In Defense of Description

by Rachel Coker

Rachel Coker is a homeschool student who lives in Virginia with her parents and two sisters. She has a passion for great books and has been surrounded by them all her life. When she is not writing or playing the piano, Rachel enjoys spending time with her family and friends. Interrupted is her first novel.


You've all heard the old adage. "Show, don't tell." And as a reader, I totally get where this is coming from. Nothing annoys me more than reading a great book and getting to an extremely boring (and usually obnoxiously lengthy) section of pure narrative. The sarcastic voice in my head immediately questions why on earth the author thought it was important for me to know that the main character had "huge, doe-shaped eyes" or "long, tangled flaming auburn curls". The words "large eyes" and "red hair" would be more than enough to satisfy me in most instances.

Same goes with authors who have to specify that their characters "shouted angrily", as if I might for some reason imagine they were shouting delicately. It just blows my mind sometimes.

HOWEVER, there has been a recent trend in writing that is really, really disturbing me. And that is the idea that descriptions don't matter.

That the soul of the book should rely purely on dialog and abrupt, short pacing. I picked up a book the other day and found one page to be almost nothing but back and forth dialog, with few speech tags, and virtually no descriptions of what was going on between the characters. I may be one of the few authors still saying this these days, but descriptions can be very important. But they must be used properly.

If you're anything like me, you may be a very visual person. A lot of people find that hard to believe, since I'm obviously a writer and can express what I'm feeling pretty well through my words. But, believe it or not, I don't love a lot of dialog in a book. I'm one of the few writers that thinks that more can be expressed in a short description of a glance, or a tiny gesture, than a conversation.

I tend to pick up motions and movements more in real life than I do words. I read a lot into the way someone looks about something, and I tend to lean toward making judgments based on first impressions. More authors need to learn how to use descriptions, and how to use them properly. While I don't want you to go add an extra ten thousand words of pointless descriptive narrative to your books, I would encourage you to think outside the box a bit and add a few enhancing descriptions when necessary. Here are a few ideas:

• Describe your character's bedroom

This is a short, interesting description that a lot of writers tend to leave out. But think about it. What can a person's bedroom really say about who they are. Adding something like, "My mom refused to come inside and see the mounds of old VBS shirts and dog-eared paperback novels lying on the ground," might show that your character is sentimental but messy. While something like, "I neatly folded my cardigan and placed it on my closet shelf. All my sweaters sat neatly in a large stack, arranged in order of color. Little things like that just kept me happy," would show that your character is a bit obsessive, but cheerful. See what an influence a small description like a bedroom can have to a story?

• Describe body language during a discussion

Have you ever noticed how sometimes, even when you and your friend are having a casual discussion about something totally meaningless, you can just sense that something's wrong. Like how he may be saying, "Yeah, I'm sure my parents will be okay with that. It won't be a problem," but he's scratching the back of his neck and glancing at the clock on the wall above your head every two seconds? Or how your best friend can say, "Yeah, I love that sweater. It's totally your color," while pressing her lips together and biting the inside of her cheek. Little things like that can be much bigger indicators to what someone is feeling than the words that actually come out of their mouths.

• Describe smells, both good and bad

Some books only ever mention scents if they're as obvious as a baking pie or rotting corpse. I beg you to help me break the mold on that. Our noses never turn off, so you shouldn't just ignore that sense in your characters. Think about the smells that we often take for granted that could be noted in your book. The earthy scent of fresh-cut grass, the musty leaves after a soaking rain, the gassy fumes of an old pick-up truck driving by... Just noting one of these things every now and then will help ground the reader into the scene and make him feel like he's really there, experiencing it with every one of his senses.

• Describe someone's voice

And don't use the words "tough", "whiney," or "soft". Those are overused. (I'm mostly saying that to keep everyone else from using them, so I can keep them all to myself.) Try thinking outside of the box. Maybe someone's voice could be described as "gravely," or "lilting", or "breathy". I love getting a sense for how a character sounds, because it really helps me as the reader hear it in my head. Make sense?

So there you have it folks. Don't go complaining that you can't think of any ways to add descriptions to your books, because I've just given you four idea starters!

Now it's your turn. How are you going to add descriptions sparsely but creatively, and help enhance your stories and characters? Good luck!

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