In the Moment Description by Christine Duncan

A while back a writing friend told me that she kept notebooks of description ready to plop into the story of the moment. Whenever a detail struck her, for instance, the way, say feeling the heat of the sidewalk through her shoes as she walked somewhere on a hot July day, she would write it down. Then when a story needed some description about July, she would look up her notebooks and use it.

I thought at the time, that it was kind of silly. Afterall, we all know how hot July is. I can write about July in midwinter, no problem. But it’s Halloween today, and I have been struck by a couple of things that I tend to forget when it’s not Halloween. Little kids pushing all the buttons on the scary figures in Target, then running back to stand by their mothers as they watch the witch or Vampire cackle, and the way little girls seem to dance with heads held high, when they feel pretty in their princess costumes. And the teenage boys, acting all macho, and not dressing up anymore, but still wanting to go out on Halloween–but maybe not to any houses where someone might know them. Oh yeah, and the way the attic is so dark, lit only by a single bulb in the middle and the costumes always seem to be in the back away from the bulb and the dusty smell and cold feel of a mask that has been left up there for a year or two.

Anyway, you get the picture. I think organizing description like this, even on a computer could be difficult but I’m going to try it. Just to see if it adds something or gets something started with my writing.

Description by Christine Duncan

Having not yet found a writing book to help get me jump started (still open to ideas on books, folks) I have lately started to work on my description. First off, let me say, since I’m not very visual, that I usually have to go back and add description. But how a character feels about his/her surroundings can be a method of revealing character and I don’t want to miss any opportunities to do that. Yet description can feel so–clunky and obvious. I find myself annoyed with books that tell me So and So didn’t notice the way something looked. If the character didn’t notice it, and I’m in the character’s head, then I can’t see it either. Or am I just being picky here?
All of which is just my way of saying that lately, I have been trying to get into my character’s head by describing the things around her without using the obvious. If she is going up a stair in the battered women’s shelter where she works, I might describe the way she avoids the place where the carpet is unraveling so it won’t catch the heels of her boots, and have her make a mental note to take a sponge to the hand prints around the rail.
The truth of the matter is, that most of us are so focused on the chores we have to get through, or the places we are already late to, that we don’t spend a lot of time thinking about our surroundings. So it makes sense to filter description, not only through the character but through their actions. Anyway, that’s what I’m trying right now.
What trick are you using to jump start your writing?

What Keeps You Reading–Or Makes You Put a Book Down by Christine Duncan

Michelle’s post about reading the other week got me thinking. I tend to put books down for all sorts of reasons–sometimes there is nothing wrong with the darn thing at all–I’m just in the mood for something else.
Have you ever felt that way? This week with all of the news about the Iranian election and the test nukes from North Korea, I can’t read what I think of as simple or sweet books. There has to be a complexity of character or plot to capture me right now. Otherwise, I’m drifting into other thoughts.
But other times, when life is overwhelming, it is the simple, the sweet, and the cozy that draws me.
I guess even though I always say that I’ll read anything, I’m a picky reader.
As a rule, I don’t read hobby mysteries, even when I like the hobby. I don’t usually read horror because the images stay in my mind. I’m not the type to read bestsellers just because they’re bestsellers either–a book has to be about something I’m interested in. But I will sometimes read best sellers to see why others are enthralled. I tore apart a couple of Dan Brown’s books just to see what the deal was. I concluded that his style read so quickly because he tended to keep it short. Short chapters, short paragraphs. There was always something going on–always more excitement but it was terseness that kept the tension. Or so I decided.
Lately I’ve put books down for too much terseness. There seems to be a trend where authors skip on description so that I can’t really see what is going on. It made me drop one book. She described a car as a “big ass pimp mobile.” And I couldn’t see the darn car at all–thus making some of the action obscure.
Conversely, another author who went on and on about every leaf in a field (or so it seemed) lost my interest. There can be too much.
As a writer, though this might seem discouraging, I think the opposite is true. Someone not being interested in your book is not a personal rejection. It’s not really a rejection at all. Sometimes, we crave ice cream, sometimes we want roast beef. What do you think?