Write More Powerful Scenes by Seeing the Description

by Cindy Sproles @CindyDevoted

We've chosen to write. That's our gift. God has planted the passion and desire inside us, and we've decided to accept it. Honing it requires patience, endurance, and determination, which means learning the writing craft. Within our gift of writing, we are each blessed differently. Some can brainstorm with ease, while others craft unique plotlines that are anything but average.

There are writers whose voice stands out in their writing and others who can write a description.

Recently I taught at the Florida Christian Writers Conference. In my class, a young conferee told me he was thumbing through my books in the bookstore, and what made him buy them was the description. He felt like he could feel the mountain breeze on his face as he read. That was a great compliment. The conversation turned into a nice rabbit trail with some good suggestions for writing engaging descriptions.

Here are a few suggestions:

• Practice: Obvious, I know. But I learned to write good descriptions when my friend sent me a picture of a country cottage screened-in porch. "Write what you see." He said. I did, sent it to him, and he returned it. "Nope. Look closer." Over and over, I stared at the picture until it finally sunk in. Practice looking. Practice writing. That led to looking deeper.

• Looking deeper: There was the key. Looking below the obvious. There was a chair, with a cushion, on a slatted floor with a rug. That was obvious. But looking deeper, I could see wrinkles folded on the cushion that conformed to the person who sat there. I tightened my view, and there it was—the tiny specks of dirt that gathered in the conformed cracks. The ones that stained the yellow-flowered print fabric. It clicked for me. Writing description is not just writing what is obvious. It's going deeper.

• Use the clouds: Clouds you say? What? Try it. Remember when you were a child and lay in the grass of your yard looking up at the sky? As the clouds passed over, you searched for the animals, trees, or other shapes in the clouds. You were, in your mind, describing…looking deeper. Look at the clouds.

• Watch a sunrise: No, I mean really…get up early and watch the sun rise. As soon as you see the first crack of morning look at your watch. You will see that within five minutes, darkness will be overtaken, and you will see orange, fade to yellow, fade to white, or even lavender. You'll see streaks appear like you have dipped your fingers in paint and brushed it across the sky. Look closer. Look deeper. Then write what you see. A lot happens in just five short minutes.

• Seek the depth: When you sit on your porch and watch a bird. What happens around the bird? How does the limb bend when it moves across it? Does it pick at the twig, hold its beak up and stretch? How does it blend into the tree? And what about a breeze? Look deeper.

• Learn to let go of the normal: Look deep at something, then take in a deep breath, lean back, close your eyes and see it in your head. Let go of what you expect to see and let your imagination show you what your eyes miss.

Our eyes are trained to see the obvious. 

We need to see a step before we trip over it. We see the bigger picture. Training our eyes to look deeper takes practice. Good description is not in how much you describe. Instead, it is in the detail of the description. Those little details you must practice to focus on, then translate to the page, open your readers' imagination and suddenly drop them headlong into a moment they can physically feel. Emotion. Did you know description carries emotion? If you want a scene to come to life, perhaps a tender moment between friends, then look at the expressions, the movements, the lines on their faces—how they move, breathe, and listen. Then write what you see. We move from a tear dropping down a cheek to the emotion behind the tear. That is what makes the scene. 

The mountains spoke that day. Flecks of light bounced across the sky as the stars fought against the morning, their shimmer slowly fading into a soft violet. Darkness conceded, and fingers of yellow haze shot across the open heavens. A bird dipped into the breeze, and its wings flitted as it caught the lift and soared into the clouds. The morning didn't break—it burst open across the horizon, and there, in the moment of break of day, I saw the true glory of the mountains. My eyes saw the magic that can only be seen from the highest peaks. The summit must be heaven.

Practice. It takes work. You will soon begin to see what it means to really describe a scene.

TWEETABLE

Write More Powerful Scenes by Seeing the Description, insight from author @CindyDevoted on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

Cindy K. Sproles is an author, speaker, and conference teacher. Having served for a number of years as a managing editor for Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas and Ironstream Media, Cindy now works as a mentor, coach, and freelance editor. She is the co-founder of Writing Right Author Mentoring Services with Lori Marett and she is the director of the Asheville Christian Writers Conference. Cindy is also the co-founder of Christian Devotions Ministries and www.christiandevotions.us, as well as www.inspireafire.com. Her devotions are in newspapers and magazines nationwide, and her novels have become award-winning best-selling works. She is a popular speaker at conferences and a natural encourager. Cindy is a mountain girl, born and raised in the Appalachian mountains, where she and her husband still reside. She has raised four sons and now resorts to raising chickens where the pecking order is easier to manage. You can visit Cindy at www.cindysproles.com or www.wramsforwriters.com.