Hello, my name is Erinn and I SUCK AT DESCRIPTION.
I would say besides spelling, grammar and telling a good story, description is my weakest area of writing.
This week's Midweek Links will be about Description.
Here's what I know about it. Describe what's important, the shoe laces of the MC isn't important when he or she is running away from a bear bee hybrid. (I just scared the crap out of myself with this one)
Don't spend lots of time describing clothes... why? Because it's useless and BORING!!!! It's safe to assume the character is wearing clothes. Walk down any high school, every kid is wearing the same basic thing, a shirt and pants... maybe a girl will wear a skirt, but she's only doing that to impress one specific boy.
Books to read about description:
On Writing, by Stephen King, Section On Writing, Chapter 6.
Blogs who write about description.
My go to blog for this little segment is Mary Kole's blog Kidlit.
Every writer's guide says "Show don't tell." Sometimes it's important to tell, and Mary talks about when it's good to tell. But she also talks about "showing and telling" here.
More on showing not telling here by Blood Red Pen. Do you know what fills up a lot of books? People. Here's how to describe them.
Here's one I know I personally struggle with, describing and showing emotion.
Querytracker.net blog
Wanna describe a character, try the dramatic approach.
Top ten mistakes writers make...
Writer's Digest:
Writer's tip of the day- exposition--- too much. How to enrich your descriptions.
ok it took me an hour to find these few links, that's it, I'm googling now. So much easier---
All kinds of writing: Three parts of writing
Six quick Tips to writing description- POEWAR
How to write a character description. Ehow
You would think there would be a lot more information about this, but after an hour and 15 minutes this is all I've found.
Great info-- very helpful. And YAY YOU for almost hitting 50. 50!
ReplyDeleteI don't use a lot of description in my writing. I don't like too much of it in my reading either. I do pretty well with the emotional part, but for the physical description stuff I mostly just skip it. I think I've only got 3 or 4 lines in my current ms talking about what the characters look like - and those are all incidental type comments.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for the links! I don't do very well with description either, especially when it comes to describing setting. I can see it so clearly in my head, but I can't get it out onto the page the same way.
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