gates Open - "description begins in the Writer's imagination and finishes in..." Rule #6

Gail’s Writing Rule  # 6

Write description that will finish in my reader’s imagination.

My family stories book is still my daily edit, but I also have one more new story to write. It is about going to church by myself throughout my childhood, but it is also about so much more. I want this story to reflect my learning, growth and creativity as an author. One area I need to think about, strive to improve and write with new understanding and skill is writing descriptions.

So, it is not a surprise that I made this one of my writing rules.

I love to learn from great writers.

Stephen King said,  “Description begins in the writer's imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.”

Josip Novakovich, in his book Fiction Writers Workshop, states:

“… as a fiction writer, however, you run into strong resistance against description.  Today's readers seek quick scenes, action, and energetic dialogue.

…Perhaps, however, with well-chosen words, you have a chance to practice a real craft, to make much out of little…

…Remember that a reader cooperates with you; the reader will daydream, free associate, and imagine starting from your words.”

Hilary Mantel, bestselling author of many novels, including Wolf Hall, which won the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, said, “Description must work for its place. It can’t simply be ornamental. It usually works best if it has a human element. If description is coloured by the viewpoint of the character that is doing the noticing, it becomes, in effect, part of the character definition and part of the action.”

I will keep these mantras for writing descriptions close. I will learn more about description by reading and remembering the passages that speak to me. The following excerpt brought me to a new understanding and appreciation of description.  I hope you enjoy it too.

Cup of Gold by John Steinbeck. It was his first novel, published in 1936

Chapter I  - first two paragraphs

“All afternoon the wind sifted out of the black Welsh glens crying notice that Winter was come sliding down over the world from the Pole, and riverward there was the faint moaning of new ice. It was a sad day, a day of great unrest, of discontent. The gently moving air seemed to be celebrating the loss of some gay thing with a soft, tender elegy. But in the pastures great work horses nervously stomped their feet, and all through the country, small brown birds, in cliques of four or five, flew twittering from tree to tree and back again, seeking and calling recruits for their southing. A few goats clambered to the tops of high lone rocks and long stared upward with their yellow eyes and sniffed he heavens.

The afternoon passed slowly procession-like with an end of evening, and on the heels of an evening, an excited wind rushed out, rustled in the dry grasses, and fled whimpering across the fields. Night drew down like a black cowl, and Holy Winter sent his nuncio to Wales.”

I have decided this blog is for me to think out loud, ponder, consider, and finally get me back to what I love to do.. Write:)

Write on!