Fleshing out important structures

[Codey Amprim]

How extensive does one go with describing the internal and external parts of important structures like castles, keeps, towers, or even walls? Does it abide by the same outlooks of describing anything else? I find throne rooms, sanctums, inner wards/courtyards the most difficult seeing as a lot of action usuall happens within these areas, leaving less room to describe them in detail.

What about drawing a picture of it (if its good enough) and trying to put that in the book to help visually aid the reader? Is that looked down upon as childish or what?

I want, and surely you do as well, to make not only my world as vivid and beautiful as I can, but also its inhabitants - more importantly, their structures for this thread anyways. What are your thoughts? Do you take the time out to describe the halls and sanctums of your structures? Or should you avoid telling every detail?

Your thoughts, please.
Thanks!

 

[myrddin173]

I think you should leave most of it to the readers' imaginations. Distinctive or unusual things you can describe where it fits. Maybe you have a commoner who has never entered the throne room; they would pick out the major stylistic elements, the ceiling (maybe it is painted), windows (stained-glass?), tapestries hanging on the wall, and the throne (if it is not just a big chair but a work of art).

However if it is just a wall, don't describe it.

 

[Ravana]

Visual aids will rarely help—in part because they'll rarely see publication: the publisher won't want to bother with them. If you can draw a picture that's good enough to guide the reader, you should be able to describe it… so draw it for yourself, if you need the reference or find it useful (I do this all the time), and refer to it whenever you need to figure out what to say about it.

As for level of description, it's the same as with anything else: if it needs to be described, describe it; if it seems to aid the story, describe it. Don't slow the flow down with the details, though… work them into the action. The reader doesn't need to know where every door to the throne room is until someone uses one of them—or at least thinks someone else may be about to. Just don't have one appear suddenly after extensive action ranging throughout the room gives the reader the impression that there isn't one there.

Look at floor plans for actual castles and palaces, even fairly recent ones up to the 18th century or so: you'll probably be surprised at how they were constructed. (For starters, almost none have interior hallways—since they relied primarily on natural lighting.) Also, if you're a victim of RPGs, you probably have a seriously distorted idea of the size things were built: I remember thinking of a 30'x30' room as "small"—it is, if you want to put trolls in it and have room for a fight—but in fact, such a chamber would be immense, almost beyond precedent in anything other than a main hall/throne room/place of worship. (And even in most of these, the space may be considerably longer—but odds are it's not much wider, unless you have pillars supporting the roof.) And "dungeon passages" are never conveniently ten feet wide, much less ten feet high: no one would waste the effort to excavate that much just for a space to walk through. Though ceilings in above-ground construction may have been higher than modern buildings would lead you to expect: read on.

Finding out about construction materials is simple enough, since there weren't many options… get used to the idea of plaster for interior wall finishing. Assuming the interior wall was finished. (On the other hand, throughout much of the traditional "fantasy" period, even exterior walls were often plaster, at least for the less well-to-do.) Floors will be bare wood or straw-covered dirt, possibly bare stone on the lowest floors of a dwelling… ergo the popularity of rugs. (And "rug" doesn't mean "carpet": wall-to-wall was a very recent innovation. Consider that at a minimum it requires that it be possible to produce the carpeting in extremely large sizes, and be more economical to cut off and discard scraps.…)

If you really want to create a believable atmosphere in a very few words, pay attention to (1) lighting, (2) heating, (3) ventilation, and possibly (4) sanitation. Considering the limits on these, gesturing at one or another will go a long way toward establishing a sense of what living conditions were really like… and, for your own thought processes, toward what is and isn't possible in such settings.

Windows for light? Great… what keeps the wind out? Glass? Expensive and fragile. Shutters? Sure, as long as you don't mind them keeping the light out, too. Drapes? Same thing. Just how far can the light from a window reach—in useful terms? And "useful" for not tripping, or for doing calligraphy? Fireplace for heat? Of course… in every room? How much space can one fire warm—is it enough for, say, your throne room? And where does the smoke go? Probably not out the windows. Up to the ceiling, and out a hole? (Here's why high ceilings… as well as allowing larger windows, to admit more light.) When the sun's down, do you use dim, smoke-producing secondary illumination (oil lamps, candles, torches—and where does the smoke from those go? and how much can one illuminate?), or do you just shut down until morning? You want water with that? Well? No, really: a well? If not, what? Either way, how does it get to where it's needed… one bucket at a time? And though most people will probably prefer to skip this one: what happens to, uhm, "end products"? Most dwellings will have one toilet (or set thereof, in one location)—which does not flush: you have to haul a bucket of water up for that—and will otherwise make extensive use of chamber pots.

You don't need to describe it all, and you certainly shouldn't describe it all at once. The ceiling height—and possibly the existence of crossbeams—can come in when someone attempts an overhand swing with a weapon… especially a long one. The interior plaster walls will generally be painted, in wealthier dwellings; mention a particular figure or pattern casually as a musing character dwells on how it relates to his present situation. Rugs are great for tripping over or sliding, especially if they're over wooden floors. They're also great for cutting down on echoes, along with drapes and tapestries… so any space that lacks these will echo. At night, most parts of the castle will be pitch-black… not because they can't be lit with candles, but because if you lit the whole place up, you'd bankrupt yourself providing them. So where are they kept, when someone desperately needs one? Downstairs in the pantry? Oh, that should make for a fun excursion—and provide plenty of opportunity to describe the place without using visual detail, as the character finds her way by touch, sound, smell and memory. (And how do you propose to light it if you don't already have one going? Gonna have to get to someplace that does have an open flame… or at least a banked fire with coals that are still hot enough.)

Et many cetera. Try putting yourself in the location—without necessarily trying to put yourself in the character: imagine you, personally, just got teleported there—and consider what would be important to you, what expectations you have from your own daily life that would be different there; worry about what the character expects afterward. Remember, you're writing for people who share your expectations, not the character's; that's what they're going to need guidance with.

 

[TWErvin2]

Codey,

As was said above, give enough and then allow the reader's imagination to fill in the blanks. You'll be much more effective telling a story that way as opposed to trying to control every detail so the reader gets it exactly right in his or her mind.

Go to some of your favorite authors. Study their writing and see how they do it. What balance do they strike and why it works--at lesat it did with you as they're your favorite authors. Then apply what you learned to your writing style and the project you're working on.

 

[Chilari]

Descriptions of places must be done carefully. If you're writing from a character's point of view, you should only describe what they would notice, and what is important to the action of the moment. Say they're in a room they've seen dozens of times, a place they interact with all the time. The character wouldn't notice the height of the ceiling, the decoration on the walls, the arrangement of the furniture. It's just the way that is it. When you enter your lounge, do you think about where the TV is in relation to the window? Probably not; I don't, unless the light of the setting sun is making it difficult to see the picture, forcing me to close the curtains, which can only be achieved by leaning over the table with all my art stuff on. Treat rooms the character is familair with in this way. As for places the cahracter is unfamiliar with, consider the situation, and write about the room or space as the character would react to it. A large, richly decorated royal banquetting hall might make one character gaze around in awe, and another, say the neighbouring kingdom's prince, jealously criticise the size of it, the symmetry, look for flaws in the paintwork or signs of fraying rugs; the wealthy ambassador from another, larger and richer, nation might look down upon it, call it "quaint", or describe it in patronising terms - the hall's central fireplace, for example, might be a "passable copy of one in the Great King's breakfast hall".

You can also slip descriptions into talking about the general atmosphere of a place or event taking place there: "young noblewomen gossipped beside the immense stone columns that held up the roof, peering at the dancers in the central aisle. Servants wove their way through the crowds, vanishing through a nondescript wooden door half hidden by shadows in one corner when their trays were empty, and emerging soon after with fully laden platters of food or jugs of water or wine to refill the guests' goblets. On the gallery above the north end of the hall, a band played the dance music while children peered down through the wood balustrade, watching the twirling dancers and the gossipping girls and the couples hiding in shadowed niches." From such a description (which I just made up on the fly), you've got a sense of what's going on - some sort of party - and where - an impressively large hall with tall stone columns and a musician's gallery, presumably attached to a kitchen via a door in the corner. The setting is part of the action, the activity. Use it like that.

 

[sashamerideth]

I know how things are laid out and details to exactness, but I only guide the reader with details as they are relevant

 

[Map the Dragon]

Codey -

I am of two minds here:

1 - Give almost no detail at all, just enough that the reader gets it. When an author does a mediocre job in structure description, I often get confused and lost. Unless I'm lost in a dugeon and this is the point, it gets frustrating.

2 - Give heightened details for places that are important enough to warrant it. Be very specific. I wish I had thought of this question before I published my own novel, but one should ask...Is this spacial description important to the plot? If not, stick with #1, giving enough for imagery but not enough for confusion.

 

[Ravana]

The character wouldn't notice the height of the ceiling, the decoration on the walls, the arrangement of the furniture.

True… but you're going to end up with mighty sparse stories if you ignore everything the character takes for granted. Definitely, anything the character isn't familiar with should occupy a more prominent place–at least in first-person PoV; on the other hand, "He walked into the room and sat down" is probably going to leave the reader feeling a bit lost.

When you enter your lounge, do you think about where the TV is in relation to the window?

My lounge? Pretty much always… since that's why it's where it is. I also automatically notice whether or not curtains are drawn, windows are open, and doors are locked. Plus, of course, the location of the cats in relation to my feet or intended destination for my backside.

Anybody else's? Not always, but I do notice where the chairs are in relation to the doors. I also notice every bookshelf, and will read titles when they're within range of my visual acuity. (Hell, I do that with my own bookshelves, when I'm not looking at anything else.)

You can also slip descriptions into talking about the general atmosphere of a place or event taking place there:

I would go so far as to say that this is where the majority of the description ought to occur: that helps break it up, rather than heaping it on all at once, and will often ensure that it is appearing someplace it is relevant. Good advice.

 

[Lord Darkstorm]

I want, and surely you do as well, to make not only my world as vivid and beautiful as I can, but also its inhabitants - more importantly, their structures for this thread anyways. What are your thoughts? Do you take the time out to describe the halls and sanctums of your structures? Or should you avoid telling every detail?

Words are the medium we use to communicate the story. They should not be the focus, and when they become the focus, the reader stops paying attention to the story, and starts paying attention to the words.

 

[sashamerideth]

Words are the medium we use to communicate the story. They should not be the focus, and when they become the focus, the reader stops paying attention to the story, and starts paying attention to the words.

And this is precisely why I hate literary fiction.