{"id":297,"date":"2012-07-12T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-12T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/blog\/2012\/07\/12\/thursdays-tips-description-withou\/"},"modified":"2015-11-25T12:23:15","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T19:23:15","slug":"thursdays-tips-description-withou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/thursdays-tips-description-withou\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday’s Tips: Description Without Author Intrusion"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/div>\n
\n
\nYou can learn a lot by reading a brochure. How deep is the
\nGrand Canyon? How high is Mount Hood? Tourists appreciate being wowed by those facts,
\ndon\u2019t they? Same is true of visiting a museum and reading the plaques as you
\ngo. <\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nBut fiction readers not only don\u2019t need all those facts,
\nthey frankly don\u2019t want to see them in their fiction.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nReader expectations<\/b><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nWhen a fiction reader picks up a book (or opens an e-book
\nfile on their e-reader), they\u2019re looking for a good story. Something to make
\nthem think, laugh, or cry, something to help them escape. They\u2019re not looking
\nfor the minutest details on the largest snake in Eastern Texas. <\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nTrends<\/b><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nAdjectives used to be the greatest part of speech writers
\ncould use. When I was in school, we were taught to use them freely to spice up
\nour description. But now, the trend is to \u201cwrite tight.\u201d Writers are encouraged
\nto remove adjectives. To choose strong nouns and verbs to convey their story.
\nSo, description is especially challenging to pen. Another current trend as we \u201cwrite
\ntight\u201d is to stick to the action and avoid lengthy descriptions. Trouble is, in order to ground readers in our storyworld, we
\nneed some<\/i> description.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nSome good tips for
\nincluding description without intruding:<\/b><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n~ I find the most promising method of including description
\nis to use one or two lines that connect with readers. Something readers will
\nrelate with and hopefully feel for themselves. So, rather than use \u201cbrochure
\ncopy\u201d (too many details that read like dry facts), pick out an element or two
\nthat is relatable for readers and include those items. Mention something
\nuniversal, like how the sun hits the ancient building, or the water sparkles in
\nshades of periwinkle and turquoise. Take your reader there without telling them
\nthe old cathedral was built in 1721 as the residence of some reigning monarch
\nwhose first-born daughter wore purple on every third new moon. See the
\ndifference?<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n~ Ask yourself: is this important to the story? Does it help
\nground my reader? Will this fact matter later in the story? Here\u2019s a soul-searching question: am I
\nincluding this to show how much I know about a certain topic? If so, that\u2019s
\ncalled author intrusion<\/b> and makes
\nfor rather bland reading. Plus, I believe readers can discern the author\u2019s ego
\ncoming through and that can turn readers off. <\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n~ The details you do choose to share must be details your
\nmain character (MC) would know, if they\u2019re presented via introspection. Otherwise,
\nyou\u2019re crossing into author intrusion again.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n~ Use dialogue to communicate the imperative information
\nyour MC would not know. This helps deal with info that must be included, but
\nsounds very fact-based (and thus dry), because somehow dialogue smoothes away the
\n\u201cbrochure\u201d element. Mostly. Use this method with caution. Always ask yourself
\nif the information is pertinent to the story itself (see tip above).<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n~ Sprinkle the facts in. Don\u2019t dump them all at once. That\u2019s
\nknown as an \u201cinfo dump<\/b>\u201d and will
\nlikely result in a rewrite once your critique partner or editor sees it. <\/p>\n

What
\nare some other ways you\u2019ve included description without slipping into author
\nintrusion?<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can learn a lot by reading a brochure. How deep is the Grand Canyon? How high is Mount Hood? Tourists appreciate being wowed by those facts, don\u2019t they? Same is true of visiting a museum and reading the plaques as you go.  But fiction readers not only don\u2019t need all those facts, they frankly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[504],"tags":[158,121,138,221],"class_list":["post-297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editing-writing-advice","tag-author-intrusion","tag-description","tag-thursdays-tips","tag-write-tight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}