It’s one of the first creative writing lessons we’re taught: use all your senses. I remember sitting at my desk in second grade with a fun pack of Skittles while the teacher told us about how we needed to use our eyes, ears, noses, mouths, and hands to describe them.
I picked up the orange one (my favorite) and gave it a cursory glance. It was orange, round, and a little sticky—I popped it in my mouth and ate it. It tasted good. When Mrs. Bowman came around to see how we were progressing, I had written down nothing and eaten all of my Skittles.
It’s about capturing the essence, not the color
I like to think that I wasn’t just a hopeless barbarian in the throes mindless sugar-lust. I’d prefer to think that I understood, even then, that describing a Skittle with my senses didn’t actually do the Skittle justice. A Skittle isn’t appealing because it is orange and round and sticky—although I am sure that Mars, Inc. would disagree with me—a Skittle is appealing because of the magic it works on you. Skittles are brilliant little pieces of condensed joy that practically giggle when you pour them from the bag. That was something that words like “hard,” “chewy,” and “shiny” could never capture.
Prose writers should take a leaf out of the poet’s book when it comes to creating descriptive passages. Too often as writers, we fall back on the 2nd grade lesson: we revert back to describing grass as green. It’s true, but it’s not particularly interesting or informative. I’m going to assume the grass is green unless I’m told otherwise—I haven’t learned anything new about grass or about the world that the grass is in. I’m not engaging with the world more because there is green grass in it.
Moving beyond the five senses
In Whitman’s “A child said, what is grass?” the narrator proffers that grass is “itself a child,” “a uniform hieroglyphic,” “the handkerchief of the Lord,” or (my personal favorite) “the uncut hair of graves”. Grass isn’t just grass, it’s a literary force and a tool for the reader to interpret the world. The reader is forced to consider grass in a new way. If grass is a child, then the world is young and fresh. But if it’s the “uncut hair of graves” then we feel the world become forlorn and somber.
That’s the trick: to use descriptions to set a mood or tone, to get your reader in the right mindset. Creating robust and dynamic descriptions isn’t about listing detail: it’s about finding a way of description that captures some truth or essence of the thing being described.
Challenge your reader
The takeaway here is that you need to challenge your reader. Don’t be afraid to explore new ways of talking about something, to create new metaphors, to switch from adjectives to verbs. Create an interactive world where things and ideas are can touch each other, and touch the reader. A prose writer may tell you that a cool breeze was blowing the grass. A poet will tell you the grass was shivering in the wind, and perhaps you’ll shiver a little too.
How about you? What experience do Skittles give to you?
PRACTICE
Look around you and write a description of what you see for five minutes. Then take another ten minutes to go through what you’ve written and replace any adjectives with verb phrases, metaphors, similes or allusions.
Post your before and after in the comments section. And if you post, be sure to give feedback on a few practices by other writers.
Have fun! And remember, don't be afraid to eat the Skittles!
Table plants in table pots hotily poking out their dirt before me, announce their thirst and just when would I get to watering them?
Soon I said, waving my arm at them. Soon
I got out my computer desktop notebook, and started tip tapping the keys while listening to their giggling echo out into the room. I stopped to stretch my neck, painfully stuck in sleeping position. But then I saw on the floor, the pile of clothes, stretching towards me. Wrapped up around my chair leg strangling it.
I let out of whoosh of air and felt the normal stab in my stomach region.
I typed some more. More giggling, and tickly sounds playing around the room from the keyboard. He he he, they are saying.
But then in the living room the plushy sound of feet digging into carpet and a creek of floor. And I feel a shadow touching me from out there. I turn and he stands over me. Dark and large,
“When are you going to do your chores”
“Soon.”
The dark presence turns away slowly as if to say, “This isn’t over yet.” The creeks fade into the distance.
This article is right on the money, thanks for sharing this!
I’d like to add this thought:
We all know about the two brains – the emotional right brain and the practical left brain. The more poetic kind of description tickles our right brain, and them more prosaic kind speak to the feeds our left brain.
The trick is to have a good healthy mix of both 🙂
Exactly how much of each is a matter of personal taste + knowing what your audience likes, but it’s almost always good to put in some of both.
Hope that makes sense.
there’s not much to see
from my hospital bed . . .
the world sits just beyond my grasp.
branches on trees bounce in the gentle breeze
as tear drops of rain start their downward journey
to quench the thirst of the parched
ground.
The Room
This room is a multi-duty room. Not multi-purpose in the way those big Eichler rooms back in the ’60’s were — a couch and TV right next to the kitchen, so you, the female of the house, could cook and watch your kids and take in a favorite “soap”.
This room has been many rooms: it was Tana’s bedroom for all the years she lived here after we moved from the rental in Rex Manor(lovingly referred to as Sex Manor by its younger residents). That summer Tana spent in Finland with her grandparents, I painted it pink hoping to surprise her. I made patterned cushions to go on the bed. She’d just turned 15. I’m not sure she liked the intrusion — my picking the paint, the fabric, but most of all, my assumption that she wanted her room changed.
When Tana moved, the room became the Mexican library. This because of all the books I accumulated while working on my MA, Mexican American studies, my favorite part of which was delving into the way in which Mexico had begun and developed. I didn’t care much about low riders and Pochos.
Even during the Mexican library period,and later the library, and as the room evolved into Ted’s office, there was always a place to sit, a place to lie down. Tana’s big Early American bed was dissembled, as was our bed. They were moved to the attic. Tana’s bed was replaced by a futon; ours by a queen size mattress on box springs.
The futon mattress wore out. We got another with a beautiful Chinese red cover. It faded and collected stains and spots. When I was on one of my trips to Idaho to visit family, Ted went out an bought another new mattress: fatter and split. I hated it. Too late: it had been unpacked and sat, if not slept upon.
Since this was Ted’s office, a computer moved in, an old file cabinet, an old swivel chair — discarded office furniture. The futon stays down in the bed position. Changing sheets is “challenging”. A bookshelf semi-hides in the corner, Ted’s father’s old Tansu chest holds hundreds of old slides, mostly from Ted’s motorcycle days, but many from past SCCA races:Ted in his driving suit, the Lolita, his race car…
The TV resides in this room. It’s been home to our many TVs for years. The futon is pulled down, as usual, blankets rumpled. My dad’s Hudson Bay blanket lies in a heap — my cover from last night’s TV viewing. Laszlo, our dog was in, companionably asleep. He just scrambled out. Now Tasha’s, our other dog, in, and out again.
Ted has just brought me a letter. It’s from a friend in prison. Right on the front, next to his name and prisoner ID number is stamped in red:
THIS CORRESPONDENCE
IS FROM AN INMATE OF THE ILLINOIS
DEPT OF CORRECTIONS
The only constant in this room is Yosh’s painting: a big yellow ochre and burt umber bird surrounded by dense serpentine foilage sits watchful. She holds a blue man on her lap, one wing folded over him, protective, keeping him safe.
I wrote “The Room” in half an hour, not the 15 minutes suggested. Once I got into it, I couldn’t stop. I proofread what I’d written, but later found punctuation mistakes and typos (letters left out of words).
The Room has changed again since I posted. Laszlo is back, lying on top my dad’s Hudson Bay blanket. He’s got hiccups.
I really like the feel of this, you can really feel how the house and the family is always changing and the people here I assume just go with the punches of life. Kinda busy in a fun way. Reminds me of some family I have. Always changing, but the constant is that they love each other.
Loved this, thanks so much for sharing.
What a great post! An excellent way to write description:)
Basically you mean metaphors, I think.
Metaphor is part of it (possibly my favorite part, I love good metaphors), but it’s also personification and just overall word choice. It’s about choosing words that are more active than passive, and connecting ideas and images so that they interact. It’s the difference between saying “the leaves turn red in autumn” and “autumn light reddens the leaves”.
It is definitely a poet’s technique.
Metaphors be with you.
feeling the urge to write poems…
Very helpful 🙂 I’m very introverted, and don’t really talk or share my work as a general rule. A couple of writing friends are exempt from this, but I should probably get more used to sharing my work. Here’s something a little different that I wrote. It was challenging, since it’s in the perspective of a child. I have the unfortunate habit of crafting everything into insanely long and complicated sentences, so I had a little trouble with it. Any feedback would be great!
~~~
Valstroth was curled on the ground of the floor of the big treasury. He didn’t know why he was in here. He was scared, and he was alone. Why had his daddy made him go in here, why had he locked the door? He curled in a ball around the flame pendant, in the corner closest to the enormous, circular door, big enough for a dragon to fit through. It had to be, for daddy to fit.
Valstroth looked at the pendant, cradled in his small, grubby hands, feeling the warmth radiate off of it, burning away the dank cold of the room. Daddy had said that knights were coming, creatures like him, with two arms and two legs, wearing lots of metal, that were going to try to kill daddy because he was a dragon. He said that they wouldn’t hurt Valstroth, because he was like them, and had told him to stay in the treasury.
Outside, he heard daddy roar, and sensed the heat of a torrent of flames, followed by valiant cries and the pure note of metal against scale. Valstroth knew what that sounded like, because he had thrown a knife at him once when he was mad, and it had made the same noise.
Valstroth was scared.
He didn’t know how long he sat there, curled in a ball, staring into the flickering flames of his necklace. It was small, fitting snugly in the centre of his small hand, a small orb filled with fire that was white, blue, red, green, and orange, all at once. It wasn’t rainbow, it was just all of them. He loved it. It made him feel safe. It felt like daddy. Outside, he heard more clashing, and more roars, steadily become more desperate; weaker, less fierce. One last pure note wove through the air, beautiful and lovely, and then there was silence, but only for a second. The group of knights broke into cheers, and Valstroth felt shock lurch through him.
Did that mean daddy was dead?
He dropped the pendant, hands forgotten. No, it couldn’t. Daddy was too strong, too big. He could never… he could never be beaten by creatures as small and weak as him. Even as the denial raced through him, tears welled in his eyes and spilled over, his lower lip trembling. The knights’ war cries had dissolved into jovial chatter, and Valstroth sat alone, afraid and crying, surrounded by darkness. All was darkness, except for that one light, the fire that daddy had given him–
The fire stuttered and weakened, and Valstroth lunged for it, clutching it in his hands. At his touch, it brightened again, and Valstroth sighed in relief. He dropped it over his neck, and stared at the door.
He waited. Daddy had said that if the knights won, that they would come in here and see him. They would find him. Sure enough, he heard loud laughter coming closer, and as they neared the door, he heard them say, through three feet of steel, “I bet this one has droves of gold. He was so old.”
Valstroth wanted to scream at them to go away, to leave him and his daddy alone. They hadn’t done anything to them! He didn’t want to go with these people, even though daddy said that he’d be safe. Be safe with his own killers!
As the door started to turn, clicking down through the levels, like a screw, Valstroth stumbled to his feet, scrambling back into the gloom. He stood, heart beating fast, back pressed up against the cold, hard wall of stone and iron. He trembled, with fear and anger both, his flame glowing, pulsing like a heart on his chest, illuminating the cavernous, empty room.
Finally, the door shuddered open. Through the murk and gloom, he could make out three figures as they entered the room. Valstroth nearly collapsed with shock; they weren’t like him, they were huge! They had to be twice his size, and three times as bulky, coated with metal. They did have arms and legs and hands like him, though. They squinted through the darkness, eyes locking on Valstroth’s light. “No gold,” the man said, obviously disappointed. “But what’s this? A rare magic item?”
“Who- who are you?” Valstroth asked in a stutter, terrified.
The man stopped for a minute, then cocked his head. “Hey! Hey, it’s a boy. What’s a little boy doing in a dragon’s den?”
Another one of the knights came up beside the first, footsteps shatteringly loud against the ground. “Was probably kidnapped by this here dragon.” He sounded knowledgeable, pitying, and Valstroth wanted to slap him. He hadn’t been kidnapped, daddy had taken care of him. His real family had died, so daddy had decided to raise him.
“Poor guy,” the first one said. “It’s alright, little fella. You’re safe now.”
Valstroth only numbly shook his head though, sinking to the floor. “No,” he whispered. “You’ve killed him. You can’t kill him. You can’t. No one can kill him.”
The knight walked towards him, and Valstroth shook his head harder, more urgently. Suddenly, the third night spoke up.
“Hold up, Reyve,” said he. “We don’t know how long he’s been here. You might scare him.”
Reyve paused reluctantly. “Oh,” he said. “Yeah.”
“Please,” Valstroth said. “Please don’t hurt me.”
The third night reached up and took off the metal on his head, and Valstroth blinked. He did look human, like himself. He had light brown, curly hair that was plastered to his head with sweat. “It’s alright,” he said. “I’m like you, see?”
Valstroth didn’t move as the knight walked towards him. He was quieter than the others, and Valstroth tensed, but didn’t run away. Finally, the man crouched in front of him. He squinted at Valstroth, and asked, “What’s your name.”
“I’m Valstroth,” he said. “Valstroth Osdykum.”
The man’s mouth quirked. “Valstroth ‘of the dragon’, eh? That’s not a language I’ve heard in a long time.”
The man reached out to pick him up. “No!” Valstroth screamed, throwing out his hands, instinctively channeling the heat within him. Flames, white hot with desperation, exploded from his hands and hurtled into the knight, but the knight appeared unaffected. His armour had melted off, so he was wearing only a linen blouse and tie-up pants. He had his hands thrown out to the side, his mouth moving quickly, and shock was in his eyes, as pronounced as the curls in his hair. The two other knights, who hadn’t yet moved, didn’t appear to have noticed anything.
“Don’t touch me,” Valstroth ordered, looking defiantly into his eyes. “You killed him!” Valstroth thought the man looked pained, but it was hard to tell, because his vision was blurring, and his head felt funny. He remembered feeling like this after he had tried to cook a deer by himself, and had accidentally charred the entire thing. He had used too much fire. He tried to keep his eyes open, but his vision dimmed and his legs weakened. He slumped forward, and the man jumped forward and caught him against his shoulder. He smelt like daddy, like fire and dragon, which Valstroth thought was strange, but it made him feel safe. As darkness converged on him, the man said quietly, so quietly that only he would here, “Don’t you worry. I promised him I would protect you.”