The Writing Company · with the Mayor

Write to Describe

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Write to Describe

When your purpose is to describe, restraint is the loudest tool on the bench. What you leave out is a detail too.

Every description hands your reader a place to stand. Here's what a good one carries now.

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, held

Pick your order through the scene and hold it to the last line.
Things that act

Nothing just sits there, and nothing gets announced. The things do the acting, and the reader watches them.
Restraint and subtext

Cut the adjective you're proudest of if the noun can carry the weight. One strip of tape holding its corner of nothing says more than a paragraph about disappointment. What you leave out is a detail too.
A final detail that lands

End where your path ends, on one detail, with no explanation after it. Explanation after subtext is an eraser.

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? At this level, restraint is the move. Don't name the disappointment; give the pale rectangles where the posters hung, and let the subtext carry it. What you hold back can say more than what you spell out.

After the vote, the empty hallway feels heavy with disappointment. Pale rectangles mark the wall where the posters hung.

Nelson · Specific nouns

Listen up. Every noun carries three things: its plain meaning (its denotation), the feeling it drags along (its connotation), and the register it fits. "Junk" is casual and loaded; it tells the reader how to feel. "Posters" is plain and exact, and it lets the scene do the feeling. Fit all three to the reader.

Campaign junk leans against the office window. Campaign posters lean against the office window.

Vinny · Strong verbs

Fear not! The verb you pick reveals your stance. "Blast" shouts; "let in" stays quiet and lets the reader lean closer. A careful writer picks the verb that carries exactly the tone they mean, no more heat than the scene earns. The verb sets the temperature.

At the end of the hall, the doors blast in the four o'clock light. At the end of the hall, the doors let in the four o'clock light.

Connie · Cadence and sentence architecture

Let's bring it all together! A paragraph has a rhythm you can architect. A run of short sentences drums; one long, well-built sentence opens the lungs. Once the comma rule is second nature, you may even drop the comma before a coordinating conjunction when two clauses are very short and closely tied ("The radiator ticks and the tape holds"), but only on purpose. Learn the rule first, and then bend it knowingly.

The radiator ticks. The tape holds. A cart squeaks. The doors open. The floor shines. The radiator ticks. A strip of tape holds its corner of nothing. Somewhere out of sight, a cart squeaks, and at the end of the hall, the doors let in the four o'clock light.

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 what it should say without you.
Plan it. Pick your path, and mark what you'll leave out.
Pour it on. Write, then cut: every word whose work the nouns and verbs can do alone.

The Path

Pick one way through the scene, and trust the reader with the rest.

Name the place: your scene, in one sentence.
Pick one path, and hold it to the end.
Let the things act: at every stop, something does something.
Mark your restraint: which words come out, so the details can speak?
Land the last detail, and add nothing after it.

Watch the Mayor plan it

Watch me run the plan on a place from the campaign: the hallway by the office, the afternoon the posters came down.

Pick it. The main hallway, after the election. My reader doesn't need to be told how it felt. The hallway knows.

Plan it.

The place The main hallway, four o'clock, the week after the vote.
One path Near to far: the office window, the wall where the posters hung, the doors at the end. Held to the end.
What acts The radiator ticks. A strip of tape holds its corner of nothing. A cart squeaks somewhere out of sight.
My restraint Pale rectangles mark where the posters hung. I don't call them sad. I don't call them anything.
The last detail At the end of the hall, the doors let in the four o'clock light, and the floor shines where everyone walked.

Pour it on. When I write it, I cut more than I add. One strip of tape holding its corner of nothing says more than a paragraph about disappointment ever could. I don't explain the rectangles. I don't explain the light. Leave room, and the reader steps in with their own weight. That's subtext, and it's the strongest thing a describer owns.

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