Visualizing

Making your description interesting is largely about creating clear and occasionally striking images for the reader to visualise.

Description With Emotion

What really gives your description depth is relating how it makes your characters feel, showing their emotional response through the words and images you choose. Good description layers in emotions, almost giving what is being described a personality.

“The skerry was resting in the sea. It was like being in a cradle, or on a deathbed, he thought. All the voices hidden in the cliff were whispering. Even rocks have memories, as do waves and breakers. And down below, in the darkness where fish swam along invisible and silent channels, there were also memories”. Henning Mankell (Depths: A Novel)

The character’s emotions and mood are projected onto the landscape here, showing his age, solitude and loneliness. The comparison of the boat to a cradle and deathbed is complex, showing the narrator to be looking both forward and back in his life and comparing old age to infancy.

Five Senses

It is easy to focus on the visual when describing a place, carefully detailing the colours and shapes of things. Don’t forget our other senses: taste, touch, smell, and sound. Working these into your setting descriptions adds colour and texture, allowing the reader to imagine themselves in the scene and really bringing an experience of place onto the page rather than just a cool photographic distance.

Spending a little time to nail that perfect word or image can really pay off with your description. Keep it brief, keep it relevant, work it into your story and the reader won’t be able to skip it.