I’ve had many people over the years ask how I manage to make them feel hot or cold or hungry, or whatever the characters are feeling when they read my stories. I’ve had people ask for help on learning to write good descriptions that don’t leave the reader yawning or wondering what on earth the author is talking about.

And so I decided to give you a crash course on the art of writing good descriptions.

Paint with Words:

• Few sentences – Describe your setting in a few sentences. Don’t go on and on and on and . . . Well, you get the picture.
• Normal words – It’s kind of fun trying out strange or different words, but if your readers aren’t going to have a clue what color Susie’s hair is if you say it is “obsidian” then don’t use it! Say black.
• Don’t jump around – The easiest way to paint a good word picture of a setting is to start on one side and move to the other. Start with the sky and end at the ground. Start with what you see on the right and end on the left. Start with nearby and end in the distance. Don’t jump here and there and back again.

Practice – Find some pictures (calendars, church bulletins, post cards, etc.) and practice painting a description of what you see in words. Try several different pictures. Keep each description to one paragraph.

Make it Alive:

Settings need to live just like characters. They need depth to them. Do this by adding things like . . .

• Hearing – Is a bird singing? Can you hear water in a stream? Is the wind whispering in the trees?
• Feeling – What is your character feeling about the weather? Are they cold? Hot? Pleasant? Are they shivering because of what they see?
• Smelling – Some settings have smells. A bonfire in autumn. Flowers blooming. Livestock in a nearby pasture. That after-a-rain smell of freshness.
• Tasting (if food is involved) – Is there a warm, homey taste to the fresh bread? What about the sour tang of ice cold lemonade?

Practice – Make the descriptions you have just written alive by adding some things I mentioned above. Write a different description and add some senses to it as you write it.

Characters Should Feel It:

Bits of Description

• Actions of Character – Is it really hot? Have your character mop their forehead, or swipe their sleeve across their face. Is it raining? Your character could hunch into their jacket, or shiver as a drop of water goes down their back. Make your characters do what YOU might do.
• Sentence of Setting – Perhaps your characters have been talking or there is a pause in the action–take a moment and slip in a sentence of setting. Or two if they are short.
  • It was odd, Jay thought, as he lay prone on the ground behind the fallen tree waiting for shots to be fired, to notice things like the smell of the damp earth and the cool, spring breeze sending goosebumps across his arms.
  • Sue looked up. There were no clouds in the deep blue sky to temper the sun’s heat. Not even a whisper of a breeze blew.
• Remarks about season, weather, temperature – Have your characters let the readers know what the weather, season, or temperature is like. They can make a remark about it to another character, or think about it. Or if your character talks to themselves, that could work too.
• Feel the Weather – If you can imagine the weather, you can write about it. Think about what YOU feel when there is . . .
  • Humidity
  • Biting Wind
  • Thunderstorm
  • Chill in Air
  • Dry Heat
  • Cold Snow
  • South Wind

Practice – Take a character or two from one of your stories, or just make some up right now, and put them in a setting. Make them react to the weather or the setting.

Add Some Fun

Metaphors and Similes

This is something that is actually rather fun. If you’ve read my short story Fishing for a Little Peace and Quiet (found in Pirates of Rocky Crag Bay) you might notice that I have a lot of metaphors and similes in there. I wrote that story just to practice using them.

• Metaphors use different words to describe something without telling you it is “like”.
  • Example: Thousands of diamonds twinkled in the black, velvet sea overhead.
• Similes tell the readers they are comparing something to something else by using “like” or “as”.
  • Example: The grass, like a green carpet, stretched over the hills.

Toss together some delightful metaphors or similes, sprinkle them amongst your descriptions, and suddenly you’ve taken your setting to a different level!

Do you feel like you are a confident description writer? What is your favorite part about writing descriptions and settings? Have you ever tried metaphors or similes? Do you have any suggestions for making your readers enjoy the settings in your story?