Apr 20, 2022
TOO MUCH DESCRIPTION!
“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:
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The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.
[00:00:00] Last week we began another mini series because thus far, this year has been the year of mini-series. But we started another mini series on the pitfalls of writing, just some things to avoid. And we are carrying on with the pitfalls of writing today with the second episode of this little mini series on craft.
[00:00:25] So I explained last week that we're going to do craft, we're going to do a couple other things, but we're talking about the pitfalls of craft today on Writing and the Tiny House. Hello, hello. Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy who writes things in a tiny house in Northern Utah, and then tells you all about it.
[00:01:14] So the point of this podcast is to give you the tips and tricks to create a good finished piece in order to share it with whomever you want to share it with. If you want to make money, if you want to sell it and make a profit, which is making money, this is kind of how it can be done. So I'm here to show you that a short story can be written in three months.
[00:01:38] From drafting to publishing, and a novel can be written in 18 months. I'm also here to tell you that sometimes if you decide to do things that way, or if you rush through the process, you can kind of screw yourself over. And so we're giving you the wisdom to avoid all of those things as well. The writing process can be done pretty rapidly if you know what you're doing, and if you've done it before, if you have not done it before, it can take a little while longer.
[00:02:08] last week we talked about the pitfalls of L Y adverbs. It's just a way to doll up your work. A way to add words, a way to increase your word count. but a better way is to use verbs that don't need adverbs and to use stronger descriptions so you can get rid of your L Y adverbs. Today on Writing in the Tiny House
[00:02:34] so we are going to be talking about using too much description. So there is a lot to be said about this. I Recently started a short story. It was a thing on Amazon Vela. So it's a serial novel, I guess. Vela is a way for authors to release short story segments periodically, or I guess, chapters of a novel periodically so that you can kind of have this serial
[00:03:05] effect like, this is what, this is how things happened in like the Victorian days. A lot of the classic literature that we call classics now, like Lamees and some other ones were actually released serially. They were released in parts and it's just kind of a fun way to revisit that, to revisit the way that things were, but with a modern adaptation.
[00:03:28] So I was reading this piece from Vela and there was so much description in what I was reading, that it was hard to actually understand what I was reading. It was hard to pick up on the plot. It was hard to identify with the characters. It was hard to do all those things just because the writing was so heavy Laden with description. It was down to the sounds. It was down to the appearance of everything, the appearance of absolutely everything. I mean, the story opened up with this like undead army coming to life and like storming this farmhouse, which is a really exciting concept. But. There was so much of the farmhouse and so much of the method that these undead soldiers were marching and so much of the bunny Hutch and the various different things found in the farm that it was hard to pick out the story itself.
[00:04:33] So this is the thing when it comes to description, a lot of us think that the more we add, the more delicious the piece becomes. And that is not always the case. I mean, sometimes like if, if we are having a cake, if we want to move away from writing and talk about cake, because really who doesn't want to talk about cake, it is entirely possible to add too much crap onto a cake and it ruins the cake.
[00:05:02] It is entirely possible to have too much frosting, to have too much decoration, to have too much stuff. So that the cake itself is not really a part of the dessert anymore. And we miss the cake because of everything else. The same is true with writing. So if things are. So descriptive. If we describe every little bug movement, if we describe every little freckle on a person's face if we describe every thread in their clothing, everything, it pulls us out of the story and more into the description.
[00:05:39] Which isn't what we want. And it's funny that that is entirely true. What I just said, it pulls this out of the story and sinks us into the description instead. that's not, it, that's not what we want. So I have been reading still the book, a swim in a pond in the rain, by George Saunders. And one of the things that he talked about that relates to description, but can also be tied into many other things.
[00:06:06] In a work in progress in any other book that you can think of is it is the difference between having a conversation with somebody where it is give and take, and the conversation happens, and you're both expressing your original thoughts but still following the same train of thought, it is the difference between doing that and having.
[00:06:32] A conversation that is pre scripted. So. stay with me cause this totally it made sense to me. If you were meeting a person for the first time and you meet them and things are great and organic and you're having a great time and it's easy to exchange ideas it's easy to communicate what's on your mind and share beliefs and whatever else, things get super interesting.
[00:06:57] And you end up leaving feeling like you are full. However, if you are a nervous type and this, brings memories of the show monk that came out years and years ago, if you are the type where you are nervous by a conversation. And so you kind of write down some talking points and you go to sit down with somebody and you're talking and then like you pull out the next talking points and then you talk about that and then you pull out the next talking point.
[00:07:25] The other person is not as involved in the conversation as you are. You are dominating the topic of the conversation by leaving out that. It's kind of like a job interview. That's how job interviews tend to work much of the time. And so with writing, it is best to simply use enough that works and then stop.
[00:07:49] you, as the writer are conveying thoughts that are super important to you and you certainly want. Everything to work in a desired way. There is a formulation to what you are doing. There is a reason why things are being laid out as they are, because you get to get there.
[00:08:07] You get to take a person from the beginning to the end, and this is the way you do it. However, oftentimes we forget that the reader has a brain and the reader is a person and the reader has. Memories and backgrounds and similar interests and things to us that they can draw from if they are allowed to, to make whatever you are writing, just as enriching to.
[00:08:36] And so it is important to sit down and see kind of where you are going with the current chapter that you're in or the short story that you're in or whatever, see where you are going and see if all of the description is 100% necessary, just because it is super great to allow a reader to fill in some of the blanks.
[00:08:58] Sometimes I have had. Discussions with many of my closest friends about books. always seem to be about books and with something like a novel with something like fiction, it is interesting to talk about how they envision things, how they envision the house, especially if the layout of the house isn't super important.
[00:09:23] To describe or how they envisioned the person's outfit or the person's hairstyle or whatever. And from those conversations, I have come to see that my friend and I had different experiences overall of many of those stories. They were different experiences that led to kind of the same feelings and the same life lessons and the same, you know, stirring moments.
[00:09:54] But as far as envisioning who Mr. Darcy is, or whatever, the person that I envisioned was different from the person that they envisioned. And that was okay to allow me that wiggle room as a reader. To fill in the blanks as I could, in ways that made sense to me was beneficial to me it allowed me to be more involved with my reading experience and it allowed me to enrich the experience on my own to use my own brain and to understand things in my own.
[00:10:32] Realm of understanding so that I was more involved in my own reading experience sometimes we choose to fill in a lot of description because we don't trust that our reader knows what they are supposed to be envisioning. And sometimes that can serve the reader a disservice. So. I invite you to come over your work in progress and to think about the moments where it feels like the job interview with the descriptions where you are not allowing a moment for the reader to fill in the blanks on their own.
[00:11:09] Allowing the reader to draw from their own understanding of words and understanding of situations and enjoy the book in their own way. So next week we are going to carry on with some of these pitfalls that we are changing to another subject. We are changing over to design and cover art. So be sure to join in next week on a new episode of Writing in the Tiny House. Thank you so much, guys. We will see you then.
[00:11:42]
[00:11:42] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.