{"id":5964,"date":"2016-09-02T06:10:07","date_gmt":"2016-09-02T11:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hilbertthm90.wordpress.com\/?p=5964"},"modified":"2022-06-21T12:29:08","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T17:29:08","slug":"the-difficulty-of-invisible-description","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/2016\/09\/the-difficulty-of-invisible-description\/","title":{"rendered":"The Difficulty of Invisible Description"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Invisible description is the essence of great writing. Let’s dig into the mechanics of making this happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve been reading Fool Moon<\/a><\/em> by Jim Butcher, the second Dresden Files novel. In the middle of a fight with a werewolf, the narrator uses this simile:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was flung back through the air like a piece of popcorn in a sudden wind …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I loved this image at first. It vividly conveyed what happened. It did so with a completely original bit of description. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a sense, it seemed to follow all the “rules” for good writing. It shows instead of tells. It avoids cliche. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why did something feel wrong about it? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why did it pull me out of the story?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"fool<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Invisible Description<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

And that’s when it struck me. In a sense, the description was too good. It wasn’t invisible, which is why it pulled me out of the story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is one of those things that no one wants to tell you, but sometimes writing can be too creative to serve its purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, I realized I could pin the problem down even more. The word “popcorn” is the word that jumped out too much. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a fight scene with a werewolf, the word popcorn is too unexpected. I talked a bit about this in the post on tonal consistency<\/a>. It isn’t the right tone for the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As readers, we have baggage surrounding werewolves, and we have baggage surrounding popcorn. There is no overlap between these two histories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes this stark contrast can be done purposefully to achieve a desired mental state in the reader (comedy or Lynchian horror to name a few), but this was not the place for such a thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fight scene needs to have invisible description, and that’s often harder than the creative thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Workshopping the Description<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Let’s workshop how my own thought process goes for description. Say I’m writing a fight scene, and the antagonist yells an insult at Bob, our protagonist. My first draft has the sentence:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bob was angry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It’s such bad writing, but that’s what first drafts are for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On revision, I think about the advice “show don’t tell.” I need to come up with some description that shows the anger. I replace the sentence with:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bob’s cheeks flushed red with anger.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It’s an improvement but not by much. I call this “fake showing,” because I’m still telling the reader “with anger” and I’ve only put in a shallow, cliche idea of cheeks flushing red.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did this happen? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I heard the word anger, and I thought the color red. I also thought the phrase “hot head.” The description came out as something red on the person’s head. It’s dull and uninformative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Avoiding the Cliche<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Here’s a technique I learned from one of Orson Scott Card’s books on writing. The first few things you think of will always be cliche and ordinary. That’s why you thought of it first. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, make a list of 10-20 descriptions, and only start working with ones that fall near the end of the list. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This forces you to exhaust all the common tropes. Don’t worry about sentences. Get the idea for the sentence down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n