Descriptions – When Less Is More

If you look at the writing of many of the best and longest lived (in publication terms) authors, you will find they seldom get bogged down in lots of general descriptions. They seem to treat descriptions, whether of scenery, characters, or actions, as things to be rationed with care. When they do use descriptive words, they choose strong, powerful words that will generate sharp images. They use descriptions that will evoke a feeling or clear grasp of the action or thing being described.

We need descriptions to show us setting, character, and actions, but decent into every minute and trivial detail takes away the strength and focus a scene should have. Attention to detail when a detective is looking at a crime scene or a soldier on patrol is important, but the kind of detail given should be limited to what the character finds important. Minute descriptions of scenery will bore your readers, especially if it has little to do with the story. If you have a person broken down on the side of the road in the desert, all you really need to give the reader a clear grasp of the situation is the blazing sun on his neck, blinding glare of the sand, or similar phrase to convey the feel of being stuck in the desert. You don’t need two paragraphs about how hot he is, the type of cacti present, or details of the rock formations. These things are irrelevant and keep you from catapulting the reader into that desert with the character unless and until they become important to the story.

That is what you want, after all, to put the reader into the character’s shoes and feel what he/she feels. Unless you are writing a milieu story where the setting is the focus, you need to keep the descriptions limited to what’s important. Instead of many flowery or weak words, use a few strong words with powerful images.  Let’s compare approaches.

1. Dan started sweating as soon as he stepped out of the car. A lizard darted across the hot, white sand that seemed to stretch for miles.  In the distance, towering cliffs of barren rock had been sculpted by the wind to resemble monstrous stacks of petrified pancakes. The crystalline glare of sun on powdery sand made it hard to see the tall, alien looking cacti standing sentinels over the smaller, scruffy brush. Rounded, gray pebbles made a path beside the road that would carry the water of infrequent rains. The pebbles shimmered with heat that he felt through his shoes as he walked to the back of the car.

2. The heat struck Dan with physical force as he got out of the car. Sun reflecting off the sand felt like it would blister his eyes. Hell of a place to have a flat tire.

Now, if this was the opening to a story about Dan being stranded in the desert because he didn’t have a spare and trying to survive, the first example would be fine, though I would want to write it more interactive. If he had a flat on the way to pick up his boss at the airport and the incident had little to do with story, the first would be nothing but filler. If a story is full of such descriptions, that may be poetic but don’t have any point, a reader will quickly get bored. The second conveys the essence of the experience without distracting from what else may be going on.

You will also find writers who want to detail action to death. Some fight scenes describe every movement to the point you stop and try to make an exact visual out of the description given and, in the process, loose the sense of conflict in the fight. The same is true with many, if not all, explicit erotic scenes in romances. Minute descriptions of the physical actions actually take away from the emotions and reactions of the characters. I have read very few authors who could pull off using detailed descriptions of any physical actions without it becoming a distraction to the whole purpose of the scene.

Minor characters that appear and disappear are better described by picking out a single trait or article of clothing that will give the reader a quick and dirty feel for the character, always through the perceptions of the POV you are writing from. An innkeeper might approach your MC wearing a crisp, white apron (he/she never gets their hands dirty) or they may be wiping hands on a grimy apron (do you want to eat here?). During an interaction, a few well chosen words can give an identity to even the humblest of walk on characters. If you try to give too much detailed physical description to these characters, you will lead your readers into expecting them to be more important.

In short, any time a description bogs down the story, taking away from the conflict or distracting from what’s happening, it needs to go. It may sound pretty and give a vivid view, or tell every blow and dodge, but it needs to go. Write a poem with the words instead.