Writers will ask themselves a very important question when piecing together their manuscript: What type of author will I be? Every author discovers their own voice and prose through their writing journey, and every reader discovers their preferred style through, you guessed it, reading. Description can be a big barrier for your reader to overcome, which is why it is so important to dictate how your reader digests it and ultimately answer that looming question. What type of author will you be?
Some of my favorite authors are those with a more romantic, also called poetic, writing style. My favorite examples of this are Sarah A. Parker, who wrote When the Moon Hatched, and S. T. Gibson, who wrote A Dowry of Blood. Here are some examples to give you an idea of what I mean:
“But right now, I feel only cold, plunging relief. I cast a noose around the delicate, vulnerable feeling. Hang it from one of my ribs where I can look at its rotting corpse whenever I feel my heart doing the fluttering thing it’s doing right now. Because that’s what happens when I get attached in any way at all. Death.” - Sarah A Parker, When the Moon Hatched
“I will render you as you really were, neither cast in pristine stained glass or unholy fire. I will make you into nothing more than a man, tender and brutal in equal measure, and perhaps in doing so I will justify myself to you. To my own haunted conscience.” - S. T. Gibson, A Dowry of Blood
Reading is subjective. That means that you cannot expect everyone to love what you’ve created. Everyone has preferences, and while some opinions are louder than others, you get to decide the devices and tools you use for your reader to perceive your writing. So, let’s get into the different ways you can incorporate description into your writing.
There are ultimately three different ways to present description: through dialogue, internal thought, and regular old description. The rule of thumb is to have an even balance between these three throughout the entirety of your manuscript. Some scenes may have more dialogue than internal thought, or more descriptive paragraphs than the other two, but overall, you want to aim to have about a third of each in your novel or as close to it as you can.
Now, the question remains: what does this even look like?
Let’s paint a picture:
There is a castle built into the side of a cliff that overlooks the village below. The royal family who lives there are the only beings in the realm to possess the magic that allows them to travel to and from the castle—everyone except the princess, who has been trapped in the castle due to her father’s order. Our POV character is going to be the princess.
Description:
Outside, a narrow line of trees bowed and swayed beneath the summer wind—slender trunks arched like dancers mid-reverence, their green canopies thrashing with a wild, sunlit energy. The sky, though bright, wore a hazy sheen, as if the heat itself had blurred its blueness into something pale and restless. Beyond the trees, unseen at first glance, the earth fell away sharply; a hidden cliff’s edge lay just past the treeline, masked by that ragged curtain of wind-warped growth. Their roots gripped the crumbling soil like desperate hands, holding fast to the brink.
Dialogue:
“Gods, that wind is brutal.” Hilda snaps the window closed.
“It always is in the summer. You’ve been here for centuries and you still manage to bitch about it every year.”
“What’s crawled up your ass and died?”
“Were I not a prisoner, I might summon the grace to feign civility. But alas, the will escapes me.”
“Would you quit it with your fancy talk? Save that for your father. And if you were less likely to run past the treeline for the cliff’s edge, he’d be more inclined to give you your freedom back, but alas, the will escapes him.”
Internal Thought:
The wind has been howling since the moment I woke this morning. I miss the rain hitting the glass and the birds’ chirping in the early hours. When Spring turns to Summer, my heart aches for escape, but Father has trapped me in these wretched walls. I long for the days I played just beyond the trees at the cliff’s edge and the thrill it would elicit. I haven’t had a moment like that in a long while and I fear I may never know that bliss again.
Now, let’s put it all together:
The wind has been howling since the moment I woke this morning. The narrow line of trees bow and sway beneath the summer wind—slender trunks arch like dancers mid-reverence, their green canopies thrashing with a wild, sunlit energy. I miss when the rain would hit the glass and the birds chirped in the early hours.
“Gods, that wind is brutal.” Hilda snaps the window closed.
“It always is in the summer. You’ve been here for centuries and you still manage to bitch about it every year.”
“What’s crawled up your ass and died?” Hilda’s footsteps stop behind me, her fingers brushing through my mess of tangles.
“Were I not a prisoner, I might summon the grace to feign civility. But alas, the will escapes me.” I snap, swatting at her hands.
This time of year, my heart aches for escape, but Father has trapped me in these wretched walls. I long for the days I played just beyond the trees at the cliff’s edge and the thrill it would elicit. I haven’t had a moment like that in a long while, and I fear I may never know that bliss again.
“Would you quit it with your fancy talk? Save that for your father. And if you were less likely to run past the treeline for the cliff’s edge, he’d be more inclined to give you your freedom back, but alas, the will escapes him.”
I hope that helps. For editing services, visit my website, oakanddaggerediting.org, to submit an inquiry and set up your complimentary consultation.
Happy writing,
Alexis Augustine
Owner of Oak and Dagger Editing
Fiction Editor