D. MacDonald, who once described a character as “knuckly.”

That evoked a complete picture in my mind and taught me that less is more, especially when the word is that evocative and carefully chosen.

My approach to description:

Do it extremely well (like Frazier)
Layer it in with your narrative or
Leave it out

How do you handle writing description? Who have you seen do it well?

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