Description: How Much in Creative Writing?

"Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s." 

- Stephen King [On Writing] 

This is a continuation of our creative writing insights series. Our last post was on characters and character development.

Besides a compelling plot and believable characters, narration and description are vital in any creative writing or other story telling methods. The essence of dialogue and character development cannot be gainsaid. They form the glue that ultimately results in a solid plot and a great story.

Reading through the StephenKing.com message board on Description as tackled in On Writing, some users are of the opinion that less is more, that it should be avoided if it removes imagination in the reader, that it should depend on the type of story, that it should be given sparingly... and other divergent views.

Stephen King himself has the following to say about description:

"Description is what makes the reader a sensory participant in the story. Good description is a learned skill, one of the prime reasons why you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot. It’s not just a question of how-to, you see; it’s also a question of how much to. Reading will help you answer how much, and only reams of writing will help you with the how.
You can learn only by doing.

Description begins with visualization of what it is you want the reader to experience. It ends with your translating what you see in your mind into words on the page."

"Thin description leaves the reader feeling bewildered and nearsighted. Over-description buries him or her in details and images. The trick is to find a happy medium. It’s also important to know what to describe and what can be left alone while you get on with your main job, which is telling a story."

Whatever the case, I feel that description should be kept to an absolutely necessary minimum. The story telling in my humble opinion, is better served when characters are used to tell the story.

It however becomes impossible to develop the plot or paint a picture in the reader's mind without reverting to description in some cases. At that point, description should be applied appropriately.

The long and short of it is that the writer needs to strike a balance to avoid boring and confusing over-description as well as thin description that can get the reader lost.

Your thoughts?

Believable Characters Tell Their Own Story

"Good writing..., teaches the learning writer about style, graceful narration, plot development, the creation of believable characters, and truth-telling."

- Stephen King [On Writing]

Characters are a key component of any story. Believable characters make a great story.

In creative writing, character development is such an important part of the process that if not done well, the paper-thin characters in a story can fatally injure a solid plot, flawless grammar and vivid description.

Believable Characters
That said, what's a believable character and how are they developed?

Well, a believable character is one that is perceived by and interacts with the reader just like real people do. This equally applies to anthropomorphized creatures and objects, as well as beings with super-human attributes.

A character becomes believable when it has emotions, performs actions, behaves in a unique manner, communicates, thinks, has habits and does whatever else is in the interest of plot development. Characters come to life when they talk, do things and make decisions.

Description
One of the easiest ways to water down your characters is through what is essentially an important tool in story telling - description.

You see, description is at the heart of narration. It is through description that the story environment is conveyed to the reader. Description in a written story, much unlike in a movie, drama or a TV show, relies on words.

These words, which the omnipresent writer freely controls, can be over-used in describing aspects of the character which would be better served if the characters themselves portrayed them through word and deed. Following is an example to illustrate this:

Portray Character Through Action
If a short story has a character who needs to be portrayed as a quiet and introverted person, the writer needs not tell the reader that David was usually quiet while in the company of his friends, contributing very little to their overall conversations.

A better way of presenting David's character would be to actually have a scene where other participants in the group actively carry out the conversation, while David says very little. He would then opt to take a stroll alone while his friends either played a game of cards or went out to party.

The interactions of characters with other characters, the words they say, the music they play, the movies they watch, their habits... that is what makes characters believable. It also facilitates plot development sans boring wordy prose.

Your thoughts?

Note: Next, we take a look at description in our ongoing creative writing insights.