Perpetual projects and daily obsessions.
I did something wrong with the mic controls on this one, so there’s a hiss. A bit shorter than normal, also, but a nice bit for both Finn and Jon when they see an old friend.
And another little reveal about Bilabil. :)
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So after De asked for it, and I thought about it, and I read her post, I figured I knew what she was asking about with regard to descriptions. Then I wrote a post about that thing I thought she was asking about.
I was, of course, wrong.
But that’s okay! The post itself came out all right, and people had some good feedback and thoughts on it, so let’s call it a win and move on.
De clarified her interest in comments:
The kind of thing I’m looking more at is – when do you describe a building? When do you not describe a building? Why? When you do describe a building, how elaborate should you get? What is it that you’re trying to accomplish when you’re describing the building? What is it that you lose when you describe the building, other than the ability of the reader to fill in the details for you?
Ooh. I like that. That’s interesting. Let’s talk about it.
We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move.We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want.We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space that makes it livable.We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.
— Tao te Ching, verse 11
I am a big fan of not describing anything that I don’t absolutely have to. In Adrift, here’s the stuff that I’ve described:
All of these things called for descriptions for different reasons. D’s pale skin is relevant in a larger context as a creche-child, which is historical background and plot-significant, and it will contrast her with almost every other human around. The Drift is a weird setting and some ground rules needed to be established: both what it is and what it is not, and it also starts to hint at the weird ‘paradise lost’ history of humanity in the story. Bilabil’s an alien; I needed people seeing a six-legged sloth, not (say) a big bug, and to see the parental nature of its existence, which echoes Finn. Bin’s a magical creature, and I wanted people seeing the same kind of magical creature, or at least the same specific elements. The Bazaar is a weird location, unlike any ‘space market’ I’ve read about — an inward-facing globe, thick with vegetation, and a marked contrast from the rest of the Drift — it’s a core of life inside a dead thing, and it parallels some other stuff that’s important. I also had a clear picture of Five Finger Freight and wanted that to be conveyed, because it tells us something about Mak before we meet him.
Stuff that I didn’t describe:
Why did I leave those things out? I firmly believe that in any situation where the description of a thing only does one thing (tells you what something looks like), it can probably be left to the reader for the most part. Certain things can be implied in order to inform the reader’s impression, but you don’t need to spell stuff out. In fact, you’re better off not to, because what the reader comes up with out of their head will be (subjectively) better (read: more effective) than anything you write down.
Which isn’t to say I don’t imply things about their appearance, which is where I was going with the little quote from the Tao. I give the readers the shape and dimensions of the the jar, but they fill it up with whatever they’re bringing to the party.
There’s a funny and useful story about this. In Hidden Things (the book I’ve got representation for), there’s a dragon. The Dragon is probably one of my favorite Things in the whole book. I love it. I wrote the Dragon in a very particular way because it is a very powerful Hidden Thing and is very hard to perceive directly. This left a LOT up to the reader’s imagination, but I had no idea how much until one day when I referred to the Dragon as “he” in a conversation with someone who’d read the book.
They didn’t know who I was talking about. The Dragon was female. Clearly. Duh.
I stared. Possibly, I blinked.
Then I called a couple other readers and asked them what gender the Dragon was.
About half said male. About half said female. One guy didn’t think it really mattered, because Dragon’s transcend gender. Hippie.
Anyway, I was able to go back into that version of the story and point at specific instances where I’d referred to the Dragon as “he”. This point did not convince anyone. I eventually embraced the weirdness and removed the gender-specific pronouns.
That incident is why I believe so strongly that you really should leave as much as you can of the ‘unimportant’ stuff to the reader.
So when is it important? When you need the description for something else as well. When the description is both a description and foreshadowing, or when it’s a clue, or when it matters to the larger plot. When (again, to reference Chuck’s post) it’s doing more than one thing.
Example:
In the Adrift episode I am going to record tonight posted Thursday, Finn makes a specific point of narrator-commenting on the politeness of one of the people he meets; how unusual it is — like crawling through a rotten old space hulk and emerging in a cathedral. I wasted time making a note of that and making that analogy because (spoiler!) much later in the story, the flipside of that unlikely analogy actually happens.
Back to De’s comment, broken out:
1. When do you describe a [thing]?
When you need it to exist in the reader’s mind in a specific way, or including specific elements, because of some bigger thing going on in the story. (If you’re feeling decadent, you can also include ‘when you have this awesome imagery that you really want to include’, but be aware that you really should make that awesome thing more broadly relevant in order to justify keeping it around during revisions.)
2. When do you not describe a [thing]?
When #1 is not true.
3. When you do describe a [thing], how elaborate should you get?
You know what I’m going to say. Initially, three key facts. No one will remember more than three anyway, so they’ll cherrypick from a longer list, and might not focus on the Important Thing. You can introduce additional facts later. (Note: I totally break this rule in Adrift — Bilabil has fur, six legs, asymmetrical rows of nipples, a marsupial pouch, and big teeth. We hang out out with it for a long time, though, so maybe it’s okay.)
4. What is it that you’re trying to accomplish when you’re describing the [thing]?
That varies, but it’s never ‘describe the thing’, or at least it’s never only ‘describe the thing’.
5. What is it that you lose when you describe the [thing], other than the ability of the reader to fill in the details for you?
I’m not sure that you lose anything else, but I would shift the wording a bit: you lose the ability of the reader to fill in the details for themselves. The most awesome [thing] in my head that I then describe will not be as awesome as a similar awesome [thing] you think up in your own head…
Unless I can add depth to the [thing] by tying it into the rest of the story in some important way — that extra dimension hidden within my description is the thing I can do as the writer that the reader cannot, which makes it possible for me to cheat come up with cooler things than the reader would have thought of.
Sometimes.
Last night, I linked to a post by Merlin Mann over on tumblr, where he laid out an off the cuff list of rules for the internet. It struck me, so I quoted it here because (a) it was too long for twitter (b) I wanted to comment on it (c) no one would see it on my tumblr account.
But it’s not really my list, if you know what I mean; I just kind of liked it. While chatting about it in comments on that post, I decided I’d enumerate a list of my very own to hug and squeeze and call George. Here ’tis:
Note: these are my rules. They means things to me. They may be of little or no use to you. That’s how it works. Comment chatter welcome.
1 – The line may move on its own, or someone else might move it. You might even move it by accident. You are not going to be the guy who finally convinces that one guy to change his mind. No. You aren’t.
2 – Except for the one thing you wrote that you really want to find a copy of.
- Everything’s amplified. Except subtlety.
- Say things you believe are true.
- No one understands; no one cares.
- Never explain yourself.
- Apologize less; think more.
- Avatars aren’t people; people aren’t avatars; “friends” aren’t friends.
- Everyone thinks you’re talking to them. Seriously.
- Distinguish attacks against people from attacks against one person.
- Assume everyone is alone, drunk, and a little heavier than they’d like.
- Never argue in public. Fucking never.
- When in doubt, take it offline.
- Filter, filter.
- Embrace “hypocrisy.” It drives critics crazy.
- Remember who your (real) friends are.
- Remember who you are.
- Remember you can always stop. Anything. Any time.
- Never make lists of rules.
First of all, I’m not entirely convinced I should be writing about this, but De asked:
@ChuckWendig @doycet I want one of you to write a couple of blog entries on DESCRIPTION, when how and why. I suck at it.
So… Okay. Fine. I’ll say something.
Now, to be clear, she asked about this awhile back, during nanowrimo, so I didn’t write about it then — the posts had mostly to do with that, and advice on description writing doesn’t (necessarily) apply in that context (actually, I can see how it might, now, but whatever). Chuck did write about it, though, and his advice is good, so I suggest reading it.
When De first asked about descriptions, I didn’t actually understood what she was talking about. (This particular failing of mine is depressingly common when it comes to My Brain and Things De Says.)
I thought I did. I thought she was talking about the @desc command.
Did I just lose you? Did the Nerdilus dive too deeply, too fast? I’ll back up.
Back in the Ancient Days, I played multiuser online games with no pictures. (I don’t have the heart to include a picture of the game interface in the post. Look here.) These games had many collective acronyms, all of which were far easier to pronounce than MMORPG.
Obviously, with no graphics, everything within the game exists only insofar as it can be represented by the written word. People. Things. Buildings. Rooms. Combat. Everything is description. When you ‘look’ed at something, you saw a block of text describing a thing.
‘look book’
> It’s a book.
I played on a lot of these games, and I ran a couple others, and I wrote a lot of descriptions of a lot of stuff: all those things I just mentioned, multiplied by some number that ends with ‘illion’. The command to write an object’s description is “@desc thing=whatever you want”. I think, at one point, I made “@desc ” a hotkeyed macro on my keyboard.
So you will forgive me this failing: when De asked me to talk about writing descriptions, that’s pretty much what I thought of. I didn’t think of any examples of descriptions from the stories I write because quite frankly, I don’t really write them. Seriously. I went back and looked at a bunch of existing work and there are damn few examples of a moment when the narrator or the main POV protagonist takes a moment to stop the action and describe someone or something in any kind of detail. (You know the passages I’m talking about, and if you don’t just pick up any of the Anita Blake books and look for a bit where some hot new guy is introduced. His description will get a page of text, at least.)
Having started with that assumption, I kind of waved my hands around, muttered something about Zelazny’s Rule of Three, and said I’d try to think of something more to say later.
I then waited so damn long that De wrote about it. (You got that? I took so flipping long that the person asking for thoughts started writing down her own. I suck.) In reading her post, I realized that I’d failed to understand her full meaning. I think I get it now. I was thinking too small.
I probably can’t explain it any better, but at least I’m facing the right direction.
Based on De’s post, I now read her use of the word description to mean “pretty much everything in the story that isn’t dialog.” That’s oversimplifying, probably, but I’m a simple guy. (Here, let me rephrase it so I don’t offend anyone: “Description, in the way I understand De to mean it, is ‘everything in one of my stories that isn’t dialog’.”)
De wrote:
I suspect the people who are good at it don’t have to think about it.
Maybe? I don’t know if I count as being good at it, but it’s definitely not something I think about very much. Honestly, this is probably the first time I’ve ever really thought about it.
Here’s my thought: to me, description is the story, breathing.
That’s going to sound over-precious, so let me break it down as much as I can.
That’s still a little artsy-fartsy, so let’s just work with an example.
I’m going to start with something that isn’t description. Dialog. From the second line of this post:
“So… Okay. Fine. I’ll say something.”
A serviceable line. Over-punctuated. Choppy. Too many… ellipses. Much like this one. It’ll do.
(Damn, my mind is just all over the place with this post. Too much to say.)
Let’s start with ellipses.
Ellipses are not to be trusted. I have rules about ellipses:
The example dialog, checked against these rules, passes. The ellipsis gets to stay.
However, lots of writers fill their dialog with ellipses to show pauses and rhythm in speech. I would like to suggest that there’s a better way, and that’s by breaking up the dialog with description. Consider:
“So…” He tipped his head, frowning at me. I didn’t reply, and he shook away his confused expression. “Okay.” He looked at me once more, sidelong, as though expecting some kind of trick. “Fine.” He dropped into the overstuffed chair and slapped the arms with both hands. “I’ll say something.”
That’s overdoing it a bit, but it clearly has a big effect on the the rhythm of the line. It’s slow. It’s halting. It’s not entirely comfortable. There are gaps which you might even guess the guy is speaking simply to fill.
“So…” He kissed her on the forehead, right at the part of her hair. “Okay. Fine.” He gave her another hug, which she returned, laying her head against his chest. “I’ll say something.”
Ugh. Schmultzy. Smoother, however. Kind of flow-y. It’s not just about the description, but what the description does to the dialog.
“So…” A sharp movement of his head, trying to shake the image free. “Okay. Fine. I’ll say something.” He didn’t look at me. I wasn’t surprised.
Pop. Pop. Pop. The dialog is choppy already, so let all the choppy bits stay together to increase the clipped feeling. The description is partly sentence fragments, also, because we want it to feel jagged.
Gloomy, all these examples.
“So…” He bent his head far enough to meet my eyes. I smirked at the question in his expression, unable to keep up the act, and his eyes went wide. He threw his arms in the air, spun in a circle and whooped, drawing the attention of several bundled up pedestrians stomping by. “Okay. Fine.” He grinned, breath steaming in the mid-February cold. “I’ll say something.”
I started to reply, but he’d already turned away to let out another whoop, echoing over the ice-gray Hudson.
I don’t know if any of this even helps. De?
The point of description, aside from the information it conveys, is the rhythm is creates in its delivery; the way it’s woven into the dialog. The breathing. Sometimes it’s short and sharp and panting, and sometimes it’s heavy and labored, and sometimes it’s smooth and contented.
I wish I could tell you how I know this, or why I think it. I can’t. I acknowledge that that probably makes the whole thing less valuable.
Let’s talk about it in the comments.
So there’s this thing Floy-Jean makes around the holidays. It’s generally called “Grandma’s Special Squash”, because
Here’s how it goes.
1. Start with 3 lbs butternut squash, peeled, seeded. and cubed. (Not everyone skins them. Grandma does. Grandma’s version is better. Draw your own conclusions.)
2. Cook the squash in water until the cubes are tender enough to mash.
3. Drain the squash pieces, drop em in mixing bowl, and beat em until they’re smooth. Smooooth. No. Smoother.
4. Add milk, butter, eggs, and vanilla; mix well.
5. Combine these dry ingredients, add them to squash, and mix well.
6. Transfer everything in the mixing bowl to a (greased) 2-qt baking dish. Cover it and bake at 350 for 45 minutes.
7. While the squash-ness is baking, make the Topping. THE TOPPING IS NOT OPTIONAL.
In a small bowl, combine these topping ingredients until crumbly.
8. When the squash is done baking, pull it out, and sprinkle the Topping over it.
9. Stick the whole thing back in the oven again, uncovered, for about 12 to 15 minutes.
10. Mouthgasm.
It’s also, obviously, the most important thing. Especially if you’re not done with your story, as I am (err… not).
I suppose that the problem arises from that end-of-the-month, oh-my-god-it’s-over-lets-celebrate release:
… and whenever you think about the WIP, your mind automatically associates it with the binge-writing you sometimes had to do during November. That’s not an association that makes you want to sit back down.
I approach this downshift by easing into what is (for me) a more sustainable, remember-I-have-a-day-job-that-is-also-writing pattern: one solid scene a day, or a couple pages, whichever’s less.
If I write more than that, fine; it’s the pattern I’m after, not the picture. I owe it to myself — in part because I really think this Adrift thing has some serious legs.
How about you guys? I wanna hear about what you’re working on.
Discuss.