# Speaking of describing...



## Helleaven (Jun 25, 2012)

The thread "Describing things?" made me realize something I can't pull off, the descriptions about some spesific things..

I don't know if this subject has come forth before, but I wanted to ask your opinions and maybe some examples.

How do you describe your unnatural geographic features and unnatural structures\buildings?

I draw the picture in my mind, a spesific geographic feature which is important for the story, but I can't seem to describe it as I imagine. The persons, their characters, the moves, the feelings, etc, I can manage somehow... But when it comes to these spesific things, even though I write pages about them, I feel that it won't make the reader to see what I drew in my mind.

Would you mind sharing some parts of describing your unnatural geographic features and unnatural structures\buildings?


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## Feo Takahari (Jun 25, 2012)

Now that I think about it, I've only done this twice, and both times were in the same story. In one chapter:

She stood atop a sand dune, looking at the mountains that rose in the distance, and for a moment, she thought herself in an Earthly desert. But she knew of no desert so bitterly cold, eating into her very bones as she stood naked to the wind. No sun or stars shone in the pitch-black sky--the deep red light that surrounded her seemed to come from the air itself. 

In another chapter:

The air here was warmer, but not by much. The sky was the same as before, save for a sort of hole--blacker than the black--from which liquid endlessly fell. It splashed into a lake, far to her left, which led into a river that trailed off out of sight. At the edges of the spray, mushrooms grew as tall as a man. 

I guess if there's anything to take from that, it's just that I tried not to ramble on too long. It doesn't matter too much if the reader doesn't picture exactly what you picture, so long as what they picture is compatible with the story you intend to tell.


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## Reaver (Jun 25, 2012)

Use words like *jagged, asymmetric, ragged, notched, asperous, barbed, broken, cleft, craggy, denticulate, harsh, indented, irregular, pointed, ridged, rough, rugged, scabrous, serrated, snaggy, spiked, toothed, uneven, unlevel, unsmooth.

*
Hope this helps.


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## SeverinR (Jun 26, 2012)

I think practice describing something we know, will help us describe what we don't know but only picture in our mind.

Maybe with help of a Setting thesaurus?

The Bookshelf Muse: Introducing Sensory Saturday…Meet Our New Thesaurus!

example:
"Medieval marketplace:
Sight

Cramped wooden stalls, sweaty vendors, bright fabric roofing or simple framing to hang merchandise from, wares laid out on cloth or leaves..."

It gives description of all 5 senses.
There is also emotions, traits and weather thesaurus.


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## Penpilot (Jun 26, 2012)

Part of description is very dependant on your pov character describing it. It's not what the author sees, it's what the POV character sees. The words used to describe something will very much change depending on your character and the mindset they are in at that moment. It's very much subjective.

Here's a picture. It's hidden by the spoiler tag. I'll describe it--hopefully decently enough-- using three different point of view. It's the same picture but seen through three different sets of eyes. They're in first person, but it's pretty much the same with third-limited. Just change the pronouns. Hopefully this helps and makes a bit of sense.



Spoiler: Described Picture













From the POV of a hopeful Knight.

The island lay below me entrenched in calm waters. It's sharp edges carved a field of green out the vast sea of blue in the shape open palm, so vast it could only belong to a god. At its center, the palm shielded a tiny, inconsequential villa, weak and defenceless, at the mercy of the god's will. But I knew there was no danger. This god was kind. The land was green and giving instead of angry red like clay of the other lands. This god would not close his fist.

From the POV of say... a high-tech hacker. (please forgive the faux tech talk.)

Isolation, that's what the island said to me. All satellite-dish-shaped, and money green. All alone in an ocean of electric blue. Not a soul around for a thousand miles except distant mountains, covered in cool snow. At the island's center, a lone house sitting off-center in the dish like a turd waiting to be washed away by the next storm. But no way baby, not that I'm here. Going to tie this sucker down with fibre optics and weight it down with knowledge of the world, of the net. No storm's every going to wash that house--my house--away.

From the POV of a snotty teen on summer vacation. 

The island was like a blob of puke vomited into an ocean sized pool. Smelled like it too. Friggen ocean. Friggen fish. Piece of crap white house with no tv, no net, not dam thing worth seeing on this piece of 'paradise'. Got the feeling I'm going to be learning how to hate the colors green and blue over the next two months. Only thing worth looking at are the mountains in the distance. Rather be on them sloshing the slops, spending all day making runs through the white instead of here on this piece of green snot. Yay.


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## Zophos (Jun 26, 2012)

I'll tell you what I can't describe for the life of me.

Combat.


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## Devor (Jun 26, 2012)

Like this:

_Nested fourteen thousand feet in the sky, in the broken land of towering plateaus and narrow chasms plunging into depths beyond sight, the shrine of the Risen Springs Prefecture spread across eleven acres on seven such plateaus, affixed together by wide bridges of the temple complex and covered by an orchard garden with fountains to honor each of the six gods of Qua Shūn.  A high-crest mountain plateau rose above the shrine, presenting a cliffside painted in red, gold and black around large carvings of the dragon and phoenix gods, cut directly into the cliff rock.  In between the divine pair, hot springs sprayed water from a natural tunnel in the cliffside out over an eleven foot chasm and down onto the shrine's blossoming fruit trees and flowers.  And below the springs, concealed by the white spray and by a rainbow, a cave had been dug into the cliff wall by the shrine's Tehdzu spirit, still hibernating from winter.

Outside the shrine's red stone walls, purple blossoms fell into Kanshu's hair and onto his robes while he leaned back against the split trunks of the myrtle tree, turning through a stack of thick paper.  The faded kanji calligraphy took work to decipher behind the rough fuzz and dark creases of the antique pages, and the symbols often gave Kanshu a jolt each time he realized what he was reading.

Prisoner Taifun.  Age 11.  Born in the 438th year of the Dragon's Sundering.  Orphan.  Homeless.  Seized for robbery, suspected of stabbing two meat traders to death.  Hanged.  Body rests beneath the cliffs.

Needing a moment to rest his thoughts before reading more of Taifun's story, Kanshu lay the execution notice back onto the top of the pile and looked up, as he did a few times each hour, to watch pilgrims and festival workers, elders and merchants, step off from the thin red gondola which stopped before the shrine, suspended on wire ropes so that it hung between the cliffs.  That week's spring festival would draw thousands to the Risen Springs Prefecture, and etiquette forced Kanshu to wait amid the commotion to welcome an official from the imperial province.  Because Kanshu complained of being bored, it also became his task to test the fate of such thieves and murderers as Taifun while he waited for the official to arrive._

Note the subtle transition into 3rd Person POV.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Jun 26, 2012)

Here's an example from my NIP, describing an area's geography:



> In the next few days they passed through several more villages and then left Tyndam County altogether, crossing into Vannar County in the Dukedom of Seawatch. The wooded hills of eastern Tyndam gave way to a long, sloping plain that descended toward the sea. High, jagged crags of pale, lichen-covered rock dotted the landscape, as if giants below had thrust their spears up through the ground. Villages were fewer but larger here, with plenty of open space to sprawl into. Afternoon rainstorms came often, filling little streams that criss-crossed the plain. It became a thrice-daily occurrence that they had to ford some rivulet that barely reached the horses’ ankles.


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## Helleaven (Jun 27, 2012)

Thanks for the examples. I think I can squeeze a few lessons from what you've written. First of all, now I can see that it is impossible to describe something like these in a few sentences. It usually takes a long paragraph or more. The POV thing is an important matter, I now fully understand how to describe things! I'm not going to describe it as I picture it in my mind, instead, I'll describe what and how my protagonist sees.

You have put so much effort to give me a decent answer, for that I can't thank you enough.

Penpilot, is that a real picture?? I can't describe how I felt when I saw that picture, it's so surreal. I would have gladly give up my current life to live on that palm\satellite\puke shaped island


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## SeverinR (Jun 27, 2012)

Also, remember when to describe is as important as how.
You can't describe in detail when the scene is chaotic. If the MC isn't able to stop and look around, the reader shouldn't either.


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## Helleaven (Jun 27, 2012)

SeverinR said:


> Also, remember when to describe is as important as how.
> You can't describe in detail when the scene is chaotic. If the MC isn't able to stop and look around, the reader shouldn't either.



That's a useful advice, I hope I haven't done such a mistake so far, I have to control everything I've written from the start.


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## Penpilot (Jun 27, 2012)

Helleaven said:


> Penpilot, is that a real picture?? I can't describe how I felt when I saw that picture, it's so surreal. I would have gladly give up my current life to live on that palm\satellite\puke shaped island



I did a double take when I saw the tiny house on that island. It's just plain cool. But truthfully I'm not sure if it's real. I just googled up a some pictures of scenery and tried to find one that was interesting and relatively neutral. But I'm glad I could help just a little. Good luck with the writing.


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## Christopher Wright (Jun 27, 2012)

I always refer to Douglas Adams.

"The huge golden space ship hung in the air in almost exactly the way a brick doesn't."

That pretty much says it all...


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## Reaver (Jun 27, 2012)

Zophos said:


> I'll tell you what I can't describe for the life of me.
> 
> Combat.



I have a little bit of experience with combat. My description is this: Imagine a place where logic and reason don't exist, you don't speak the language, and people you don't even know are trying to kill you every day.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Jun 27, 2012)

Helleaven said:


> Thanks for the examples. I think I can squeeze a few lessons from what you've written. First of all, now I can see that it is impossible to describe something like these in a few sentences. It usually takes a long paragraph or more.



Well, it depends on how much info you want to convey. The reason I used a relatively long paragraph where I did is because it's transitional; it's describing a (slow) multi-week journey some of the characters are taking, and how the geography of the land shifts when they go from one area to the next. I could definitely have condensed it more.

Not that a paragraph of the length I used is a problem per se; but there's not a _lot_ of these. In the chapter that contains the paragraph I quoted, there are exactly two other paragraphs (both shorter than the one I quoted) that describe landforms, and in both cases they occur when characters are travelling from one area to the next. Any time characters remain in an area, the most geographical description I'll give is a word or two indicating what's around them -- trees, hills, a lake.


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## Zophos (Jul 6, 2012)

Reaver said:


> I have a little bit of experience with combat. My description is this: Imagine a place where logic and reason don't exist, you don't speak the language, and people you don't even know are trying to kill you every day.



Yeah. That's what makes it hard to describe. The fancy dancy stuff you see on TV doesn't do it justice. The chaotic, random nature of it is sobering and rather like riding a wave. But in no way fun. For normal people.


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## Saigonnus (Jul 6, 2012)

An exerpt from my principal work in progress. I don't how well I come across but it is an example from me on describing an almost otherwordly place. I hope this helps. 

*The fortress looks dark and forbidding, with its twisted stone exterior and oppressive black trees crowding it from all sides, making it look much smaller than it actually is. The trees here are massive things, standing hundreds of feet in the air, the bark dull and black, the limbs like gnarled ebon bones rising into the air above; the grey-green leaves in abundance, keeping the ground below in a perpetual gloom. Dense, thorny underbrush grows tight against the base of most of the trees that surround the keep, acting as a natural barrier to would be invaders. To the left of the keep, a large, dark pond stagnates near the base of the rocky outcropping that a waterfall once flowed down, only the calcium stains on the weathered rocks bear any sign of it; and those are so old they might even be mistaken as a trick of the light. The cool wind blowing through the trees only barely disturbs the onyx surface of the water, a small set of ripples running across. To the right, running for nearly a half mile is an expansive field of wet looking black rock; giving it a look of blistered earth; as though the very ground itself spat it up in disgust. 

Nearest to the keep is what looks to be a series of collapsed lava tubes, almost perfectly smooth tunnels for hundreds of yards but with many sections that have fallen outward, letting some of the powers of the earth flow out onto the plain. Intermingled across the broken and fissured fields are more of the large, gnarled trees, enough that most of the broken ground is cast in shade. Scarcely a bird or butterfly is to be seen in this place, for such things cannot thrive in such a harsh environment.*


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Jul 6, 2012)

Zophos said:


> Yeah. That's what makes it hard to describe. The fancy dancy stuff you see on TV doesn't do it justice. The chaotic, random nature of it is sobering and rather like riding a wave. But in no way fun. For normal people.



That's what I'm trying to do in the few battle scenes in my NIP. A character engages with an enemy, and they fight, and then one of them gets knocked down, and he gets up a second later and he can't see the other guy any more and he's 50 feet away from where he started and he doesn't know where any of his friends are. Repeat until the battle ends.


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## Jess A (Sep 4, 2012)

I also have issues with combat scenes. I have some experience with fencing (even if it has been some years) and can probably describe a sword fight with some sword types, but anything else requires considerably more effort to make it both realistic and flowing.


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## ShortHair (Sep 4, 2012)

My suggestion would be to describe the unusual in terms of the usual, at first. That's how most people see new things, they locate a familiar pattern and then try to identify the unfamiliar as a variation of something familiar. You do that for the reader's sake as well as the character's.


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