The woman danced beneath the purple canopy, her hips swaying seductively as silken scarves billowed from her waist like loose sails. Envious of the attention, a smiling girl rattled a tambourine and stomped the ground, causing sand to swirl around her feet like a funnel cloud. This sparked zealous applause and a few coughing fits as the warm, desert wind carried dust into the audience.

Why do we need to be descriptive in our writing?

The primary purpose of descriptive writing is to describe a person, place, thing, or idea in such a way that a picture is formed in the reader's mind. Good descriptive writing will do the following:

👉 Engage the reader's senses

👉 Make use of figurative language, such as irony and similes

👉 Employ precise language and strong action verbs

Static vs Dynamic Descriptions

Static Description = Any description dealing with immobile and unchanging objects, persons, or senses.

Every setting needs a stage and props. These static objects ground readers and give them context within the story. Without them, the world feels like an open void where the characters float around talking to each other.

For example: furniture in a mansion, cars in a parking lot, children on a playground, lights at an amusement park, the smell inside a horse barn

Dynamic Description = Description dealing with mobile and changing objects, persons, and senses.

It's important for authors to add character and movement to the things they're describing, breathing life into them. This makes them dynamic. Anything can be a dynamic description as long as it changes from one state to another during the scene. This is where even static descriptions can be repurposed to enhance writing.

For example: furniture is strewn around the mansion from a burglary, a car squeals recklessly through the parking lot, a child on the playground falls and cries out, the smell inside a horse barn is swept away by a gale from a passing storm

Which type of descriptive writer are you?

Describing characters and their world is critical to telling stories, but some writers avoid detailed descriptions because, let's face it, descriptions are time consuming to write. On the other hand, there are those writers who are in love with their descriptions. They go on and on until readers are literally groaning at the dense blocks of text. This article is written for both types of writers.

Info Dumps and How To Recognize Them

An info dump is a big chunk of description or information that is dumped in the reader's lap all at once. Info dumps are usually done through exposition, but they can be found in dialogue as well. As writers, we want to avoid info dumps, as they slow pacing and can bore the reader. Sure, we have a lot of information to share with our readers, but we don't have to bury them under it. Let's explore...

Dead Dumps: These are easy to identify because nothing within the text is happening right now. Often they are reflecting on the past (backstory), describing a scene, or conveying details about characters. They are not active. They are dead.

Boring Dumps: Info dumps can be boring because they tend to stop forward progress. Readers want to be immersed in the moment of the story. They want to feel like they are standing beside your main character as exciting things happen around them.

Obvious Dumps: Thick, wordy paragraphs look and feel like writing. Sure, the reader knows it's a story, but they don't want to feel like it's a story. Info dumps call attention to themselves because they come across as an unnatural tangent by the author. It's like the director of a film stopping the movie to say, "Hey, wait a second, let me explain something..."

Early Dumps: The story setup is notorious for lengthy info dumps. The closer to the beginning you dump heavy description, the more likely you are to annoy or lose the reader. Why? Because they are not yet invested in your story or your characters. They may assume the entire story is filled with info dumps, and they may not be willing to wade through the information you want to tell them.

What are the exceptions?

There are narrative styles that can get away with some info dumping:

Humor: If the info dump is funny and is in the context of a humorous novel, readers usually won't notice or mind.

Omniscient POV: An omniscient narrator with a great voice and interesting perspective can make info dumps a seamless part of the narration.

A Quirky Character: Peculiar characters are often part of the supporting cast and can be used to share information through an amusing voice or interesting personality trait, like a preschooler who babbles or an eccentric neighbor who tends to ramble.

Middle Grade Novels: Opening with an entertaining info dump is common in early middle grade stories because it helps orient young readers who aren't yet skilled at detecting implied character traits and backstory.

Unique Delivery Methods: This involves the use of props, such as a letter from a forgotten relative, a newspaper article, a radio announcement, a TV broadcast, a conversation with a psychic, etc.

📌REMINDER: These creative techniques can be risky. The goal is to hide the fact that you're info dumping, which means that you must execute it in a way that is clever and couched within the context of an engaging scene.

Dynamic Descriptors and How To Use Them

Dynamic descriptors bring a story to life and keep you safe from dumping too much on your reader. They set the scene, move the plot, create the mood, foreshadow events, and give us a sense of character. Read on to learn some creative ways to incorporate dynamic descriptors into your story.

Mingle: Incorporate descriptions and pertinent details into a scene or dialogue as much as possible, even if you have to create a scene in order to deliver the info. Of course, you still need to make sure the scene is forwarding the plot and is relevant to the genre you're writing in.

Short and Scattered: Keep descriptions brief and to the point. Two sentences of backstory or descriptive narration is about the max you should include before moving on, or risk your readers' eyes glazing over. And sprinkle information throughout the scene, the chapter...the entire novel, for that matter. Tell the reader the minimum of what they need to know at any given moment. This will keep the pace moving along.

Action: Speaking of pace, delivering information through action can work quite well, as long as you make it relevant and don't slow momentum with a lengthy description. The hero in a high-voltage thriller won't stop to admire the snow-capped mountains while chasing his nemesis on a black diamond run. But he might remember his enemy's knee injury that causes them to favor the right side, thus leading him down the right ski trail. (right and right...get it?)

Subtlety: Rather than vomit backstory and description through a protagonist's inner monologue or an ordinary conversation with a friend, convey these details subtly through story elements and character traits. Attach them to the protagonist's phobia or fetish, a seasonal event they dread, a cherished memory, a clash with a neighbor's dog, the delivery of a package that triggers a meltdown, etc.

Consider Your Characters and Setting: When conveying details through your character's eyes, keep in mind what they already know. A huge number of stories begin with the protagonist describing themselves in front of a mirror. There are more creative ways of delivering this information. Perhaps, the protagonist's new mailman notices her eye color is the same as his own daughter's. Likewise, in a medieval setting, your character is not likely to be preoccupied with the old tapestries on the castle walls. They've probably seen a hundred of them. Instead, they might notice that the tapestries have not been dusted in some time. Not only are you setting the scene here, you are developing character.

Avoid Adjectivitis: Refrain from using too many adjectives when writing your descriptions. They can slow the pace and make paragraphs denser than they need to be. Usually, one will do the job. Two if you're combining size or color with another descriptor, such as the dog's small, wet nose. The same goes for adverbs and weak qualifiers, such as somewhat and nearly. Don't rely too heavily on these words to do the work for you. Use strong, active words that fit the context.

Don't Be a Thesaurus Junkie: When it comes to precise and varied word choice, a thesaurus can be extremely useful. But signs of egregious thesaurus use are obvious and damning. Transforming blue eyes into ultramarine orbs or stark walls into pale concrete obstacles often distract a reader more than engage them.

Watch for Obvious or Overlong Descriptions: One of the most common traps that new writers fall into is using predictable words to describe something. Writing a sentence like, The blue sky was dotted with fluffy, white clouds can be enhanced to read Thick clouds clogged the sky like smoke from a hundred chimneys. Or, if you're cutting down word count, just say The sky was dotted with clouds, which conjures a similar image.

Read Good Examples of Descriptive Writing: If you start to feel stuck when writing vivid descriptions, turn to your favorite book or short story and see how other writers do it.

📌 TIPS 📌

TIP #1: Don't forget to trust the intelligence of your audience. You don't have to spell everything out for them through endless description and narrative. You can lead readers to conclusions about a character's traits through their actions and interactions, as well as through dialogue.

TIP #2: If you're someone who despises writing descriptions, don't let them get in your way when you're writing the first draft. You can always go back and add them later.

👉🏽 For more information about descriptive writing, see our chapter titled What are Literary Devices? in our Literary Devices guide.