Top Model

Have you ever read one of those books where the writer can't quite figure out how to describe the main, first person, character?

Take the sentence: I slid my long slender legs out from under the covers.

Another example: I twined my long, auburn hair into a practical bun.

And another: I bared my straight white teeth in the mirror to make sure there was no food stuck between them.

When you do things like this, it comes off sounding sappy at best. Sickly-sweet is what comes to my mind nearly every time.

Try to remember, you never give a lot of thought about your own appearance unless you are trying to make sure things are perfect in preparation for meeting someone important. A model probably will think about everything listed above, though the hair style would be something different.

That makes it kind of difficult for a writer to tell you what their character looks like. There are ways though.

It's easier for a girl, because a girl is more likely to be more critical of her appearance. You just have to decide if such personal criticizing is fitting with your character's personality. I can tell you from personal experience that a rancher's daughter probably isn't likely to care what she looks like much, not unless her mother is successful in girlifying her. My mother was far more successful with my older sister than she was with me.

There are men like this too, those who are incredibly self-conscious about about their appearance and those who are just lucky. My husband falls into the latter. I still don't look at clothes as anything more than a covering for modesty or warmth.

At any rate, how do you describe yourself without sounding shallow and selfish? There are all manner of subtle hints you can use, but basically it boils down to trusting your reader to develop a picture of your character that will do just fine.

Either gender might pick colors to accent eye color or at least not clash. A girl might do the same with makeup, maybe even selecting contacts to change her eye color to match her clothes. Hair color is another thing, but if your character is ever doing anything nefarious at night, they'd need to do something about light colored hair so it wouldn't show up. Having another character make a casual comment about hair color is another way.

The mirror thing works just fine, but you really have to be careful how you use it. Once again, you have to decide if your character is going to think about what he or she looks like or if they're just using the mirror for functional purposes.

Believe me, when it comes to self appearance, third person is best. I like third person close, it's very like first person, but it's outside of the body, rather like a gnome riding on your character's shoulder. Give it a try. You might like it. However, I do understand that some stories just hit better in first person.

Happy writing.

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Describing Your Surroundings

When you step out your door, what exactly do you look at? I mean really look at - direct your eyes at long enough to see color, shape or position? I'm willing to bet very few of you do more than step out your door, scrutinizing your keys in order to get the right one for the car door, or maybe you're looking for the little button on your keychain that turns off the car alarm. Would you notice a different car parked across the street? How out of place would that different car have to be in order for you to notice it? How about if it was a bright red Ferrari, when every other car on the street was some Subaru or Volkswagen, or some other average car of debatable heritage. Or in contrast, how about if the street was some very rich neighborhood and the strange vehicle on the street was a scruffy pickup? It's possible you would notice these misfits eventually, but if you are anything like me, I'm not a car person. I might notice a pickup amongst cars, or a fancy car among mediocre cars, but wondering whether it belonged or not, would never occur to me, and I wouldn't be able to tell you the color later, unless it was maybe red. For some reason, I notice red.

What I'm getting at is in writing, your characters would be no different. Going into detail has to be handled with care; you don't want to bore your reader with the scenery especially if your character doesn't notice. Point out details such as the gravel driveway by having your character drop their keys and then break a nail on the gravel when they pick them up. A thought about the gardener getting the pleasure of hauling all the gravel away and paving the driveway will give your reader all they need to know about what class your character belongs in. As far as the strange car across the street, let's put it in the way somehow. Maybe not in the way of a good and conscientious driver, but maybe your character is in a hurry and nearly rearranges the car's fender by taking the corner too fast and skidding on gravel tracked out onto the street.

I'm not a car person, nor do I write much about high society. As I've heard in many places, 'write what you know' and I was born and raised in the country on a cattle ranch and now live way out in the wilderness. If you live in the country, you learn to look to the horizon at least some. With animals to tend, it's important to be aware of things much further away than the keys in your hand. I remember listening for coyotes. If the coyotes were singing a lot we were frequently driving through the pastures, though at the time I couldn't have put the two together. Now, especially in the summer, there's the very real threat that a bear might be on the trail as I walk to and from work every day. I don't see one very often, but believe me, I look. This time of year, with feet of snow on the trails, bears are long since sleeping, but that doesn't mean danger is totally gone. If the snow gets deep, moose might decide to argue trail rights. I've only had that argument once. Something I will never forget. Mostly what I look for in the winter when I'm out walking is tracks. Ooh have I got a story on that, but I digress.

Wherever your character is in your world, he or she needs to fit. They will notice whatever they notice and for whatever reason they notice it, but they do need a reason. No one steps out their door and looks around thinking to themselves 'hmmm the grass is green and the apples aren't ripe yet and if it rains tomorrow the wheat fields won't be harvested.'

Did you see what I did there? Too much irrelevant information. Is there an apple tree in the yard? If so your character might think on waiting a few days before baking that fresh apple pie. If the grass is green they might grumble to themselves about having to mow the lawn again and they only did it a few days ago. That little piece of information might hint at rainy days, or the thought might cause your character to look up and see if they can get the task done before it starts to rain again, but unless they are a wheat farmer, concern of fields somewhere out of town would never occur to them.

If it's winter, how much snow is there? Does it need to be shoveled? Is it icy? These are all scenery problems that clue your reader into the surroundings without inundating them with a panoramic description.

Another restriction is to keep your description confined to what can be seen, heard, touched or smelled, and remember that some people might have sharper senses than others. The other day, while splitting wood, my husband looked around puzzled, he smelled something he couldn't quite identify. He said it smelled musky. When I later went to burn the trash I discovered ermine tracks just off the edge of our packed yard. On another chore I found martin tracks. Though I did not see a connection between these two trails, it is entirely possible the martin caught, or tried to catch, the ermine and both have quite a musk gland. Or, as my husband suspects, maybe the ermine tried to scent one of our dog's pee marks. Who knows. What I'm getting at is, I didn't smell a thing except the exhaust from the generator.

Do you have troubles describing some types of scenery? Sometimes two heads are better than one. Never be afraid to ask for help.

Descriptions - What do You See?

Stop and think for a moment - How do you see the world around you, and how do you go about noticing it? Then comes the fun part - how do you translate that into words?

There are several levels of seeing, and remember, you can only see what is in front of your eyeballs, though peripheral vision counts too.

First would be the casual notice. If you're walking down the street, consider all that you notice and why you notice them. You see cars and fellow sidewalk walkers, and you see them primarily because they are moving. On some level you make sure their motion will not intersect with your motion. You notice those objects and people who are not in motion only in so much so you don't run into them. Now tell me, could you describe them? Guys might notice a cool car and therefor be able to describe it, and girls might notice a nice shirt, dress or perhaps hairstyle. This extra interest would be the next level of seeing. So there's this red-hot red Ferrari stuck in traffic, or this woman wearing the shortest skirt you'd ever seen just walked by, or whatever oddity comes to mind, I'm sure you can recall some. Now tell me, what do you hardly notice at all? Do you notice the sidewalk or the street? How about the buildings you're walking by? Could you tell me what shop or building was three away from the one you were headed to? How about parking meters or light poles? What other things clutter the street to your favorite coffee shop. Next time you go, pause a moment and make a list of all the things you see along the way. I'd be surprised if your list was short, and don't cheat by driving there and parking out front - it's not the same. haha

The next level of seeing would be in looking for some place, you might notice differences along the way. Lets say you drove to your home town or neighborhood for the first time in say ten years. After a lifetime of familiar this or that, differences would be glaring. New storefronts, new houses where old ones used to be, empty buildings where something favored used to be. There are different levels here to. You are looking for the familiar and finding them or not, but don't forget all the other things.

The next level, and perhaps the hardest to deal with, is the scrutiny. When you or your character stops for a moment to consider their surroundings carefully. You need to remember that you can only see what is in front of your eyes, and only what is in view. It's tempting to map out the immediate area, and that's fine for use somewhere along the line, but if your character hasn't seen first hand, or heard of some portion on that map, he can't know of it. There might be twenty men hung from the branches of the trees in a picturesque orchard, but if they aren't visible from the house, unless your character takes a stroll down into that orchard or catches a whiff of death and decay on the wind, he's not going to know anything is amiss in it's depths.

Now that I've got you thinking about what and how you see, now comes the fun part - putting it into words. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and that's probably true. Take that stroll to the coffee shop, by the time you devoted say one to five words to each thing you noticed along your walk, you might have near a thousand by the time you reached your destination. And the trip to your home town, since the view and the details are different, still you'd likely have roughly a thousand words chocked up from the time you entered the city limits to the time you reached your old house. Even the scrutiny is the same; how many words would it take to describe the view from your front door?

Descriptions are difficult to handle, especially if you want to avoid the information dump. However, thought can go a long way toward accomplishing that. Small-talk with a friend can too. Be careful with this; endless smalltalk can have your audience walking away bored. Trickle you descriptions in one step at a time. Talk about that one thing only if and when it catches our attention, only if it moves, or if we need to avoid it. Stop to scrutinize your environment only when it applies directly to your plot or to distract you from it for a much needed moment of escape.

Learn to consider your story as a tapestry. There's the warp, the design and color, which would be the main point of your story. Then there is the weft of the tapestry - all the threads that hold the warp together, that would be the environment, the background, all the little details that gives your story its life and reality.