How descriptive are you?

[pink_silk_glove]

I've not read any of his stuff yet.

My approach is along the scents, taste, and care that goes into making the meal.

The way the rosemary sizzles and releases its scent when it hits the browned butter before tossing the makeshift sauce with roasted carrots and parsnips, adding an earthy note to the sweet and nutty flavor, or the way each bite of the roast feels delicate and tastes rich with garlic and pepper, the slight crunch of a small seared piece that contrasts with the rare inner portion.

Sometimes I'll play into the way fresh cherries stain lips, or the way a Popsicle melts over the clavicle and trails along the skin, and how the taste is altered by the perfume the character is wearing.

The way the ruddy color of a spice rub can add an element of color to a meal, or the way sweet potatoes caramelize slightly when roasted, crisp outside and tenderly fluffy inside, the scent of slightly burnt sugar lingering during the meal.

There's just a lot you can do with food, and not all of it involves watching the MFC's boobs jiggle as she whips up some heavy cream with sugar and vanilla, though that can certainly be a thing, too.

I wrote a novel a few years back that took place largely in a high end restaurant, so I had describe some of the menus. It was part of the setting. Some of the dishes were even metaphors for the scenes, such as the main character comparing her husband to the dead fish on her plate, or the last supper scene. It has a soup or salad scene, a force-feeding scene. There a moments where I show character traits by what they order or how they eat. And of course I had to have a food sex scene.

I can't post it here. It violates lit rules. It's not a 'nice' story. (blush)

 

[yowser]

As others have noted, it's not 'how much description?' but 'how does it affect the story, move it forward?'

I do not subscribe to the 'fill in the blanks' philosophy, as generally those who adopt this approach often give us only a couple data points, expecting the reader to make a 3-D picture out of what only will produce a line. Good luck with that. Far more important is the 'type' of description involved, which can tell you a lot about the character(s), what they notice, how it affects them and their actions and responses, and really do a huge amount of work in the story telling department. If you have a narrator telling the story, as a reader I want to know that I have a 'perceptive' narrator, someone who picks up on the right details of a place or person. Unless the story calls for it, a police reporting/journalistic style doesn't do much for me. I want flavor, some salt in the stew.

It is easy to go overboard, but there are some exceptional authors (Pynchon, David Foster Wallace) who can pile up the details, almost force feed you, but at the same time produce an indelible sense that is absolutely captivating.

In erotica, I don't want to be told that someone is 'beautiful.' I want to know what her pony-tail looks like when she's jogging, the way her shoulder moves when she climbs a latter, how a thigh muscle ripples, an eyebrow arches, etc. Not height, weight, pedestrian stuff. As an author it is your solemn responsibility (duty) to the reader to give them the right sense of who, where and what is going on, and make it so riveting that no one will stop reading.

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

I've not read any of his stuff yet.

My approach is along the scents, taste, and care that goes into making the meal.

The way the rosemary sizzles and releases its scent when it hits the browned butter before tossing the makeshift sauce with roasted carrots and parsnips, adding an earthy note to the sweet and nutty flavor, or the way each bite of the roast feels delicate and tastes rich with garlic and pepper, the slight crunch of a small seared piece that contrasts with the rare inner portion.

Sometimes I'll play into the way fresh cherries stain lips, or the way a Popsicle melts over the clavicle and trails along the skin, and how the taste is altered by the perfume the character is wearing.

The way the ruddy color of a spice rub can add an element of color to a meal, or the way sweet potatoes caramelize slightly when roasted, crisp outside and tenderly fluffy inside, the scent of slightly burnt sugar lingering during the meal.

There's just a lot you can do with food, and not all of it involves watching the MFC's boobs jiggle as she whips up some heavy cream with sugar and vanilla, though that can certainly be a thing, too.

I love that - the level of detail is great. I'm not a chef, so I just tend to go into detail about the meal itself, as most of the meals in my writing tend to be part of an excuse to get some exposition between the characters, in a format that most people are familiar with. I do think I need to go this route and be more descriptive about the food itself.

 

[RetroFan]

You'd swear from some of the complaints I've had on my IT stories describing scenery, characters, backstories and the like that I put in more detail into my stories than JR Tolkien or EL Doctorow.

 

[Erozetta]

I wrote a novel a few years back that took place largely in a high end restaurant, so I had describe some of the menus. It was part of the setting. Some of the dishes were even metaphors for the scenes, such as the main character comparing her husband to the dead fish on her plate, or the last supper scene. It has a soup or salad scene, a force-feeding scene. There a moments where I show character traits by what they order or how they eat. And of course I had to have a food sex scene.

I can't post it here. It violates lit rules. It's not a 'nice' story. (blush)

I have a few of those myself.

 

[ICantLeafYou]

There isn't exactly much of a plot to the things I write, but the straight-up smut I put out has been called descriptive a lot.

 

[TheArsonist]

It would be pointless to argue over someone's subjective impression, but I feel it should be pointed out that Heart of Darkness is by no means without atmospheric and descriptive passages about African landscapes and the effect they have on a person. For example, take:

Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances. On silvery sandbanks hippos and alligators sunned themselves side by side. The broadening waters flowed through a mob of wooded islands; you lost your way on that river as you would in a desert, and butted all day long against shoals, trying to find the channel, till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off forever from everything you had known once—somewhere—far away—in another existence perhaps.

It's just that for whatever reason they didn't resonate with @StillStunned. Funnily enough, this…

Yes. I love it when I come across a descriptive passage that paints a vivid picture in my mind's eye with only a few deft strokes. I can think of two good examples off the top of my head, both from erotic horror stories. I found both so evocative and so effective in setting the mood that I stopped while reading to make a note of them, then called them out in the comment that I posted on the story. […]

• The opening paragraph from "The Countesses of Tannensdal" by StillStunned:

"Tannensdal, seen from the train, was as I had expected. Gloomy forests covered brooding mountains along the valley's vast length. Mist ventured out from the safety of crevasses and gorges to send probing fingers oozing up the slopes. Small hamlets stood isolated from each other by dark woodland and steep cliffs and, most likely, centuries of mutual dislike and distrust."

… strikes me as reminiscent of the description of sailing down the African coast in Heart of Darkness:

The edge of a colossal jungle, so dark-green as to be almost black, fringed with white surf, ran straight, like a ruled line, far, far away along a blue sea whose glitter was blurred by a creeping mist. The sun was fierce, the land seemed to glisten and drip with steam. Here and there grayish-whitish specks showed up, clustered inside the white surf, with a flag flying above them perhaps. Settlements some centuries old, and still no bigger than pin-heads on the untouched expanse of their background.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

It's been a few years since I read Heart of Darkness but I remember it being very descriptive. I distinctly remember easily picturing the scenes as they slowly chug-steamed up river, feeling claustrophobic in the narrow channels with the greenery hanging overhead and brushing against the boat cabin. Then of course the arrows scene, and ultimately finding Kurtz' hut with all of the odd ornamental sticks that ominously became human skulls as they got close enough to see.

 

[lovecraft68]

As I sit here, in my office, surrounded by computer monitors, movie props, the dark walls hemming me in, framed by a window that opens out onto a bucolic winter scene, with fresh snow, birds fighting each other for the scraps under the half-full bird feeder, my mind wanders back to the hundreds of thousands of words I've written over the last three months.

How descriptive am I? My dark blue coffee mug sits on my desk, the aroma of freshly ground, freshly brewed mocha filling the air, and a gentle waft of steam rises from the murky brown liquid. Taking a sip, I sat back, relishing the feel of the leather on my back, the softness of its well-worn areas embracing me. This is my natural habitat, and where I do my best writing and my best thinking.

As I stare at the browser on my large monitor, the words begin to form in my mind. My long fingers - which end in neatly trimmed nails, one knuckle bandaged as a result of a disagreement with a cat food can - begin to rapidly type out an answer to StillStunned's question. It briefly goes through my mind that I have no business responding in a thread like this, when so many better writers have already answered his question, but I'm compelled by my desire to stop refreshing my Valentine's Day story to see if someone has left a comment, and this seems like the best use of my time.

The staccato burst of wit and prose flow from my fingers through the keyboard into my computer, and then across the interwebs to my colleagues here in the author's hangout.

"I describe a lot of shit, lol"

Pure genius, I think to myself, taking a congratulatory sip of coffee. Another job well done.

I have a mug of coffee on my desk, by the time I remember its there, its barely luke warm.

That would be my average description of anything physical-or surroundings-in a story. I do, however tend to go into too much detail about the appearance and personality of the characters. I rarely analyze how I write. I see myself as a story teller first and the technical aspects and styles etc...are whatever they are with no active attempt to achieve them. I just write.

But in the past when I've thought on how I only give minimal descriptions of objects and surroundings I see it that I want the characters to pop and be the focus, vibrant people moving through a rather gray environment so they stand out. I also rely heavily on dialogue to convey everything, so if I needed an object to be better described a character may make a comment on it. I think I want to get to the characters myself to where I pay little attention to other things.

The worst offender to me in the other direction is King. I remember picking up Black House -the sequel to the Talisman co-written with Peter Straub-and King starts describing the town and its population, like every freaking person that lives there and everything about them. His best days were behind him bigtime by then, but it just grated on me. Get to the fucking story FFS.

 

[Nynah]

When I first started writing on Lit, it was in a fairly niche E&V genre (Mailgirls) so even though there was an overall pre-established foundation from the stories from other writers, I felt I had to set my own take apart from those, so I purposefully decided to be a little more descriptive. I feel like with stories that require some setup and maybe some suspension of disbelief (the aforementioned Mailgirls setting, most sci-fi/fantasy settings, etc.), some more insight into the world through exposition helps the reader's immersion and connection.

My most recent submissions deal with a fairly commonplace real world setting (co-ed roommates) so while I do include a bit of description with the setting and characters as I'm moving them around within the story, a majority of what I write is the dialogue and interiority of the characters because I don't necessarily need to build the world around them as the reader already has the context needed. I do enjoy detailing the situations they get themselves into, however, so I definitely try to get as descriptive as I can when they are interacting (or even thinking about interacting). It's not something I think I'm very good at (especially when comparing myself to a lot of the other amazing authors here) because I'm always trying to strike a balance of too much vs. too little but I am endeavoring to improve that particular aspect of my prose each time I sit down to write.

 

[ThatNewGuy]

strikes me as reminiscent of the description of sailing down the African coast in Heart of Darkness:

Wow. That's an excellent comparison. Both passages are written from the perspective of a traveler in motion (one on a boat, the other on a train). Both use details like creeping mist, dark forests, and isolated settlements to establish a mood. Both are, in my opinion, quite effective.

 

[Britva415]

My most recent submissions deal with a fairly commonplace real world setting (co-ed roommates) so while I do include a bit of description with the setting and characters as I'm moving them around within the story, a majority of what I write is the dialogue and interiority of the characters because I don't necessarily need to build the world around them as the reader already has the context needed.

This is a nice example, too, of allowing readers to fill in the blanks with their own previous roommate situations. Enhancing the verisimilitude of their reading experience by not overriding their preconceptions.

 

[Imakewetspots]

I tend to be overly descriptive at times but my background is retired law enforcement. You spend decades writing details in reports, search warrants, etc and you do so because you will spend far less time in court that way.

Then I retired and started writing smut to occupy my mind. It was very hard to break myself of that cold, analytical writing style.

I’m better but I still sometimes proof my stuff and think it reads like a report.

When I was in school, English composition classes used to stress Hemingway to the extreme. I learned to hate that guy as I read page after page of nauseating detail about something completely irrelevant. And I’d argue with the teacher who believed there was metaphorical meaning hidden in all of that crap. Like the meaning of life could be revealed in thirteen pages of some character with ptsd making pancakes.

I think the perfect balance of detail is going to vary for each reader. Some appreciate the ‘word picture’ and some prefer to use their own imagination to fill in certain details.

 

[StillStunned]

I just realised that I hadn't actually posted my own thoughts on this thread.

My general approach is mostly bare-bones. I like RE Howard's trick of starting a story by describing the story's immediate setting, with sights and sounds and smells, and perhaps a little backstory, and then zooming in on the POV characters. Then the background is taken as a given for the rest of the story, unless something changes or stands out. I find this very effective in fantasy writing.

But sometimes I decide to go all out in the other direction. "The Countesses of Tannensdal" has been mentioned, which was a deliberate attempt to recreate 19th century Gothic horror, so full of mood and atmosphere. "Upstream" is another story where I used description deliberately, and in "Full Moon on Old Jack's Hill" I added a descriptive moment to slow the story down and try to capture a magical moment.

Judging by the comments, readers like the descriptive stories. But my fantasy readers often compliment me on *not* being descriptive, and only showing just enough for the reader to create a picture in their own mind. So different approaches for different types of stories.

One story here on Lit that grabbed me immediately was @onehitwanda's Midnight's Daughter. A few lines were enough to put me right there on an Italian lake, and then send me off to see whether I could create the same sense of place. (The eventual result was Upstream.)

The opening paragraph from "The Countesses of Tannensdal" by StillStunned:

Thanks! You left a comment in October 2023, and I love that it's stuck with you since then!

It's just that for whatever reason they didn't resonate with @StillStunned. Funnily enough, this…
… strikes me as reminiscent of the description of sailing down the African coast in Heart of Darkness:

Wow. That's an excellent comparison. Both passages are written from the perspective of a traveler in motion (one on a boat, the other on a train). Both use details like creeping mist, dark forests, and isolated settlements to establish a mood. Both are, in my opinion, quite effective.

Now I'm just blushing. I suppose I should point out that I complained about the descriptive passages in HoD, but I'll take the compliment nevertheless.

Thanks for everyone's thoughts on the subject, by the way! And thanks for keeping it civil.

 

[AlexBailey]

The description I gave of the real-world Malibu house I used for my novel no longer fits:

We drive a few miles up a narrow, forested canyon road to our driveway. Mom presses the clicker on the sun-visor, and the iron gate swings open. A long driveway makes several switchback turns up to our modern stone and stucco house with a red-tile roof. It's a multi-level five-bedroom, built into a hillside, with a backyard pool and a quarter acre of lawn. The attached garage is huge.

As of last week, a better description would be:

We drive past warning signs at the unmanned barricade and head a few miles up a narrow canyon of charred tree skeletons -a few tendrils of smoke still rise from smoldering root systems. The sickening smell of devastation floods the car in spite of the closed air vents. The clicker on the sun-visor is useless as the iron gate lays aside, wrecked from being forced open by heavy equipment to access the long switchback driveway. At the top, where once stood a modern stone and stucco house with a red-tile roof, is now the remains of the multi-level five-bedroom, collapsed into the hillside under a pile of terracotta tiles. The backyard pool is dark with ash and cinders, the recently trimmed quarter acre of lawn is beginning to brown from lack of watering. All that remains of the huge four bay garage is the five charged stone pillars, beside them the remains of a formerly prized 1986 Porsche 928s.

 

[BoiBlackcinder]

I am struggling with this myself right now I am conflicted. I want to write well, tell a good story that has sexual themes. But I want it to be a good story first and foremost. i am building lots of descriptive detail, both of my charcters and the setting. I worry that my readers will not be patient and will want sex before I have developed the character enough to make the sex realistic, worthwhile, or exciting. To make my point with an extreme example, Should i write spank material or literature? I want to write literature but i am afraid of disappointing my readers and all the bad stuff that follows from that: low scores, no readership etc.

 

[oneagainst]

I am struggling with this myself right now and have am facing a conflict. I want to write well, tell a good story that has sexual themes. But I want it to be a good story first and foremost. i am building lots of descriptive detail, both of my charcters and the setting. I worry that my readers will not be patient and will want sex before I have developed the character enough to make the sex realistic, worthwhile, or exciting. To make my point with an extreme example, Should i write spank material or literature? I want to write literature but i am afraid of disappointing my readers and all the bad stuff that follows from that: low scores, no readership etc.

Both/either work. For example Her Wildest Dreams has ranked a 4.85 with 4000 words before the action. It was all character build until then. A lot of readers like a good story with characters they can believe, and some just want to get to their destination in 2000 words. You'll find out who your tribe is...!

 

[stickygirl]

People have described my style as very visual, cinematic. There's often a description of the surroundings, the weather (often a mood setter in its own right), noises or silence. Not great long exhaustive scene settings, more often just a sentence, a phrase. What I call grace notes: some tiny detail, otherwise inconsequential, that zings like a splash of colour in a painting.

This is one of my favourite sketches:

I saw how the back of her hand was lightly freckled, the veins like a river on a map, and ever so slightly blue. Her skin was quite pale. A long scar ran along the side of her little finger, and I imagined some childhood accident, a young girl running inside to find mother, when only a father would do. I saw a tiny pulse on a vein near her wrist, and counted her heartbeats. Her pulse was quite quick, and I lost count at twenty-two.
^^ that is pure John Green

I love adding descriptive passages, but it has to be part of the flow and not parachuted in because 'Oh, I need description!' I've accepted criticism that sometimes I write too much dialogue, but conversation provides an opportunity to develop the characters and a breathing space in the plot.
My descriptions will either be narrated or preferably seen through the eyes of the protagonist. Through-the-eyes gives the description emotional value: why is it important; how did it make them feel?

 

[Rob_Royale]

I'm as descriptive as I need to be. Certain stories need more than others. A story that takes place on another planet - more. A story that takes place in a backyard pool - less.
I'd say that most erotica readers are also consumers of porn and/or erotc art, so getting very descriptive of a room and two people on a sectional couch is rather pointless. They need a just the barest detail to see the scene.
On the other hand, I describe my FMC's very well. They are the star of the show. The MMC's, not so much. Knowing my readers are largely male, I want to the reader to put themself in that role.

 

[FidelityBoss]

It depends on the story. For instance, a lot of what I write has bondage themes in it. So if I'm writing a story with a character that has been imprisoned for a while, I may describe the setting in excruciating detail to reflect the amount of time the character has had to become acquainted with their environment. (Also, possibly, if I happen to find that kind of setting to be a turn on anyway. )

In Review Day, which has heavy straitjacket bondage themes, I had the character be brought out of a padded cell and into an office. So I attempted to give a robust description to the office, not only for the sake of describing the office itself, but also to highlight the stark contrast between the two rooms as experienced by the character. So the more detailed description had a sort of dual purpose in this case.

In other cases, I may give some description just to give the settings a bit of color, but won't spend too much time on that if it's not crucial to the story. I don't really like superfluous detail and don't want to belabor anything, though I can see where this is subjective and can respect different approaches.

Interestingly, I don't tend to describe the characters themselves to any great degree unless they are non-human or otherwise exotic or unworldly. Maybe my tendency here is to leave things more to the imagination.

I love how intentional you are with your descriptions! Using detailed settings to reflect a character’s experience, like the contrast between the padded cell and the office in Review Day, adds so much depth. It’s smart to let the environment tell part of the story, especially in bondage-themed works where confinement and sensory deprivation play such a big role.

And I totally get keeping character descriptions minimal, it leaves room for readers to project their own imagination, which can make the story more immersive. It’s all about balance, and it sounds like you’ve got a great handle on when to dive deep and when to keep it light.

 

[MK_Whimsy]

I love how intentional you are with your descriptions! Using detailed settings to reflect a character’s experience, like the contrast between the padded cell and the office in Review Day, adds so much depth. It’s smart to let the environment tell part of the story, especially in bondage-themed works where confinement and sensory deprivation play such a big role.

And I totally get keeping character descriptions minimal, it leaves room for readers to project their own imagination, which can make the story more immersive. It’s all about balance, and it sounds like you’ve got a great handle on when to dive deep and when to keep it light.

Thanks! That's very nice feedback.

Edit: I tried to be hyper-descriptive about the padded cell environment in an earlier story I put up, Interruption. (Yes, I know the paragraphs are too long. ) The character has had all the time in the world to familiarize himself with this environment, so it makes sense that the description would be very detailed.

 

[PennyThompson]

So I saw this image online a couple of years ago when John Green shared it, and it sort of blew my mind. When you think of "An Apple," what happens in your brain? Do you visualize something, or do you just hold an abstract concept of an apple? And if you visualize something, what is it?



I'm absolutely a #1. I can't help but visualize the apple, its color, its kinda waxy texture that reflects light in a very specific way, the way it smells, the weight and density and the woody sound it makes when you rap your knuckles on it... And for a long time I didn't realize that not everyone was like that?

So I think that's how I tend to write. I've gotten feedback on some of my stories that I sometimes spend too much time talking about how characters look, or what they're wearing, or what their room is like, but holding those things in my head is the only way I can conceive of a character or write about them.

I have to work really hard to NOT use descriptive language, in things like a 750-word short. But even though I don't have the word count to spell it out, I've still got the image in my head. I know exactly what Molly Moore the lingerie sales assistant looks like, even though I didn't describe her in the slightest

On the other hand I've also gotten positive feedback that my descriptions paint really vibrant mental images for some people, and really puts a scene in their head. so I think maybe it's just a difference in how people visualize and what they want in a story?

 

[YmaOHyd]

Love the graphic.

I think it's worth taking the time to describe especially spaces where the characters are going to spend a lot of time. If I'm gonna write a 52-part series about a guy who brings a different girl home to his apartment every week and 95% of the action happens in that apartment, I want the reader to know what the apartment looks like. Part of that is reflective of my process -- if I have a conversation happening at a table I'll draw myself a diagram as I'm writing the scene to try to be consistent about where people are sitting. And, if I know what the room looks like, I'm more likely to have the character stand up from the couch, walk to the corner, set his beer on the bookshelf and gaze out the window, watching the woman at the bus stop below. If I know what it looks like... why wouldn't I tell people? I don't want them in a hypothetical room, I want them in that room, that specific one, watching that specific woman at that specific bus stop.

Then again some of my work is tagged 'descriptions of people and places' so I'm probably not a good model.

 

[ElectricBlue]

think it's worth taking the time to describe especially spaces where the characters are going to spend a lot of time.

A couple of weeks ago @AG31 wondered if you can write a story without plot or setting. That got me intrigued, and my latest WIP is trying exactly that, two nameless people "somewhere", where only their intimacy is happening.

So far my props have been a band to tie back her hair, a dressing table (but nothing described on it) for her to lean against, and a chair (by an unmentioned window) for him to sit in while he watches. A bed is implicit, but I've not described it yet.

As usual with me, I've been distracted by two 750 Word stories, but I must get back to it, to see where it leads me.

 

[YmaOHyd]

A couple of weeks ago @AG31 wondered if you can write a story without plot or setting. That got me intrigued, and my latest WIP is trying exactly that, two nameless people "somewhere", where only their intimacy is happening.

So far my props have been a band to tie back her hair, a dressing table (but nothing described on it) for her to lean against, and a chair (by an unmentioned window) for him to sit in while he watches. A bed is implicit, but I've not described it yet.

As usual with me, I've been distracted by two 750 Word stories, but I must get back to it, to see where it leads me.

That's an interesting idea, and a nifty exercise. I wonder if you could remove the dressing table and the chair, or at least refer to them only by implication, and achieve a truly empty space.