The Writing Company · with the Mayor

Write to Describe

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Write to Describe

When your purpose is to describe, you're not telling the reader about a place. You're handing them somewhere to stand.

Every description hands your reader a place to stand. Here's what a good one carries, and what each part does for the reader.

A place the reader can enter

Your scene, named in one sentence. The reader should know where they're standing before anything else happens.
One path through it

A description moves in one direction: top to bottom, near to far, or left to right. Pick one path and keep to it, because a reader who gets marched back and forth stops seeing the place.
Things that act

The things in the scene do the acting. "The screen door bangs in the wind" puts the reader on the porch. "There's a screen door" only points at one.
More senses than sight

Give the reader something to hear, smell, or touch. Eyes alone make a photograph. The other senses make a place.
A final detail that lands

End where your path ends, on the one detail you want the reader to keep. A description doesn't trail off. It arrives.

Spend your tools

The craft moves you already know still do the work, pointed at a description.

Jake · Show, don't tell

Could we be more specific? Don't tell me the kitchen is a mess. Show me the egg white streaking the counter and the butter smoking in the pan, and I'll call it a mess myself.

The kitchen is a total mess. Egg white streaks across the counter, and butter smokes in the pan.

Nelson · Specific nouns

Listen up. A noun names a person, a place, a thing, or an idea, so name it precisely. "Stuff" on "the stove" files under vague. "Butter" in "the pan" files under done.

Stuff smokes on the stove. Butter smokes in the pan.

Vinny · Strong verbs

Fear not! A weak verb just stands there. A strong verb charges in and rescues the whole sentence. The smoke doesn't just go out the window. It rolls out.

The smoke goes out the open window. The smoke rolls out the open window.

Connie · Sentence variety

Come on in! A short sentence lands hard. A longer one, joined with a conjunction, gives your reader room to breathe. Try both, and let them take turns.

The butter spits, and the smoke turns bitter, and the window sticks, and finally it gives. The butter spits. The smoke turns bitter, and the window sticks before it finally gives.

The Describe Plan

Same three moves as always, new trip. When your purpose is to describe, the Plan it move is the Path.

The Mayor's Power Plan

Pick it. Choose the place worth seeing, and the reader you're putting there.
Plan it. Pick your path before you go.
Pour it on. Write, and keep pouring: more acting things, more senses, more of what only this place has.

The Path

Pick one way through the scene, and the reader will follow you anywhere.

Name the place: your scene, in one sentence.
Pick one path: top to bottom, near to far, or left to right.
Let the things act: at each stop, something does something.
Feed more than the eyes: at least two other senses.
Land the last detail: end on the one thing the reader should keep.

Watch the Mayor plan it

Watch me run the plan on a place you already know: Garvin's kitchen, halfway through that anniversary dinner.

Pick it. Garvin's kitchen, mid-disaster. My reader has never stood in it. When I'm done, they'll swear they were there.

Plan it.

The place Garvin's bright little kitchen is losing its fight with dinner.
One path Near to far. The counter first, then the stove, then the window across the room. No doubling back.
What acts Egg white streaks across the counter. Butter smokes in the pan. The window sticks, then gives.
More than eyes The butter spits. The smoke goes bitter. The counter's edge is cold under the mess.
The last detail The window finally swings open, and the smoke rolls out into the evening.

Pour it on. When I write it out, I hold my path exactly, and I pour on what the notes left out: the hum of the refrigerator, the dish towel hanging crooked on its hook. And notice what I never do. I never walk into the scene. No "I saw," no "there is." The kitchen does all the acting, so the reader forgets a writer was ever there. That's the quiet trick of description.

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