Mood I will, more than Theme, I suppose.

Just thinking out loud.

I’ll pry do an post of examples in the future, but not right now. I need to let it percolate a bit, and there’s a rant I need to get off my chest first. New post!
.-= Doyce´s last blog ..Adrift, Episode 10 (podcast) =-.

It looks like, between you and Chuck, that the basics are covered. However, basics are often 1) too simple to be easily understood unless you already understand the basics and 2) kind of boring, really.

For a (future) request, may I have (to remedy #1) examples and (to remedy #2) where would you go, to push the far envelope, or beyond that?

Because, for example, unless I already know what it means that I need a thing to exist in a reader’s mind in a specific way (your ex 1), or including specific elements, it means bupkiss.

Frex, if main character hits guy across the back of the head with a spanner, how will I know if the word “spanner” is enough?

With what I know now about description, I know that it isn’t enough, because there are some elements of the spanner the character would react to, because of who she is: she would check the spanner to make sure she doesn’t need to clean it, because she always cleans tools after she uses them. I would have to describe whether the tool was clean or dirty.

I also know that I have to mention clues, just like I have to introduce the love interest before she can fall in love with him. BUT that leaves me with a big red arrow, pointing toward my clues (because what ELSE has been realized, in the scene?).

So now I have three reasons to describe things:
1) Stage directions.
2) Character reacts to it (developing character).
3) Item required later in plot (developing plot).
…
And then what?

Re: three key facts = ah, the magic of three. Four is stressing it. Five is the sign of an unhinged mind.
.-= De´s last blog ..New project: Chocolate Story =-.

I’m TOTALLY CRIBBING off Chuck’s post when I answer your question. Other stuff you could be doing with number 4: Add some Action, Foreshadow some Event, Leave a Clue or Red Herring, Character Moment, establish Mood, and maybe even play with the Theme a little (if you’re not me – I never know what that is).

Like you, I do a lot more describing in Adrift of the setting and place and stuff within that setting than I would in an otherwise ‘normal’ setting. I think that’s just par for the course — when stuff is that different, you need to explain it to people, because the possible deltas between what you see and what they’ll see are too great, otherwise.

I think that means a couple things:
1. If we’re doing more description of the setting, but still trying to make each new description do more than one thing (Chuck’s “no unitaskers”), the result will be that the setting will be strongly informed by and tied to the story we’re trying to tell, moreso than normal.
2. I think that’s okay. Why put a story in a weird setting unless the setting is going to matter substantively? I think that makes cool things happen.

Seems to be the case in Adrift, anyway. I’m finding out a lot more about the setting than I’d expected, and what I thought was a very ‘internal’ story is constantly reaching out to the world around it and pulling in elements of history and government and crime and religion. It’s… I don’t know what it is, but I like it.

I’d say just let it happen — If I want to read the story, I’ll want to know more about that chocolate future.
.-= Doyce´s last blog ..Adrift, Episode 10 (podcast) =-.

Oddly, the desc in the chocolate story (i.e., current project) is going well. The POV is a 3rd-person so tight it’s really first person, so all the description is flavored by the main character’s thoughts, but not in a direct-thought kind of way. Again, you probably already know about that, but for me, is big deal.

It’s far-future SF; I find myself describing the world a lot. The world might be a character; I’ve heard of people saying stuff like that, but I’ve never done it. Most of the things I describe are things that piss the main character off. “Here’s this, which is stupid.” Or “This other character was dressed like this, and looked no better than she should be.”

How do you explain that, though? What do you call it, the pathetic fallacy?
.-= De´s last blog ..Okay, this site is pretty much dead… =-.