Do you know what books don’t have? A video of what is going on. A voice to explain to you things. I mean sounds like a given, but there are people who over-describe things or under describes.
As a writer, you need to hook the reader and emerge that person in your world. Make them imagine your character as you envision it. Saying something like beautiful, ugly, or big is too generic. It is even lazy. Another thing that you should avoid is saying something like, is beautiful as X actor. Maybe right now that actor looks good, but what if in a few years that person may not be the epitome of beauty. Plus again is lazy.
What can you do to describe things? Physical things? Well, what do you see? In your mind? On what you are getting your inspiration to draw something new? Take the city. Usually, cities have large crowds, and like it or not, many people together, may not follow 100% of the rules, hence having some sort of chaos. It also depends on where in the spectrum of the word chaos you want to go. So a city may have lots of trashcans, because of this some areas may have foul odors. What if you have artists or gangs getting graffitis in walls. A metropolis could be explained as full of skyscrapers that block the sun. In this sentence, we already know skyscrapers are big, but stating that they block the sun means they are huge.
What about people? Again, what do you see? Does Wilson have bracers? Let’s say that you want to say someone is strong, you could say the person has broad shoulders and an iron chin. This could imply that character has a lot of strength, then readers won’t get confused as to why this person bested another in a fight. Tell the reader about the scars, molds, gaps in their teeth, vitiligo. Make your characters unique and also try to use diversity when you can.
What else you can use to describe? Besides the dialogue, the other thing you can use is metaphors and similes. You could say her jade eyes instead of saying green eyes. Hairy as a wolf. Using comparisons can elevate the reader’s experience because you avoid under and over describing things keeping them engaged. If it is confusing or you don’t feel that comfortable, dialogues can also be set in order to describe something. This will also help the reader to enter the mind of the character while you keep pointing out the ambiance, characters, or any other element you need for the readers to focus on.
Using things like weather can also help you set the mood and painting a picture. Saying that it is raining and the character is in their house, at least someone will picture a wet window or raindrops falling over the house’s roof. Also, the weather can help you set the mood for what is coming next. What else you can do with the weather? Your character is in the desert. Beads of sweat drop from his cheeks to his boots. We just described a hot environment without mentioning the sun or that there is a lot of heat. Normally we can picture a desert and unless you don’t specify it is nighttime, many will visualize the burning sun in the sky.
You have to get a good dictionary, thesaurus, the internet, or any way that you can come up with words that can state many things with fewer words. In this case, you will have shorter sentences and the story will be able to be read quicker. Also, you eliminate some adverbs and can make up for a faster pace. Instead of saying he drove really fast, you could say he flew, he drove with haste or any variable. The word haste has a different flavor than really fast.
That is all I have for today. Let me know what is working for you in the comment section below. For more information on writing and my upcoming projects, follow me on my social media accounts. In case you need writing tips in Spanish, I got my YouTube channel. You can hit that subscribe button either ways to help the channel grow. Either way, I hope you guys are good, and for now…. keep writing mis amigos.