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When I was a young(er) and stupid(er) author, I thought I needed to write long, elaborate descriptions of my settings. I read books where writers spent three pages on describing a wall, and I thought that’s how you write vivid descriptions.

Only much later, as I became more experienced, did I realize the truth: To write vivid descriptions that actually offer added value to your novel, you shouldn’t focus on wordy details. Indeed, more often than not, I’d advise against it.

But that’s not the end of the story, either. And so, with today’s post, I want to share some of my experience and offer you a tip or two about how to describe the setting of your novel in a way that does your story justice.

How You Don’t Write Vivid Descriptions

We’ll do this a bit in reverse: First I’ll tell you how you don’t (necessarily) get functional descriptions; what not to do, in other words. And then, we’ll get to the crux of the matter.

Well… The subheading is a tiny bit misleading. What I’m about to say isn’t exactly what you should avoid, but rather what isn’t enough, at least not as a blanket solution. I’ll have more to say about exceptions later on, but for now let’s take a look at the two elements that, by themselves, don’t make for evocative, successful descriptions: length and vocabulary.

It’s not about Length

As I mentioned above, I used to think that a good writer is someone who has the patience to describe an object, a setting, a character, or a situation in their finest details.

Indeed, back then I went as far as, after I’d finished writing a novel, going back to it to “lace” it with more elaborate descriptions!

With experience, I learned that long descriptions, even when skillfully written, are not always optimal. As a reader, I would more easily forgive an underdescribed scene than an overdescribed one.

The reason?

Simple: As a reader, it’s also your responsibility to supply the imaginative details. It’s your job, too, to provide the context. Unless you are an unsophisticated reader who expects everything ready, why would you not shape the story the way you want it to be?

Meaning is a two-way street, and the more overdescribed a novel, the less the room for the reader to participate in this process. Nowadays, with the help of AI it’s trivial to have a visual reference for any scene. That doesn’t mean you should start describing everything that you see.

And It’s not about Vocabulary

Another lesson I learned the hard way was about vocabulary. Particularly, it took me years to realize fancy words don’t make good descriptions. As the saying goes, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.

In other words, if the basics of your descriptive strategy are all over the place, using “commendatory” instead of “approved”, or “puerile” instead of “silly” will get you nowhere.

At this point you might be rightly wondering: So, what are the basics?

How You Write Vivid Descriptions: The Building Blocks of Context

Deep down, a description of a setting, a situation, or a character functions as a contextual operator. In simpler terms, this means that we add descriptions to our novels to help the reader create a spatio-temporal context; place themselves in the world of the story.

Notice the word “help”. A good author does not place readers into the context, only helps them to do it themselves.

And so, a good description is one that helps the reader understand the environment where the story unfolds, in as simple a way as possible – but not any simpler.

This means that to write vivid descriptions you should make them as brief as possible and using as ordinary words as possible – but not any more brief, nor so ordinary as to muddle and dilute the meaning. If the context is such that you need to use “commendatory” instead of “approved”, then that’s the right word.

Practically, a good description is one that performs the function of offering a context without getting in the way. That’s all there is to it. As it becomes apparent, however, in the end it’s a balancing act.

You have to write vivid descriptions while at the same time you don’t:

• negatively affect the pace
• negatively affect the… affect of the novel
• finally, negative affect the reader’s ability to create their own meaning

Still, there can be exceptions; or rather, special cases.

The Style of Writing Descriptions Can Be a Literary Device

Lengthy descriptions definitely affect the pace. However, it’s an entirely other matter whether that’s a good or a bad thing. In most cases it’s bad. Nonetheless, there indeed are cases when this can become a literary device.

Take a look at my post on manipulating readers. I there referred to Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho and some chapters that are

little more than lengthy descriptions of Hi-Fi systems or critiques of singers. They go on and on and on, with no apparent reason or meaning.
Indeed, go check an online discussion on the book, and you’ll inevitably come across people complaining that those chapters are very boring.
Guess what? They’re supposed to be.

Ellis has deployed these lengthy descriptions precisely to affect the pace. Since there is a narrative connection with the protagonist (who feels so bored he needs to seek thrills in murderWhether the murders in American Psycho are actual or imaginary is an entirely different matter, beyond the scope of this point.), this is an entirely legitimate reason to offer such lengthy, largely pointless descriptions.

Similarly, vocabulary choices can also hide an underlying purpose. Take a look at my post on symbolism in fiction, and you’ll notice what I say about the use of register:

Register changes in a narrative can often be a flag drawing the reader’s attention to something.
[…]
You might, for instance, notice that a narrative has begun to deploy a vocabulary related to, say, the divine. “Beautiful expression” becomes “angelic expression” and “attractive landscape” becomes “heavenly landscape”.
If you spot such shifts, it’s not unlikely – if the context allows it – that the narrative has entered symbolic territory.

Again, the key is that there has to be a purpose behind such choices. If there is, the choices do affect the… affective power of the scene in a positive manner, as they promote meaning.

It’s Simple, yet…Complex

To learn how to write vivid descriptions in fiction is the easiest, simplest thing in the world. Only, it’s also frustratingly complicated.

To put it this way, as with so many other things in writing, it’s simple when you know how. But you really have to bang your head against the wall many times before you learn the tricks.

Good decisions come with experience, which comes with bad decisions. That’s a great thing to keep in mind for writing fiction, too.