How To Describe Characters

Another good "how to" article is long overdue. However, the the long gap may have been warranted since I've learned a substantial amount since I published the "how to describe a room" post and my writing style has changed since then. I find myself cringing a lot at my old writing and old blog posts precisely because my older style was rather weak--I had a tendency to overuse adjectives, over-describe certain aspects, and at times I was too try-hard. Regardless, I feel that I have learned enough now to talk about another sticky hang-up in story writing: how to describe people.

The power of AI has brought my character descriptions to life!

Characters are the most important aspect to most stories, and chances are that you may have a clear image of your characters in your head. You might have a strong compulsion to fill up pages and pages describing every physical aspect of your characters, from their measurements to their clothing, or the backstory behind a birthmark. On the other hand, you might forego the description altogether.

For better or for worse, there is no set standard for how much character description a story needs. Different writers will handle this in different ways. Some authors do not describe their characters. I just double-checked Cormac McCarthy's The Road and indeed I can't find any detailed descriptions anywhere (heck, these characters don't even have names). For this book, it's appropriate because the characters are blank slates, and the author is leaving it up to us to determine what they should look like. Ernest Hemmingway does the same thing.

Trade books, like those by Clive Cussler, Dan Brown, Michael Crichton, or James Patterson, tend to use a sparse amount of details. Their focus is more on action and dialogue, so they offer only a few passing lines of description with a few specific details to paint a quick picture, then move on quickly. These passages are to-the-point and straightforward. Often times, the rest of the book reads the same way--simple and easy to read.

Then, of course, there are some books that indulge in more artistic levels of description. Some of them might be regarded as literary masterpieces and have breathed life into memorable characters. The varied cast of JRR Tolkien's books are a grand example--the man indulges in substantial flowery prose to vividly visualize all the hobbits, wizards, elves, goblins, and more. Stephen King touts using only the descriptions that are necessary, but he can be wordy when he wants to be.

You have the choice to describe as much or as little as you want. The decision should hinge on these factors:

• Your writing style. If you indulge in slower-paced stories that paint vivid pictures of every scene, then more character description might be warranted. Pulp and trade novels warrant less description for the sake of pacing and readability. Omitting description can be an artistic choice, or simply a personal one.
• Your target audience. Are you writing for people in a hurry who just want a quick and easy pulp adventure, or are you writing for the people who want a fat, juicy literary experience?
• The genre and type of book you're writing. Granted, some genres like sci-fi and fantasy can befit any type of writing, but contemporary literature may demand meatier prose, while action/adventure writing can be barebones. 

I strive for that middle road of providing a quick description with only the necessary details or impressions before moving on. I have probably over-written some descriptions before, but this can be quite a chore to write (and read). The only reason I want to describe a person in the first place is the same as scene-setting: I want to paint a picture for the reader, so I tend to provide a fast and loose description and move on to the next thing. There are a few techniques I like to toy around with, but I'll mention those further down the post.

How To Describe

Although some writers will disagree, I believe it's important to describe your characters in the same instance they are introduced. First time they appear, they will either be observed by the POV character (in a third-person POV story) or they are the POV character (first or third POV). 

I suppose it's possible to describe the protagonist in second-person POV, but it'd be weird because then you're telling the reader they're somebody else. Maybe that could work, I dunno. The chose-your-own-adventure books I've seen don't describe the main character, leaving the reader free to fill that space.

When you need to write the description, you'd do so through the senses of the POV character (even if it's the same character you're describing, meaning they're describing themselves). When they encounter the character (or themselves), consider what they're seeing and write it out. You could write this top-down, describing the hair, face, eyes, body, or bottom-up, with the body and clothing first, then the face, eyes, hair. Depending on the scene, the character being described could be making a grand entrance, in which case you could describe all the relevant details as the character struts into the room. Your character could also have a more low-key introduction, and it can be just as interesting if they're just sitting at a desk focused on work, or sitting in front of a TV eating Cheetos. This is a case where a slice-of-life could be leveraged to add some dimension to the character.

Description should be done in the same narrative voice as the rest of the scene you're working in. If the POV character has a snarky tone, then they'd describe a character in a snarky way. A stiff and formal POV character might use more floral language. If you're flexing vernacular, then you can continue using slang and colloquial language for the description. The important thing is to be consistent with the voice.

In the same vein, a description means your character is making an observation. When there's an observation, there should be introspection (just as every action has a reaction, and every scene has a sequel). When your POV character observes another character (or even themselves), there is an opportunity to describe their impressions. If they observe a celebrity in the flesh, they could either be starstruck or disappointed, and that reaction will warrant a paragraph of introspection. If they reunite with a long-lost friend, there is an opportunity to delve into thoughts and feelings about that reunion, and there might even be space for a flashback scene. The length and depth of introspection is its own topic, but it's another tool you can use to describe the impression a character leaves. These impressions can be influenced by physical appearances and the way characters carry themselves.

The neat thing about introspection is that this not only reveals an impression on the focus character--it could also reflect the attitude of the POV character. If your POV character snorts and thinks cynically about a younger person, then you've suggested that your POV character has some kind of agist bias (which is hopefully done on purpose).

If your story has multiple POV characters, you also have the opportunity to show different viewpoints by having completely different introspection on the same observed character. If character A sees the observed character as dumb, but character B sees them as smart, then you've created a more rounded view of the subject (and possibly revealed more about the attitudes of characters A and B).

With every physical description you give to the characters, you are making a conscious choice that can contribute to their characterization. Sometimes it's fair to be straightforward--maybe the villain should be ugly, a hero can be handsome. A rich person could be dressed in a fancy Armani suit. A working-class person could be smeared in soot wearing overalls. However, you have the option to go against the expectations if it means underscoring a specific characteristic through contrast. Imagine how interesting it'd be to make a villain virtuous and a hero more wicked? This is what happened in the film Ladyhawke, where the story's villain is a priest wearing white, and the hero is a rugged knight wearing black. Aside from overtly turning the knight into an antihero, there are implicit themes behind villainizing a man of the cloth--it suggests the abuse of power. Similarly, a rich person wearing a plain tee-shirt could suggest humility. A blue-collar worker wearing Gucci clothes could suggest pretension. These details can emerge either through the natural progression of the story (especially as twists come up recontextualizing the characters), or can be immediately identified by a very perceptive POV character.

What To Describe

When the moment comes when you feel it's necessary to start sketching the character's description before the reader's eyes, you have the option to focus on these details:

• Hair. Color is usually the singular thing worth mentioning, but I find that hairstyles are worth bringing up if they make the character stand out. Having one or more characters with an unusual style can be fun, but you wouldn't want to populate the whole book with wild styles unless you're writing a crazy world where that's normal (like it is in the film for A Clockwork Orange). I find that many authors describe bangs and braids a lot, especially for female characters, but I rarely read about quiffs, mullets, or other specific hairdos.
• Eyes. Once again, color is a prominent detail, and you can easily Google eye color charts to find the most basic descriptors for the most common irises. You can make a character stand out vividly by giving them exotic eye colors (like amber, red, violet), but overusing this can come across as trite. In fact, the most common eye colors (like brown) seem less common in fiction, and it makes me want to use it more (honestly I think I flip-flop between something wild like purple eyes then everybody else is brown-eyed). Eye size can be as simple as "big" or "small" (although you can flex character voice to make this stand out better). I don't think I've ever read a passage that described eye spacing, although if they're spread out like Halle Bailey or something, it might be worth mentioning. Eye shape can come into play as well, whether they're wide, narrow, or otherwise (although some descriptions, like "almond-shaped" or "slanty," could be construed as racist). One interesting condition I rarely see in a story is Heterochromia--though rare, it is entirely possible for characters to have two different eye colors, and it might be worth researching for something a little more different.
• Skin color. I'd only bring this up if it's really important to differentiate (and it might be if the character's ethnic background contributes to their development). If skin is not important to you, you can omit this detail and let readers imagine the skin color on their own. When I do signify specific characters' color, I tend to keep these descriptions simple (white, black, tan, brown, are all perfectly fine). I never really dipped into further details, but it is entirely possible to discuss skin texture and undertones. Distinguishing details, like scars, tattoos, zits, bruises, are all worth mentioning.
• Facial shape. I find it's easy to skimp over this aspect, but you can distinguish characters by mentioning unique facial shapes. They can be rounded, chiseled, soft, or hard. Skin could be tight or saggy. More importantly, the cheekbones, jawline, chin, and forehead can go a long way to make a memorable face.
• Body shape and build. Can be as simple as whether they're tall, short, skinny, rotund, muscular, lean, broad-shouldered, lanky, or any other type. This is also an opportunity to suggest through their physique whether they're physically active or not, and what their role in the story could be. Strong characters may demand muscular builds (although you could craft an interesting struggle if an unfit character must fight for their life). Different careers and life choices will shape how their bodies turn out in the end.
• Gender, as it is perceived outwardly. If the character is a total stranger, the POV character likely won't know the character's actual gender if they're gay or trans. Description is about how the character looks though, so the description should report on the male, feminine, or neutral aspects of their appearance. For cisgender characters, their identity will align with their appearance, and for them it's as simple as specifying if they're male or female. Unless your POV character is rather bigoted, it'd be wise for them to never assume another character's gender or sexuality until it is confirmed. But if these aspects aren't integral to the story, then it's also entirely reasonable to omit these details entirely and let the reader fill in the gaps themselves.
• Clothing. Obviously this will be influenced by the character's social standing and professional capacity. Some will have to wear uniforms befitting their jobs. Some might just be slumming on their wardrobes. Everybody should be wearing pants, a shirt, shoes, and maybe a jacket or coat, and these can come in all different materials and styles. High fashion is something that I never really considered for my characters, but it could be considered if the story/character warrants it.
• Unique characteristics. Your character has a scar, or a birthmark, or a cool tattoo? Then it's definitely worth mentioning if it's visible or known to the POV character.
• Age. When sizing up a character for the first time, the POV character will have no way of knowing an exact age (unless they're describing themselves), so they might generically describe people as young, old, middle-aged. They might even peg people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and so on. What's more important, however, is to suggest age by focusing on the details that betray age: whether their skin is wrinkled or not, the color of their hair, their gait, and so on.
• Hygiene. If you want to flex some of those sensory details more, the scent of characters can be a clue on their cleanliness, which in turn reflects how well they take care of themselves. This can reflect their sense of self-worth, or it could simply be an indicator of their social status. Heck, the film Parasite made the smell of characters an important plot-point (which, in turn, correlated to social themes).

The real fun part about all these descriptors is that they should all contribute to the character in the end. If you're writing a gruff military commander, he would probably be a mature man with a muscular stature, wearing a BDU, with a scowl across his scarred, weathered face. Writing about a ballerina? She'd probably be a young, dainty girl in a pink tutu with her hair tied to a bun. It doesn't always have to be so obvious, however. If you describe a man in a trench coat, he can either be a troublemaker or an innocent person, we really can't tell from description alone.

It is entirely possible to use physical characteristics to hint at deeper aspects of a character. A scar or amputated limb will have a backstory to go with it, and it could be background that influences the way the character acts. These traits will certainly impact the way the character presently acts, since they might be self-conscious about such injuries or traumatized by their cause. 

Obviously, the focus of this post is the physical descriptions, but this is only one dimension of a character (the surface dimension nonetheless). Depth is ultimately achieved based on how characters move and talk. These are aspects that warrant a completely different discussion. But the combination of looks, action, dialogue (plus motivation, wants and needs, emotions, background) is what will bring them to life vividly. 

DO:

• Consider the option to leave some details up to the reader to imagine, or to simply not describe a character at all.
• Consider using differences between POVs to paint a more complex picture of a person. Nobody looks at the same person the same way, and if you have multiple POVs in play, it's an opportunity to leverage different perspectives. One character might look at a character positively, another could be negative.
• Consider contrast. For example, it is entirely possible to have a beautiful villain and an ugly hero. There are implicit characteristics in this kind of contrasting portrayal--a beautiful person who is ugly in spirit might be inundated with ego, whereas a homely-looking protagonist could be seen as humble.
• Be up-front with the description, revealing important details in the same scene the character is introduced.
• Be specific with the descriptions you do use. Strong verbs and specific nouns will make your writing more precise and the image becomes clear.
• Become familiar with common and specific terms for body parts, hair styles, eye colors, skin color and texture, body and face shapes.
• Maintain the same voice used in the rest of the scene.
• Let characters change their appearance over time.
• Consider aspects beyond the physical, and work in ways to show those details through movement, dialogue, expression, and whole scenes.
• Work in details that can hint at their occupation, hobbies, or personality.
• Work on fleshing out characters, giving them nuance and depth. Even side characters can stick out with a little bit of a reason behind their actions.
• Write what you know, especially when it comes to experiences of other cultures, races, genders, and faiths beyond your own. If you don't know enough to write on them accurately, then it's an opportunity to learn through research and exploring other people's stories.
• Have fun with it. The more you engage with the character's appearance, the more likely they are to stand out and be unique.

BE CAREFUL ABOUT:

• Adjectives--details described by adjectives can be revealed with stronger words/verbs, or by seeing the characters in action.
• Having characters look in a mirror or other reflective surface and narrate their description. This is an over-used cliche that will irritate readers (and heck, I'm sick of it too).
• Optionally, you can use introspection to reveal the POV character's impressions. I'd recommend caution that the narration doesn't become shorthand for telling (and not showing) broad characteristics that can otherwise be revealed with action.
• Using traits as shorthand. One of the most common might be using scars to suggest that a character is tough and rugged. This can be effective if there is a fleshed-out background to substantiate the scars, but having the scars with no thought to how they received them could come across as shallow and cliched.
• Sprinkling the details throughout the book. It will throw readers off if you describe hair or eye color long after a character's introduction, because by then the reader will have made up their own image in their heads. Those details should be up-front, but other things (such as, say, a hidden tattoo) can be revealed later.
• Describing side characters--if they have little impact on the story, it may not be worth drawing that much attention towards them. Stock characters in particular have their purpose and don't necessarily need description.
• Using famous celebrities in a story. Fair use and the First Amendment does allow it, but it can be a sticky legal issue if the celebrity considers it slander or commercial exploitation. In spite of this, I also wouldn't bother comparing a fictional character with a well-known celebrity in the prose (although I have referred to actors to envision characters behind-the-scenes).
• Sexy details. If your character is horny, they will hyperfixate on certain details. And this is fine if your goal is to focus on a romantic or physical relationship. However, I distinctly recall one or two books (including one by Crichton) where women characters are described as having "good legs," and something about it rubbed me the wrong way. It runs the risk of making the characters objectify other characters, and in turn, it might make it seem like the author does the same. It might be wise to avoid starting with "the male gaze" or even "the female gaze," especially if it means your characters are acting like peeping Toms. It's better to save these intimate details for when spicy scenes are actually important.

DON'T:

• Compare skin color with food. That's just wrong.
• Broadly generalize the eye shape of Asian characters. This might only come to mind because of the epicanthal fold. However, their eyes are as varied as anybody else's. Focus solely on eye shape and size, with no influence from the character's race. To do otherwise may be considered offensive.
• Build characters based entirely on stereotypes and cliches, especially regarding race and gender. More importantly, those aspects should not be the sole characteristic that defines the characters. Every character should have deeper characteristics--motivations, backgrounds, hopes and dreams, likes and dislikes--that determine their actions.
• Infodump the details and attributes in one long passage.

There are many tools and many uses for simply describing a person's physical looks. There are many techniques and no real right or wrong way to do it. It's even fine to not do it at all. The only failure you can run across is if the description reads disingenuously or becomes offensive. Sticking with factual physical details (free of assumption) will help you avoid those pitfalls. Great writing, however, can achieve these descriptions with a strong narrative voice that commands attention, even during something as mundane as description.

Naturally, the best way to learn this is to practice for yourself and read broadly. Learning from multiple writers can inform you on what techniques work and which ones don't. For me, the way I've described characters has changed dramatically over the years as my understanding of the craft changed. It might always be a learning process, and I hope that my lessons learned will be helpful to your learning experience.

Writing: Show Don't Tell

Over the past year, my writing output slowed down drastically. For a while, I doubted my own abilities and went through some level of mental anguish and frustration trying to figure out what's wrong with me. After reading through various articles, hearing some lectures, and doing a lot of reflection, I finally got a grasp of what was wrong.

I went through all this because a lot of the feedback I kept getting was distilled into a single, dreadful three-letter phrase: show don't tell. I never had this taught to me formally in school (not even when taking Creative Writing in college), but it is the first and most important rule for writing. Writers everywhere embrace it. They live it. Breathe it. I wonder if some chant it endlessly while walking in circles around their den and whacking themselves in the head with a hard-cover writing textbook.

Show don't tell on its own is such a vague phrase that can point to a vast array of issues. Most writing articles I found tell the basics: how to describe scenes and events in a literary way. But the rule can also be aimed at characters, the way they act and talk. It can be aimed at the plot. Maybe it's meant to criticize expository prose. Maybe there's on-the-nose dialogue, or maybe the themes are spelled out too obviously. Or maybe it's describing the entire work--readers can't care for the characters for some reason. And that can be the hardest thing to pinpoint.

The most frustrating thing about it is that show don't tell on its own, without any other direction on how to fix it, isn't helpful. And from what I've read, every writer goes through this phase where they have to overcome some simple, amateur problems and learn from those mistakes before being able to pump out quality work. For a while, I went through the same actions and reactions other writers have: I got hit with the show don't tell missile regarding characters and the pathology of the story, so I tried to "show" them by describing their reactions. That just leads to more problems: my characters were reacting to things through physical action, but with no clear indication of why. And that just hurt the stories more than they helped. Something was still missing, and I wouldn't figure out what until much later.

The problem was point of view. I needed to embrace deep POV in order to make my stories--any of them--work. But now this topic warrants its own nuanced set of issues. What level of internal narrative is considered "showing" vs "telling"? What if characters want to think of backstories or how something works--is that considered "telling"?

After studying and learning what I could, I pinpointed several key issues I had to rectify in order to make my stories work the way they should. Now that I know more, I can do two things: I can write a grade better than before right off the bat, and I can self-edit better and catch problems before readers eyes get burned. To do either requires something that might vary from writer to writer: the ego.

Another phrase writers toss around a lot is "kill your darlings." I'm not fond of that phrase personally--I find it melodramatic and weepy. But the point of it is, you have to let go. If multiple readers point to something as a problem, it's a problem and it needs to be fixed. It would be narcissistic to assume everybody's wrong and the writing has to stay the way it is--to let go of the words and let them change into something that works, you may find that you'll improve any number of things. Maybe the story will flow better. Maybe it'll be easier to read. Maybe the characters will jump off the pages and do an Irish jig in the readers' heads (which would be awesome). Maybe you'll fix one thing and figure out how to fix another. I've come to see writing not as an act of throwing words up and fixing them, and I prefer not to think of it as a grim reaping of darlings. To me, it's sculpting. The first draft is a block of clay. You have to chisel away at it, tossing excessive words and phrases, tossing all the "telling" bits, maybe adding more clay in some areas, chiselling away until you form a beautiful bust. There's nothing to miss from clay that's chipped away from the sculpture--it's dead weight and it makes the thing unshapely. Less is more, and if you learn to let go and open things up to change, you will find that text is just as soft and flexible as clay.

In order to chisel at text, you have to know what to chip off. Chances are there's more for me to study, but I've finally reached a level of confidence that I can share what I've learned--these key things to look for have improved my writing substantially, and if you find yourself being slammed with the show don't tell criticism, hopefully this will help you figure out what needs to be changed.

Things that show and should be used / implemented / left in:

• Action. No matter how you write it, things happening is the meat of the story and needs to be reported as it happens. Assuming it's all experienced by a POV character, then it happens as that character experiences it, and would be written in that character's voice.
• Character voice. Assuming you're writing in first or third-person limited POV, you will need to write their thoughts in their words, not yours. Doing so will show characterization in phenomenal ways. Using character voice alone can reveal so much about who they are, what they think, believe, how they perceive others, all without having anybody spell it out. To pull it off, it should be consistent and creditable. No matter what POV you're using, character voice exists to facilitate the inner narrative.
• Characters thinking to themselves--as long as an entire thought process is being described, which leads to characters reacting, it is a form of showing. Some writers may not call it that, but it helps me personally to acknowledge that you are indeed showing a thought process. To me, this is the most important thing: every reaction needs an action, and my writing suffered for a while because I misinterpreted the show don't tell rules and assumed reactions alone was a form of showing. No, reactions on their own are meaningless, shallow, awkward--the thought and emotional patterns leading up to those reactions are what gives it all weight and allows readers to relate to the characters. This, along with wording things in the character's voice, is the essence of deep POV. Using it will help readers connect to the characters properly without having to be told characteristics. This can extend to their emotions, their beliefs, their political views, relationships--a whole breadth of areas that will paint them as deep and creditable people.
• Deep POV. Goes hand-in-hand with using that character voice. But with deep POV in particular, there are a few more rules to keep in mind. First, you have to diminish or remove author voice as much as possible. Second, you can't transition to other people's heads without some kind of scene break (otherwise readers get confused and editors will drop your work like it's hot). 
• Description. Sure, you could say it was a dark and stormy night. But it's much more dramatic and awesome to have a sentence like "lightning sizzled through the starry sky and boomed against the snow-packed mountain." If a description can be elaborated as whole sentences, then they should be expanded this way. And it will lead to stronger writing because it forces you to be more inventive with the writing, to the point where you can craft metaphors and personify objects in flashy ways.
• Strong verbs. I've always loved verbs, and nothing's cooler than writing a sentence with words like "smash," "rip," "tear," "eviscerate," and so on! What makes verbs powerful is when you use them to solve the problems mentioned in showing description--if you want to say it's sunny outside, you could say "the sun is shining." But then you're left with a boring sentence. Replacing verbs has become my favorite way to jazz up sentences--what's more potent than saying something like "sun-rays blazed on the cracked ground"? Now you have a specific and distinct image shown to you with some flair. Every verb choice carries specific meaning, connotation, and will paint a more specific picture in readers' heads. This can get very interesting and artistic when you associate odd verbs with odd things, like emotions and intangible things. I found that Ray Bradbury had this incredible gift of making it feel like a bunch of things was happening, even when nothing happened. He did it with verbs!

Things that tell and should be removed / avoided:

• Filter words. Any time you have a phrase like "he thought," "he saw," "he heard," etc., just remove them and let the action speak for itself. There's a natural tendency to channel everything through the characters with filter words because that's the way we see it in our heads--we see the guy experiencing something. But the POV is channeling the story through the character already--as long as the voice is working, readers will understand that the action is happening through their eyes. A few key exceptions exist: in third-person POV, it might be wise to use one or two filters at the very beginning to orient readers, but it's not necessary for everything afterwards.
• Introductions and conclusions. This is the standard thing for essays and public speaking. It's not needed in creative writing. Anytime you write a sentence to explain what you're going to talk about next, you're being repetitive by telling readers what they're about to be shown. And if you put that kind of thing at the end, you're just recapping what they've already been shown. These kinds of sentences should be removed so the action can be presented as it occurs.
• Passive voice. Any time a verb is preceded by another verb (especially "was"), most of the time you can condense it to just one verb. Having too many verbs slammed together dampens the action and distances the reader. Just write it straightforward: noun-verb-object. Passive voice should only be used when the noun is unknown (for example, "the place was ransacked," but we don't know who did it so this sentence is fine as-is. This shouldn't happen that often though--the majority of the time, you know who does what, so active voice should be embraced).

Things that tell and are actually okay to leave in:

• Accelerated passage of time. If nothing happens in that space of time, there's no need to "show" those as full-blown scenes. Compress it with a quick and easy sentence, to maintain pace.
• Epistolary works. If you're attempting something really fancy by piecing together a story with diary, journal, or newspaper entries, you're going to have to write them as they would appear in real life. That means you don't write these by "showing" every scene--nobody writes a journal for pages on end describing locations and dialogue and everything. You would assume a more telling style--one that's more akin to journalism than literature. So long as you assume other writers' voices really well and maintain the right amount of gravitas, writing this way might be worth toying with (although I don't know if the industry really likes these kinds of works or not).
• Omniscient POV. By nature, omniscient POV eschews character voice and uses the author's voice more heavily. Doing so eliminates the ability to show, and relies a lot more on telling. The trick to this would be to tell in a way that works--maybe with humor, maybe with flair, attitude, etc. As of the time of this writing, omniscient tends to be discouraged by writers and the industry--I would only see a use for this if you want to take the focus away from characters and more on something in the plot or the setting. First and limited third person POV are safer bets, but some stories may warrant this style, and there are plenty of classics that have embraced it.
• Recapping dialogue. If one character has to explain the whole story to another, readers don't want to sit through that if it's the exact same story they've already read. So, you can condense it into a simple sentence, like "he explained how he got there to the man."

Gray areas:

• Adjectives and adverbs. Occasionally, I read about how evil these things are, and how some writers go on crusades to obliterate all of them. There's a good reason to: most of the time they're squeezing in some form of telling that's not necessary. The most blatant examples would be adding something like "cold" next to "tundra." Well duh, a tundra is cold by definition, so you don't need "cold." More importantly, words like these can be removed if it's shown in some other way (so if I've written a whole sentence that shows coldness, I don't need to describe the tundra as "cold." And if such a sentence doesn't exist, it needs to be written to replace the one adjective). HOWEVER: I believe it is possible to use adjectives and adverbs as description, especially if you want to maintain momentum or pacing. What sense does it make to stop everything to say "the car was red," when you could have a sentence like "the red car careened past me." In an instance like that, there is no other way to "show" a car being red, that's description. So why not entwine it with the action with adjectives and adverbs? The key is identifying what's an empty and useless "telling" description, and what's a description you can't have without having to stall things and say "x was y." I could be wrong about this, but I see successful adjectives and adverbs on occasion and I suspect this is one of the reasons.
• Exposition. Otherwise known as the infodump. We see it all the time, in movies and everything. Anytime the text has to stop everything and explain to the reader something, it is inherently a form of telling. What makes it worse is that, most of the time, it's delivered either in author's voice (which should be a no-no unless you're in omniscient voice...I think), character voice (which can work if it's part of the action-reaction thought process, but can be intrusive if the character stops everything to address the reader and spell it all out), or in dialogue (which can work, but runs the risk of introducing "purple prose," or having characters talk in an unrealistic fashion, and it slows everything the heck down). If there are better ways to show information, do it--either with action, the plot itself, better-flowing dialogue, or something. HOWEVER: some things will have to be spelled out to the reader, finding the balance is the challenge. Science fiction demands some explanation for all the speculative technology and ideas that go into a story--Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, Heinlein, and most especially Michael Crichton explain all kinds of cool stuff to their readers. But they each find ways to relay their information in any number of ways, and it's not always a chore to read (Crichton in particular has this weird gift of stalling the action for essay-style writing, but still manages to entertain and make it accessible to laymen). Overall, exposition is a hard thing to nail down one way or another, you just have to use what tools you can, find a balance, and fix it when it doesn't work.
• Narrative tags. This one might be up for controversy, but I've seen it argued time and again that "said" and "ask" are the only tags you can ever have. Anything else just trips up the reader and stalls their progress. Narrative tags must be invisible--"said" is a word readers skim over to read the actual meat of the dialogue (which is where all the "showing" happens anyway). HOWEVER: I'd argue that volume must play into your choice of words. "Said" has zero connotation of power or strength, as opposed to "yell" or "shout," which will make it clear that a verbal smackdown is happening. On the other hand, "said" implies normal speaking, but "whisper" or "mutter" suggests a volume nobody else will hear. How confusing would it be to have a character taking and nobody else reacting--but with the tag "whisper," there's no mistaking that the character's voice is going unheard. What really should be avoided are words like "reply," "explain," "state," "utter," etc. which add and modify nothing to the dialogue's tone, volume, or inflection. And if the tag tells the same thing that's shown in the dialogue, it should be changed.

There are many nuances and I'm not even sure I've captured them all. If nothing else, the following tips should help identify and improve your show-don't-tell skills:

• Be specific. Generalizing leads to all the telling phrases and sentences. Narrowing it down to detailed descriptions is what prompts you to show everything.
• Everything works with action and reaction. Unless he's the Joker or something, you're character is not going to run off and react to things without reason. Always dig into the "why" of everything they do, to pinpoint the source of their emotion and decisions with the inner dialogue so readers can follow and understand them.
• Stop repeating yourself. If you've shown a thing, you don't have to tell a thing. Most self-editing I've done has been removing telling words and phrases that are inherently redundant to what's implicit to the rest of the writing. Look for those repetitive things and cut them out.

Writing: How to Describe a Room

I've noticed lately in the stats that people have been actively searching for "how to describe a room." Even though I had done a writing prompt that called for using the description of a room, I never did go over the particulars of describing locations.  So for anybody looking for some specific answers, here are my thoughts on describing interior settings, for fiction and prose.

First and foremost, you got to ask yourself, what importance is the room or setting to the story or characters? If the room is only there for a brief passing scene, it may just suffice to say "so-and-so went into the broom closet.  It was dark, cramped, and loaded with brooms." That may be all you need.

For more significant settings, where you really do want to paint the picture in the readers' heads and firmly establish a sense of space or ambiance, then of course you'll want to dig into more details.  The key issue here is that you don't want to overdo it.  Unless you're typing out an architectural report or something, there's no real need for a reader to understand the full dimensions of the space, or what the composition of the walls are, or anything technical like that.  You will want to cover the overall impression of space, color, mood, atmosphere, furnishings, props, and anything else, as long as it's distinctive, relevant, and contributes to the story or image in some way.

The objects in a room - furniture and stuff - may or may not factor into your scene.  If you say that people are in the living room, chances are that the reader will automatically populate the room with their own idea of what a living room will have:  likely a sofa, a TV, etc.  So there may not be a need to describe what furniture is in that room, especially if such furnishings are not going to be actively used.  On the other hand, if the characters are going to use something, it may be necessary to establish such things early in the scene, so the reader can understand that the given thing exists and the characters aren't just making it materialize.  For example, if characters are in a room with a gun on the table, and one of the characters grabs the gun and uses it, it'll help to explain right away that there is indeed a gun on the table.  Otherwise, it'll sound like the gun just magically appeared on the table.  It may not be necessary for some things (grabbing a knife from the kitchen would be self-explanatory), but this kind of thing should be set up for everything else that isn't so obvious.

You'll also want to describe things if they're not usually associated with a given place.  For example, in Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, some living rooms had expensive lawns in them, with actual soil and grass growing in the middle of the room.  It was important to describe them, because the characters used the indoor lawns, and even commented on them.  Later in the story, one of these lawns was ruined.  It serviced the story (plus, an average reader will not associate grass in a common living room).  For sci-fi and fantasy stories, where settings are imagined and re-imagined more vividly, more description may be necessary to paint a picture of a futuristic or otherworldly setting in the readers' heads.

Another thing to consider will be what the items of a room, or its decor and layout, says about the characters.  If the room is messy, you can conclude that the character is disorganized, and thus you find another way to show a character trait.  Or, if the room has expensive art, you can infer that a character has refined tastes (or maybe he just pretends to).  The possibilities on this level are limitless; if a detail is relevant to a character, you will want to capitalize on it.

In the end, however, all of this will depend on your own personal writing style.  Different writers will write settings in different ways.  Wordy writers like Stephen King or JRR Tolkein could spend pages and pages talking about the stuff in their rooms; James Patterson never seems to describe any of his settings, especially if they're common places.  Really, the best advice I could give is to simply approach the scene naturally, and write out the first things that come to mind.  If nothing comes to mind, just proceed with the scene in the given setting with sparse details; chances are that you don't need details anyway.  If you're compelled to say more about the setting, then try indulging in such details as your imagination allows, and see what comes out.  It should be a natural occurrence; if you're stuck on describing a place, it might be best to just skip ahead, write the next scene, and go back in the rewriting session to see if you really need to add anything more.

And when it comes to your own writing style, there is no set way to describe a place.  It's not like you go through a room step-by-step to introduce the walls, floors, furnishings, etc to a reader.  If anything, this will come off as dry, long, and uninteresting.  If you have to explain every little thing about a room, it would be better to break up the exposition with action or dialogue; you have to keep the story moving, and lingering on interior design may stall plot progression.  You also don't want to make the language describing the room overly dry or overly flowery; just use your natural narration. 

In summary...

Do:

• Keep it simple.
• Talk about colors, patterns, decor, and unique architectural details, if they're relevant.
• Talk about furnishings and props, especially if characters use them.
• Talk about anything in the room if it reveals something about the characters within. 
• Talk about space.
• Talk about unique details that readers may not usually associate with a given place (especially for sci-fi and fantasy works, where the settings are purposefully different anyway).
• Describe it naturally with your own personal writing style and sensibilities.

Don't:

• Get technical or overly-explicit.
• Divulge in unnecessary details.
• Tell about room's atmosphere or impression; show it instead.
• Overthink or overdo things.
• Dump details in one long paragraph.
• Describe things in a dull, dry, choppy, or uninteresting manner; use your natural narrative voice.
• Describe things that the reader will already assume for a given place, especially if such things don't contribute to the story.

For some examples, here are some excerpts from my own projects, with varying levels of description (not to mention varying levels of skill and nuance).  I think you'll find that I'm very light in details, and just give just enough to keep things flowing.  Chances are that I may break my own rules above (I've always been pretty bad at "showing not telling"), because it's as much of a learning process for me as it is for everybody else.

From Rider of the White Horse, Chapter 25
I wrote this story as far back as high school; I've always felt this was a very amateurish story with a weak writing style, but it's serviceable and got the job done.  The description here is pretty bland, doesn't say much, and quite understated.

           Kurt walked towards the old man, and he followed him through the ruins of Tokyo to a squat abandoned building a quarter of a mile away. There, the old man led Kurt into a relatively clean room with cupboards, a single mattress on the floor, and a low table. The old man lit a candle that was on the table with a makeshift lighter. The candle illuminated the room, revealing the old man’s face to Kurt.
           The old man went to the corner of the room, where a tub of water sat idle. Kurt noticed that the man rigged a purification system over the tub, allowing him access to relatively clean water. The man took some water and some leaves he had stored in a cupboard. Then he prepared two cups of tea, working diligently with trembling old hands. Kurt sat at the low table and watched as the old man prepared the tea, observing the man’s technique as he mixed ingredients and stirred them in wooden cups.

From Perfectly Inhuman, Chapter 3
This is one of my most recent works. I did take the time to describe this area in bigger detail, to give the reader a lavish and futuristic picture. It reflects on the power and wealth of the Mayor and his government.  Hopefully, you'll get the impression of wide-open spaces, luxury, and cleanliness.

           At the topmost floor, the city became a mere map beneath Mary. The doors opened, and the guards pushed her out.
           She found herself in a large lobby. The floors were made of colored tiles arranged in jagged patterns, and the walls were made of glass, revealing additional views of the city and the mountains to the east. A frosted glass partition separated the lobby from a private office. Silk banners hung from the ceiling. Polished stone pedestals held golden and silver statues portraying nude men and women. Everything in the room was rich and lavish; Mary found herself awed, and envious that she never had a place so luxurious.
           The guards guided her through a set of glass doors in the frosted glass partition, and they passed into a wide open office space. The office looked much like the lobby, only instead of statues and banners there were holograms and display screens. Contrasting with the bright floors and the bright exterior view, there was a black desk on one end of the room, made of a rare dark organic wood.

From Ouroboros:  Demon-Blood, Chapter 11
This is one story I've worked with on and off; I've been a little wordier with this series of stories than with most others, to try and immerse the audience in a more detailed fantasy world.  Hopefully, you'll get the feeling of seeing something different and fantastic (and possibly wicked) with this segment.  Note that the term Svartálfar comes from ancient Norse myth, referring to a race of Dark Elves.

           In the middle of the woods, the Svartálfar had constructed a large settlement. It was surrounded by a thick wooden wall, studded with huge wooden thorns and metal spikes. The area around the wall was cleared of all vegetation, so that it could not be scaled with nearby trees. There were trees on the other side of the wall, which had platforms and turrets for guards to stand watch on. The settlement’s gate was a thick wooden door with iron supports; it swung open for us as we approached.
           Inside the settlement, the Svartálfar used most of the trees as buildings; they were all hollowed-out to serve as homes, stairwells, storage, and stores. They also had small wooden shacks and huts in between the trees. Some buildings were also constructed on the sides of trees and on their branches. There were scores of elves bustling around, trading with their craftsmen, mentoring their children, and practicing with their weapons. When I entered the town, they all stopped to gawk at me; I met their gazes with my own look of contempt.
           In the middle of the settlement, there was a larger tree, surrounded by a wooden wall with turrets all along it and a single gateway. I was led through the gate toward the base of the tree, which had an expansive hall jutting out of its bark. Passing into the hall, I stepped across a polished stone floor; the hall’s curved walls were ornately carved with elfin runes and mosaics. Twisted pillars held up the ceiling. At the end of the hall was the throne of the Svartálfar king, Lord Hygric. It was a large throne ordained with pieces of gold, silver, gems, and there were skulls hanging above it.

Writing: How to Make Fourth Dimensional Characters

In the latest session of our local writing group, one of our fine talented writers shared some good insight on how to create characters that are deep and meaningful.  This is all information that I think I've always been cognizant of, but never fully articulated, especially in such a structured fashion.  This information can benefit all writers, new or established, because character development and pathos is probably the most important element to writing compelling stories.  Looking over these aspects, I realize that there are things to my own characters that I tend to overlook; I'm usually good at building the third and fourth dimensions, but I often skip over the first two.

So, to build great characters, four dimensions are required:

First Dimension:  The Photograph (because you look at a photograph, a static image, and get a first impression from looks alone).  Aspects to this include:

• Static traits:  a person's size, weight, hair color, eye color, skin color, deformities, scars, tattoos, clothes, and any other number of observable traits.
• When writing about these static traits, there is a tendency to stop all the action and spend a paragraph or two to dump all the details of a person's description all at once.  This is a mistake I'm guilty of...pretty much all of the time.  It's better to take these descriptions and use them as the action unfolds.  So instead of having a chunk of text that says "so-and-so looks like this and that," consider something like "so-and-so ran his hand over his smooth black hair..."
• Going hand-in-hand with the above, it's also better to use active verbs to describe a person rather than inactive verbs.

Second Dimension:  The Videotape (because when you look at a video, you can see a person in motion; action speak louder than words).  Aspects to this include:

•  Active traits:  how a person moves, how he speaks, how he goes about his daily life, how he walks, how he runs, how he drives, how he interacts with other people, how he eats, how he sleeps, and any number of other subtle clues and mannerisms.
• A person's voice can be important for character building to.  It may be wise to consider describing the pitch, tone, accent, and other aspects of a person's voice.
• These traits can be important, because it's a transition from how a person looks to what he's really like.

Third Dimension:  The Stageplay (because when you see a play, you see the action unfolding around the characters in a dramatic fashion).  These aspects are:

• How a person acts or reacts to circumstances.
• Character traits, such as how sociable he is, how well he gets along with others, what his level of responsibility is, beliefs of all sorts, intelligence level, sensitivity, temperament, and any number of other traits that will affect how he acts in the long run.
• Dialogue is a huge help in this field, especially regarding arguments, which can reveal a lot about characters and how they get along (in addition to building the action and conflict).
• Habitual behavior can build personality.  Let's face it, we all have habits that we can't break free of.
• Overall, these traits develop the public persona of an individual.  All these traits are observable, but they may not match up with the fourth dimensional traits at all.

Fourth Dimension:  The Participatory Theater (because now you can involve the audience in with the action, putting them into the eyes of the character and making them feel for them).  These traits are:

• Pretty much the same as the third dimension, but constitutes the private persona.  These are the traits that are internalized.  They are stripped of all pretense.
• Includes the inner workings of a character, such as thoughts and feelings.  Most important, however, is motivation, which explains why a person is the way he is or acts the way he acts.  Asking why to a character or story should uncover motives to make it work.
• To reveal the inner traits of a character, it may help to ask what there is about the character that nobody else knows.  Upon thinking about this, you must then ask how to go about revealing that hidden trait.
• It may also help to examine a character's fantasies and dreams.  Ambition, or what the character wants most, is a large part of what makes them whole.

For an example of a fourth dimensional character, consider this example:  Hamlet, from the Shakespeare play:

• First dimension:  well, it depends on who plays him, but if you go with, say, Kenneth Branaugh, he'd be a thin and somewhat handsome blonde dude with a mustache.
• Second dimension:  once again, this depends on the actor.  Kenneth Branaugh played this guy with a pretty strong sense of confidence and purpose.
• Third dimension:  per the play, Hamlet starts off pretty somber, but goes on to act all-out crazy, spewing nonsense lines and going on to kill Polonius.  Everybody pretty much concluded that Hamlet was mentally disturbed from his father's death.
• Fourth dimension:  per the play, and a lot of study, Hamlet is never crazy, he only acts that way to bide his time and plan his ultimate move against Claudious.  He pretty much spends the play flip-flopping, trying to figure out if he should commit the murder, or worse yet, kill himself.  Once he discovers the truth, he goes through with it.  For the first half of the play, all he wants is confirmation that Claudious is really the usurper, and perhaps a good helping of self-confidence, while in the second half all he wants is vengeance.

Writing: Finding the Time

One thing I often hear from other people is that they never find the time for proper writing.  And it's a perfectly understandable problem:  it takes hours and hours and hours to write out a full-length novel.  Even a good short story will take time to draft, proofread, rewrite, and submit.  When you have a day job, or a family to provide for, or a really busy social life, or you're on the road a lot, it will be near impossible to find the time to sit down at a desk in a totally distraction-free environment.

With life itself sucking up all the hours of a day, how does one find time to write anything?

There are ways.  If anything, doing the National Novel Writing Month challenge has taught me that it's not too hard to squeeze in 1,667 words a day for a straight month.  Here are my views and tips for finding the time to write:

First and foremost, you need the discipline.  Not everybody has the fortitude to sit down for hours on end; writing can be a rather tedious and lonesome hobby.  You'd have to be really motivated by your story ideas and imagination; it will need to possess you to try and express your ideas in words.  So before you really devote yourself to a project, you'll need to ask the hard question:  do you have what it takes to write? Are you the right person for a given story?

If you're past that point, then you may want to consider setting up a proper timeframe to tackle your writing.  Maybe you can block off a couple of hours every evening.  Maybe in the morning.  Noontime.  Before, after, and heck maybe even during work.  If you set aside the time, you can let your friends and family know that it is your time and you don't want to be disturbed under any circumstances; so long as they're trustworthy, you should have the peace and quiet you want.

If you're just so busy that there's absolutely no time you can block off for yourself, then you'll just have to wing it.  I personally carry around a notebook everywhere I go (to work, on trips, in town etc), so I can draft things by hand if I have any down time.  Transferring hand-written text to the computer takes hardly any time or brainpower, so if anything, it helps in the long run.  I also endeavor to keep a smaller notebook in my pocket at all times, to jot down any additional ideas that may come to me throughout the day.

All that being said, it can still be difficult to produce anything, even if you do carry around a notebook or block off time for yourself.  Inspiration and motivation can hit you at any time, and it won't always synchronize with your schedule.  Another writer I met referred to these feelings as "hauntings," because the urge to write can haunt you.  Ideally, you should probably run to the nearest computer and write your story right when the "hauntings" happen, but if this is the middle of the night or in the middle of work or something, you'll just have to wait.  Or, you may have to improvise and write in a notebook or something.  Either way, flexibility in your routine may help you.  It may also behoove you to seek some other form of inspiration to cut through any blocks you may have.  In the end, however, you'll never be able to create a system that aligns perfectly with your "hauntings," so it's best to build the discipline in some form or another.

Once you get started, it may help to establish a deadline.  Try and shoot for so many words in a day.  Try and finish something by the end of the month.  Having a deadline may motivate you to get the story pumped out.  If you write 1,667 words a day, you'll have 50,000 by the end of the month; that's only six pages a day.  You might seriously surprise yourself with how many words you can fit into a few hours' work.

Even if you peck at it little by little, you will accomplish something and be well on your way to producing a tangible manuscript.