Writing descriptions that reveal character
If you're at GCLS this Saturday in D.C., I'm teaching a class with Laina Villeneuve: "Astonishingly Beautiful: Descriptions that Reveal Character." And if you were there, here's the PPT: Descriptionclass.pdf Among the cool things we're going to talk about is all the work that description can do in a story. We often think that the work of description is to show something visually or, at best, to cover all five senses (six if you're writing paranormal). But description can do so much more than that. It can: Continue the action Foreshadow Give us the character/voice of the describer Reveal character through traits/mannerisms Give us a world/culture Here are some of the examples we're using: Action: Karin Kallmaker's 18th & Castro “Stretch marks, the emergency Csection scar and the occasional thick black hair that grew back faster than she could pluck it— how could Brenda find any of that sexy?” Foreshadowing: Michael Gruber’s The Book of Air and Shadow “The nose was sharp and seemed to have more than the usual number of component bones making odd little corrugations all over it. Her lips were unfashionably thin and pale, and when she spoke you could see that her teeth were odd too, the incisors especially long and dangerous looking.” Voice: Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere "There are four
