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For the past few years I have been teaching high school writing in our homeschool tutorial co-op. Having seen several groups of students through the courses, I've noticed some issues and questions coming up regularly. I hope these Tip Sheets will be helpful to my students, their parents, and perhaps to other students and parent/teachers as well.
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Descriptive writing is used in both non-fiction and fiction writing, so it's a useful skill for writers. It's used in advertising, in biographies and memoirs, in all kinds of informational and how-to articles and essays, in some newspaper writing, and of course it's used in stories and poems.
In description writing, it's important to pay attention to the details and to choose which details to focus on. Keep in mind the purpose of the description in what you're writing, and the dominant impression you want to make. For example, when writing a how-to essay about maintaining a butterfly garden, you'll need to accurately describe the plants you recommend and the type of growing conditions each needs. You may also want to describe some of the butterflies that may be attracted, but it's the plants that are the focus of the article. When describing a city for a travel magazine, the dominant impression will be different than describing the same city as the setting for a crime thriller novel.
So let's talk about describing settings in stories. Generally speaking, today's readers and authors prefer brief setting descriptions along the way rather than several paragraphs of details at the beginning of a story or chapter. Choose the details that you will describe carefully, to make the best possible use of them. Descriptions set a mood for the story or foreshadow what's ahead. Descriptions of setting help reveal information about characters, and can also be used to indicate time and place in a more subtle way than a chapter heading naming city and date.
Choose the description tools that will work best. These include:
Figurative Language and Sensory Details
Help your reader imagine himself in the scene by describing what it sounds like, feels like, smells like, or even tastes like - not just what it looks like. Be creative with those comparisons, making use of figurative language such as metaphors and personification. Keep in mind that dominant impression you want to create, and use descriptive words and phrases that contribute to it.
The greatest writers are effective largely because they deal in particulars and report the details that matter. ~William H. Strunk
Time and Nature
The time of day or time of year in your setting can add to the dominant impression. Weather and nature elements can also contribute. You may need to think about the associations people have with some of those elements. A garden with colorful butterflies is a very different story setting than a swamp full of mosquitos. Is the bird soaring overhead a seagull or a vulture? Is it a sunny afternoon in June or a foggy night in November?
I always try to make the setting fit the story I have in mind. ~Tony Hillerman
Show, Don't Tell
This is a favorite mantra in Sharon Watson's textbooks on writing. It's better to show that something is significant than to blurt it out to the reader. Convey an impression so that readers draw the conclusion. The way you describe the moonlit lake should create the impression for your reader that it's peaceful and calm, creating the right setting for the happy ever after ending of your story. Or that the shadows and waves are somehow ominous and threatening, foreshadowing a tragedy on the lake.
Good writing is remembering detail. Most people want to forget. Don't forget things that were painful or embarrassing or silly. Turn them into a story that tells the truth. ~Paula Danziger
Try to avoid subjective or abstract descriptions like "perfect", "ugly", or "frightening". Describe what it looks like, sounds like, feels like to create that impression. After all, the scene I imagine as the most beautiful might be very different than the one you imagine.
If you want to be a successful writer, you must be able to describe it, and in a way that will cause your reader to prickle with recognition. ~Stephen King
Use precise and specific verbs more often than adverbs. Rather than have a character walking slowly, have him strolling or meandering or stumbling.
One more way to show the description is to make sure your characters react appropriately to the environment. The desert sun beating down on a character isn't meaningful unless the character is sweating and staggering in exhaustion. The hurricane winds aren't believable unless the branches are being torn from trees and a character has to dodge them while fighting to keep his footing while struggling to reach safety.
I think of setting as almost a character of its own, influencing other characters in ways they're not even aware of. So much of the success of a good ghost story rides on creating a creepy atmosphere; details of the landscape itself can help create a sense of dread. ~Jennifer McMahon
Direction and Order
Think how your setting would be portrayed by a movie camera. Would it pan from top to bottom, or left to right? Would it gradually focus in from a broad to close-up perspective? Organize your description so it does the same.
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Write First, Then Edit
Adding and subtracting details and fine tuning your setting descriptions is best done during your proofreading and editing steps. Focus on characters and action in your early drafts, and then consider your descriptions. Replace wordy or vague verbs and nouns with specific and precise words. Make sure all the descriptions work together and 'belong' and that nothing is out of place (for example, mentioning a piece of technology that would not have existed during the time period of your story).
The first draft is black and white. Editing gives the story color. ~Emma Hill
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For describing the characters in fiction, see: High School Writing Tip Sheets - Creating Characters in Fiction.
Some of this article is based on information in the wonderful textbook Writing Fiction [In High School] from Writing with Sharon Watson. This textbook is the one I've taught from in the co-op for several years, and I highly recommend it.
Read our full review at Writing Fiction - Bringing Stories to Life (A Homeschool Coffee Break Review)
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