How You Describe, CRAFT

I've written several blogs on how viewpoint affects what you description in a scene. For example, a character who is analytical will view a room differently from a creative person, and a cop walking into a room looking for a gunman will see it differently from an interior decorator.

The type of viewpoint character also affects how you describe what the character sees. In one of my novels, the main character is a professional landscape artist. I kept a list of paint colors beside me as I wrote her viewpoint because she'd be precise about color variations. She'd see another character's eyes as cerulean blue, not blue.

If that viewpoint character had been an expert on antiques, the other person's eyes might be the color of Delft blue china.

Using this kind of description also makes writing love scene description, particularly evoking the intense emotions of sexual pleasure, a bit easier and less cliche-ridden. I've used space imagery for a heroine who was an astrophysicist, shapes and forms for an architect, and colors and textures for that landscape painter.

An expert will also see something differently than the rest of us. Imagine a mechanic looking at a car engine, now imagine someone who knows nothing about engines looking at it. The terms used to describe the engine in viewpoint will be as precise or imprecise as the character's knowledge.

Always remember that description is as much about the viewpoint character as it is about creating a picture in the reader's head.

ARTICLE ON VOICE: Jennifer R. Hubbard talks about creating a voice for a novel.

http://writerjenn.livejournal.com/53715.html

MONSTER MASH: Do you need to create a scene involving a large creature or large creatures fighting or being chased? The History Channel has a new series called JURASSIC FIGHT CLUB which shows CGI recreations of various dinosaurs preying on each other.

A new series which uses the same CGI dinosaur models is PRIMEVAL on BBC-America.