Writers have always relied on description to immerse the reader in the story world, but modern readers of popular fiction expect a story to be told at a brisk pace. That means you’ll have to work a little harder to bring your setting to life …and your descriptions will have to do the same. Here are three quick tips to ensure your description is applied with a deft touch that will enrich your story without slowing it down.
Put Your Character In Motion
Whenever you choose the setting for a scene, consider how your characters will be able to interact with the setting. This is especially important in any scene that will require a great deal of description to orient the reader. Anytime you introduce a new or unfamiliar location you’ll need to spend a few words on description and in some genres, such as historical or paranormal fiction, settings may be even less familiar to the reader. If you can sprinkle in your setting description as the character moves through it or interacts with it, you’ll avoid a clunky block of description and the effort will be seamless.
For example:
The wooden slats beneath his boots shifted in the mud, most splintered with wear.
In this brief example, the character is moving through a town in a historical setting. This simple line of description will serves as a single brush stroke in the picture that is painted throughout a scene.
Use Setting To Carry Emotion
Emotion is at the heart of most good fiction. Readers are hungry for it. It is, arguably, the thing that makes reading worth the investment of time and the consequent of eye strain. When you use setting to carry or convey emotion, readers will be more indulgent.
For example:
Shocked by the icy blast of air that stung her eyes and the cold mush beneath her bare feet, she reminded herself it was only a dream. Besides, the scene unfolding captivated her beyond caring about a little discomfort. Her dream giant, Gunnar they’d called him, strode quickly through a snowy landscape toward a barrel-chested fellow with a long salt-and-pepper beard. Or maybe it was frost in his beard, she couldn’t be sure. The whole world seemed to be covered in snow or frost. A gray pallor spread across the sky, shot through with the barest hint of light struggling up from the horizon.
Because this passage from a short story I wrote is used to convey my time-traveling heroine’s shock and sense of unreality at suddenly arriving in ancient Norway, the reader will likely indulge in a bigger chunk of what is primarily scene setting description.
Focus On Significant Details
Not all details are created equal and not everything in your story needs to be described. Focus your powers of description on things that are important to your story—the significant details. What makes a detail significant?
Any detail that is integral to the plot must be shared. In another time-travel story, I had to describe the broach responsible for my heroine’s time-travel early in the story. Dropping it in out of the blue at the end of the story would have been cheating the reader. However, in the same scene, there was no need for a detailed description of the floor, the fireplace, the…you get the point.
Another type of significant detail is one that shows the reader something about the character or his situation. Again, one of the first things my time-traveling heroine notices about the hero is that he is dressed differently than the other men in the room. He’s been living abroad for five years. In a way, they are both outsiders within the group. Sometimes these types of details are very subtle or symbolic like the heroine mentioned earlier, who ended up barefoot in the snow. I chose to make her barefoot to subtly tell the reader she is vulnerable and to drive home that she is unprepared for her adventure. She is out of her element—somewhere she doesn’t belong.
If you keep these three tips in mind, there is no reason your description and setting shouldn’t be able to draw your reader into the story world without slowing pace.
This article first appeared at www.savvyauthors.com