Dear O'Abby: How much detail should I use?

 Dear O'Abby,

I'm doing NaNo this month and am doing pretty well, I think.  I'm definitely going to get to the 50K, and quite possibly even more.  But as I've been writing, I keep getting stuck on how much detail to go into, especially around describing people and things.  My book is set in an alternate world, so things are not going to be familiar to modern readers, but I feel like I may have been going a little far with detailing things.

Do you have any advice?

Truly,

Descriptor

Dear Descriptor,

Over-describing is an easy pit to fall into and one many writers struggle to get out of.  Especially, as you mention, when you're writing an unfamiliar world.  There's always a temptation to make sure your readers understand and see the world as clearly as you do.  But in reality, you need far less than you think.  Readers' imaginations are wonderful things and should never be underestimated.

When I'm writing, I always try to make sure any description I give is warranted or that it can pull double duty in giving insight into a character as well as describing a place or object. For example, describing a character's shoes as  meticulously cleaned Jordans tells you the character is probably both careful with his appearance and has enough money to buy name-brand footwear.

If a person or place is incidental to the story and will not appear again, then there is no reason to go into much detail.  Be sparse and generic and move on, saving your more detailed description for a place that is central to the plot or a character you want the reader to remember as a policeman, or describing an office building as being a high-rise.  Those few words can orientate the reader enough that they will understand the scene without going into any unnecessary detail.

Nothing stops the action as quickly as a long paragraph of description, so try to scatter your description throughout the text for the reader to pick up on as they follow the characters through their journey.  This is especially critical in the early scenes of your book where you are trying to propel the story forward, introduce your main characters and hook the reader enough that they will keep going.  Once you've got them into the story, there might be an opportunity for some longer passages of description if needed.

This can all be fixed when you edit post-NaNo, so don't worry too much about it as you try to reach that 50K goal.  Right now you just need to keep writing.

Hopefully that helps!

X O'Abby

Too Good For Words

Story prompt: put this image into words... in dialogue 
Planetary nebulae are the remains of sun-like stars that have reached the end of their red giant stage, losing most of their atmosphere into space to form some of the most beautiful nebula in the Milky Way. (Courtesy: NASA, ESA, HEIC Heritage Collection)

One of my erstwhile hobbies is reading NDEs, or Near-Death Experiences. The people who write these books come from a variety of circumstances and are not all writers, obviously.

That would be weird.

Some of them hire writers to tell their stories and others do it themselves, feeling called to share what happened to them regardless of previous writing experience. Many of these books read like journals.

But every single one shares a common element: the too good for words problem.

Read a book about a near-death experience and you will invariably reach a part where the author tries to describe the Supreme Consciousness, God, Angels, the Gates of Heaven, or Pure Love. And to a person, these writers feel unequipped to undertake such a phenomenal task. There are no words. It's too beautiful for words. The limitations of our language make it impossible to convey.

"Regardless, it is impossible for me to adequately describe what I saw and what I felt. When I try to recount my experiences now, the description feels very pale. I feel as though I am trying to describe a three-dimensional experience while living in a two-dimensional world. The appropriate words, descriptions, and concepts don't even exist in our current language." - Dr. Mary C. Neal

While we may not all have near-death experiences, I think all writers have the same challenge when trying to write about one of the most basic human experiences: love. 

Also difficult to describe with full honors: fire, lightning, a smile. Frankly, these things are all too good for words.

But I guess love is the most difficult. In fact, my favorite writers haven't endeavored to describe love at all. They've simply illustrated it through a story about ordinary people and the choices they make.

What do you do, though, if you're actually writing about the supernatural? 

How would you describe a light above the brightness of the sun... without comparing it to the sun? It's a little like trying to describe the taste of salt to someone who has never tasted it before. We can always ask Becca and Angela to make a new entry for Supernatural in their Settings Thesaurus. But barring that, let's see how a few of our dead-and-risen friends managed to illustrate the unimaginable: 

• "Their edges were blurred, as each spiritual being was dazzling and radiant. Their presence engulfed all of my senses, as though I could see, hear, feel, smell, and taste them all at once. Their brilliance was both blinding and invigorating." - Mary C. Neal, M.D. in To Heaven and Back: The True Story of a Doctor's Extraordinary Walk with God

• "Suddenly, I was enveloped in this brilliant golden light. The light was more brilliant than the light emanating from the sun, many times more powerful and radiant than the sun itself. Yet, I was not blinded by it nor was I burned by it. Instead, the light was a source of energy that embraced my being." - Ned Dougherty in Fast Lane to Heaven

• "... as I approached, I physically absorbed its radiance and felt the pure, complete, and utterly unconditional absolute love that emanated from the hall. It was the most beautiful and alluring thing I had ever seen or experienced. I knew with a profound certainty that it represented the last branch point of life, the gate through which each human being must pass." - Mary C. Neal, M.D. in To Heaven and Back: The True Story of a Doctor's Extraordinary Walk with God

• "It was as if I were being born into a larger world, and the universe itself was like a giant cosmic womb...." - Eben Alexander, M.D. in Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife

• "A sound, huge and booming like a glorious chant, came down from above, and I wondered if the winged beings were producing it. Again thinking about it later, it occurred to me that the joy of these creatures, as they soared along, was such that they had to make this noise--that if the joy didn't come out of them this way then they would simply not otherwise be able to contain it. The sound was palpable and almost material, like a rain that you can feel on your skin but that doesn't get you wet." - Eben Alexander, M.D. in Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife

• "Seeing and hearing were not separate in this place where I now was. I could hear the visual beauty of the silvery bodies of those scintillating beings above, and I could see the surging, joyful perfection of what they sang. It seemed that you could not look at or listen to anything in this world without becoming a part of it--without joining with it in some mysterious way." - Eben Alexander, M.D. in Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife

• "...found myself entering an immense void, completely dark, infinite in size, yet also infinitely comforting. Pitch black as it was, it was also brimming over with light: a light that seemed to come from a brilliant orb that I now sensed near me. An orb that was living and almost solid, as the songs of the angel beings had been.... but any descriptive word falls short." - Eben Alexander, M.D. in Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife

• "I wasn't sure when the light in the room began to change; suddenly I was aware that it was brighter, a lot brighter, than it had been. I whirled to look at the night-light on the bedside table. Surely a single 15-watt bulb couldn't turn out that much light? I stared in astonishment as the brightness increased, coming from nowhere, seeming to shine everywhere at once. All the light bulbs in the ward couldn't give off that much light. All the bulbs in the world couldn't! It was impossibly bright: it was like a million welders' lamps all blazing at once.... now I saw that it was not a light but a Man who had entered the room, or rather, a Man made out of light, though this seemed no more possible to my mind than the incredible intensity of the brightness that made up His form.... Above all, with that same mysterious inner certainty, I knew that this Man loved me. Far more even than power, what emanated from this Presence was unconditional love. An astonishing love. A love beyond my wildest imagining. This love knew every unlovable thing about me...and accepted and loved me just the same." - George G. Ritchie with Elizabeth Sherrill in Return from Tomorrow

• "'What about the insurance money coming when I'm seventy?' The words were out, in this strange realm where communication took place by thought instead of speech, before I could call them back. A few months ago I had taken out the standard life insurance policy offered to service men; in some subconscious part of me had I believed this piece of paper guaranteed life itself? If I'd suspected before that there was mirth in the Presence beside me, now I was sure of it: the brightness seemed to vibrate and shimmer with a kind of holy laughter--not at me and my silliness, not a mocking laughter, but a mirth that seemed to say that in spite of all error and tragedy, joy was more lasting still." - George G. Ritchie with Elizabeth Sherrill in Return from Tomorrow

What do you think? Did these descriptions make you feel there with them? Did they do justice to whatever it was they were describing? Or were they just nebulous hyperbole wrapped in enigma with a plethora of 'biggest's and 'brightest's? Could you do better?

These people all wrote what they say really happened to them, but as a science-fiction and fantasy writer I'm very interested in their words as examples of descriptive writing. I'm reminded of the artful way Jennifer Armentrout described her beings of light in the Lux series.

What works of fiction (or non-fiction) do you consult when faced with a description challenge?

Dionna L. Mann on POV in Description

This week I asked middle-grade writer Dionna L. Mann to write a guest post. Dionna is the author of FREEDOM PEN (Pugalicious Press, also the publisher of DEADWOOD!), a new gem of a children's novel with a pitch-perfect rural Virginia voice.

FREEDOM PEN by Dionna L. Mann,
Pugalicous Press, 2012, on sale now!

Here's the blurb:

Being mean ain’t in nobody’s blood.
 
Reckon folks will argue that one until there’s no more moonshine on the mountains.  But in Freedom Pen that’s what Sarah the Twerp believes.  And soon she and her brother, Billy, are setting out on a courageous summertime adventure to free two pit bull pups from a violent future.  Will the pup’s heroes succeed in their quest, though they’ve been penned in by a violent past themselves?

So how does she capture that POV in every line? She sent over this guest post and I used it immediately in revising picture book manuscript -- it really helped me think about choice of word and image.

POV: Parasol or Velcro?

By Dionna L. Mann 

The sky is an opened parasol hovering above … or is it Velcro stretching taut across the horizon, better yet, is it mashed potatoes filling a blue expanse…?

Truth be told, if the penned stylist doesn’t know who is looking at the sky, then the whole manuscript-troposphere is a muddled mess!

So…what’s the sky made of? Is it a Parasol Or Velcro? It all depends on whose eyes are gazing upward—the POV—doesn’t it?

Who’s gawking up? 

If the eyes gawking up are of a teenage girl from Harlem, New York, then the stars filling the firmament sure better not look like the shining scales of a freshly caught herring. And if the eyes are of a ten-year-old boy from the hollers of an Appalachian Mountain range, then the bejeweled night canopy sure better not look like an aluminum garbage can stretched from North Street to South Street with headlights bouncing on it.

Talk about whipping up some unsettling wind conditions for anyone attempting to hang glide in the sky of your created world! The poor reader piloting such a confused story will probably feel lightheaded due to POV-oxygen deprivation! (Look out below! She’s coming in hard!) And that’s your manuscript hitting the reject pile.

Be kind to your reader, will you? Let the POV-air blow gently, steadily, consistently.

Eye know what eye am seeing! 

No matter if your narration, the point of view, of your story is in the first person: “I looked at the sky…”, and I’m Jimmy and—Get back writer!—I know how I see the sky! 

Or if it is in the limited third person: “Jimmy looked at the sky….”, and I’m the narrator seeing everything through Jimmy’s eyes, so, don’t question me, I know how Jimmy sees the sky.

Or if it’s in an omniscient voice: “That whippersnapper Jim looked at the sky…”, and I’m a wise, old man from Kentucky, so I know how Jim and everyone else sees the sky. What’s more, I’ll describe it in my own crotchety way!

Author Dionna L. Mann

No matter any of that. The bottom line is that the sky must be seen through the eyes of whom the story speaks. That’s POV, plain and simple.

Right Shade of Blue 

If you really want to get the hue of blue right for the arch above, consider this: How does my character feel when he’s outside staring heavenward? Is he a downhearted charcoal-gray? Then surely he won’t describe the sunset as an ice cream sundae with rainbow sprinkles.

Is he feeling a jubilant baby blue? Then his eyes must not wander aimlessly toward dusky clouds that seem to be oozing black ink. Heavens, no! Do that and your reader will be yelling, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”

The mood of each scene and the character’s state of mind at any given time during the narration of the story must influence the POV.

Is Columbus breathing this air, too? 

Think about this, too. When was Jimmy born? If the kid came into the world in the 1800s, he’ll not describe the sky the exact same way as if he was born in the year 2012, or 2504. Research (for historical fiction), imagination (for a futuristic envisioning), and at all times, observing the world as Jimmy would, will bring your POV clearly into focus.

So next time your character gazes into the sky, how will he or she describe it? Like a parasol or Velcro? Spend time getting into the head of your character or narrator, and then you’ll know just what to make of the blue bowl above us!

Suggested reading: Description by Monica Wood, published by Writer’s Digest Books.

Related Links

More about Dionna L. Mann
Buy Freedom Pen
Interview with Dionna L. Mann by Kathy Erskine