Description is hard. At least, writing it well is hard. While I have come a long way from the boring, plot-stopping descriptive bombs I used to write, I am still improving my craft in that area.
I am taking a YA writing workshop with Jonathan Maberry and Marie Lamba, and we discussed description very early on. I found out several things about using description in YA:
1. Less is more. Trust your readers. Give the reader enough to interpret the space and place your character inhabits, but do not inundate with details. As author Patty Jansen reminds us in an excellent blog post, certain genres like historical or science fiction, where world-building is needed will of necessity have more scene-setting descriptions than those set in the present day, but be sparing in choosing your details—tell us what we need to know, and no more.
2. Description should be woven into the character’s experience, rather than an objective observation. Since most YA is written from a specific (often first-person) point of view, the Main Character (MC) will only notice details important to her at that time.
3. Any detail you mention should be important to the story. For instance, if you mention that your MC dropped a pot into the porcelain sink as a child and broke the sink, then that event must have some meaning to the core of the story. If you say that the MC loves the fact that the microwave is hidden in the breadbox, then that detail must be important later in the story. This is similar to the adage “If you hang a gun on the wall in the first act, you must fire it by the end of the play.”
4. Every detail has to multitask. Just as your MC will not notice details that do not directly concern him at that moment, he will also notice (and describe) them in a way that reflects his emotional state and life view at that moment. The way his perception of a place, object, or person changes will help build character and show emotion without “telling.” One of the best examples I found of this was in Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. Her descriptions of the passing seasons mirrored Melinda’s growth and healing.
5. Description can add foreshadowing and complication to a story. For example, if the reader first sees a kitchen through the MC’s eyes as warm and homey, but later sees that same kitchen as cold and menacing later in the story. The first instance builds the expectation in the reader that something bad will happen to destroy that happy, homey feeling (this is YA fiction, after all—something always happens to disrupt the happy status quo!).
6. Use description to build an image system throughout the story. Again returning to Speak, Halse Anderson’s use of Melinda’s art project (a tree) also showed her growth and return to life as Melinda wrestled with repeated mistakes but improved every time she tried to carve it.
7. Don’t info-dump. Beware of show-stopping blocks of description and layer in the information as the reader needs to know it. Have the reader ask the question and then answer it. This type of back-and-forth between the reader and the words on the page is what keeps the reader engaged and immersed in the world you have built.
I hope you found these tips as helpful as I did. I hope to apply them to my current manuscripts in the next round of edits!
Are there any other description tips you would like to share?
Foreshadowing Reality
I bet Suzanne Collins didn’t know she was an oracle. That when she wrote her Hunger Games trilogy, she foretold a revolution that no political expert in the world saw coming.
While watching the Arab revolution unfold, I was suddenly struck by how similar the circumstances of the two revolutions were. I found five eerie parallels.
Revolution was “impossible”
In the Hunger Games trilogy, the Capitol of Panem ruled all, controlling everything about the 12 outlying Districts, including supplies of food and medicine. While the Capitol glutted itself, people starved in the Districts. The Capitol considered the people of the Districts too weak and too cowed to ever rebel.
An Arab democratic revolution seemed equally impossible. The regimes were too powerful. The societies were too oppressed. There was no freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to assemble. The people had been starved and terrified into unwavering compliance. The youth had known no other way of life and would therefore not even think of demanding a change.
Unbearable conditions
In Panem, the chasm between the rich in the Capitol and the poor in the Districts was vivid. Every day, every year, the poor were forced to watch the rich grow richer. The rich grew ever more lavish and wasteful, while the poor sunk deeper into the depths. The most glaring reminder of their servitude to the Capitol was the Hunger Games, where a boy and girl from each District was sent to the Capitol to fight to the death—a sacrifice as punishment for a past rebellion.
In the Arab autocracies, the money stayed in the hands of the dictator and his family and cronies. They grew incredibly wealthy while many of their citizens struggled to put food on their table. Instead of focusing on bringing down rampant unemployment and bringing up the standard of living for the entire country, the ruling class focused on lining their pockets at the expense of their people. While no literal Hunger Games existed, many people sacrificed their dreams and their children’s dreams in order to survive, and many disappeared at the hands of brutal secret police.
The power of media
One key to the Capitol’s continued hold over its people was that they controlled all communications. The Districts saw only what the Capitol wanted them to see, and the citizens in the Capitol never ever saw what really went on in the Districts. Katniss Everdeen’s participation in, and subsequent winning of, the Hunger Games gave her a mass platform from which the message of revolution could spread. When the rebels managed to hijack the communications network, they were able to show the truth to the Capitol citizens, rather than the lies the government told.
Most of the Arab autocracies had tightly controlled state-run television and radio, and also limited cell phone and Internet access when it suited them. Technology eventually broke through the blackout, though, as the youth used social media to find each other, form protest groups, and get the word out to the world about what was truly happening in the protests.
Going viral
In the Hunger Games trilogy, Katniss’ mockingjay symbol became the symbol of the revolution. All the Districts, not just her own, adopted it, using it as a secret sign of loyalty to each other and of defiance to the government. Katiniss did not initially wear it as a symbol of anything except her home, but the mockingjay spread virally to become the symbol to bind the rebels together.
Through the phenomenon of “going viral” allowed by the Internet, the protests that followed Tunisia’s revolution used many of the same symbols, particularly the same chants and musical anthems. The information on how to stage successful protests and avoid the police also went viral, and was adapted for use in many of the other Arab countries.
Unwitting catalysts
Katniss Everdeen never wanted to be a revolutionary. She just wanted to survive the Hunger Games and go home. In the end, though, her desperate act of survival sparked a revolution that led to the fall of the Capitol.
Mohamed Bouazizi never intended to start a revolution, either. The Tunisian street vendor simply could not cope with his life and its many frustrations and humiliations anymore. In a desperate act that was his only means of being heard, he set himself on fire—and his death ignited his countrymen.
Perhaps many revolutions follow these patterns—I am no expert. All I know is that Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy was a brilliant, searing look at what violence does to children and humanity. It also turned out to be a pretty prescient blueprint of a revolution yet to come.