111: Writing Descriptive Prose
“Professor” Rj Waltz
Yeah, when I get here I’m going to need you to put at least a little energy into it. I’m not expecting fireworks, but would a little fire kill you? Maybe a laser show or two? Today, class, we’re talking about description. So let’s make everything a sickeningly shocking shade of purple.
“Some sort of Smurf” Waltz
Perfect. There are a lots of ways to write the description of your scenes, and I cannot stress enough how much I don’t care how you write them. Use as many or as few words as you want. Well, more is probably better in most cases, but still. As long as you get the point across. In the event that you are setting up some killer prose, the main goal is to introduce and immerse that picky reader of yours into the headspace of the narrator. How? Well, I’m glad you asked, myself rhetorically. Common wisdom dictates that you have a hilariously low number of five senses. Sight. Sound. Taste. Touch. Smell. This is how humans perceive the world. Well, more often than not. Your job, knucklehead, is to use these five things to set your scene. The narrator will see those blue curtains that English teachers say are symbollic. Their skin will feel itchy in the dust-filled air. They struggle to breathe in the dusty, dry air. The dull quiet stillness in the air aside from their own soft footsteps on the creaky boards. How the centuries old painting tastes when they lick it. Yeah, you get the idea.
Okay, so this is where you finding an extra pair of eyeballs is quite handy. While you write this part of the thing you’re writing, you can visualize the scene in progress because you’re picturing it in your mind as you’re describing it. Thing is, your reader’s can’t read your stupid mind. Wait, at least I don’t think they can. If you’re reading mine right now, enjoy learning my old high school locker combination and the list of places I’ve eaten pickles in. Ha! Got’em.
Point is, you’ve got to keep that little fact in mind and write your description to be North of… let’s call it uncomfortably specific. Oh! And before I forget to mention this, there’s another dimension to this whole description thing that a lot of other more qualified teacchers don’t talk about when they’re teaching at their community college workshops. The description of your scene doesn’t exist in a bubble. At least, it’s not supposed to. Unless you’re writing a story entirely inside of a bubble, I guess. What I mean is that your description has to be filtered through the persception of the narrator. The amount of filtration depends on the narrative perspective you’ve chosen to subject to your readers. First person, go ahead and write about how your narrator character goes on a tangent about a time where they got their nails done in the back alley of a sizzler by a fat dude who’s arm sleeve tattoo reminds them of the horrid wallpaper in the dentist’s office. For third person limited, you’re less restricted, but you’ll still have to reference the surroundings based on the experience of the characters. A sandwich artist wouldn’t know what a 3rd century colonial keystone is, so don’t put it in until the over-romantic architect gets there, damn it. As for 3rd person omniscience, your narrator is basically God, so you can basically do whatever it is you want. This includes writing about the perspectives on the described scenes through the perspectives and thoughts of multiple other characters, so don’t think that this narrative perspective choice will do anything but triple your workload. If you’re looking for examples on how to do this perspective’s description way right, check out anything by Douglas Adams. And remember your towel.
One last thing, because you’re starting to actually creep me out a little bit. If you get stuck on a particularly tricky scene to describe and you start spinning your wheels, skip it in the rough draft. That’s future, editing you’s problem to fill in the blanks. Leave a passive agressive note in brackets or parentheses or something so you know what you’re supposed to put there, and continue on with your eight-person vampire/leprechaun lesbian sex scene. That’s more fun that trying to figure out what shade of beige the purple doors are.
It’s been too long, so I don’t remember how to end these things. I’m sure the Molly’s going to kick in soon, anyway. Any questions? Good.
Class dismissed!
