ICY FINGERS OF RAIN

Greetings! This last week of the old year has sped by for me. My hubby was off work so we did a lot of stuff together. I’ll need the new year for rest!

Here’s my last blog post for 2011:

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Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively by Rebecca McClanahan, Writer’s Digest Books, 1999

Chapter 1: What is Description? (part 2)

Aristotle, in Book III of The Rhetoric of Aristotle, identifies the qualities of descriptive writing. First, description is carefully worded. We need to know not only the correct terms for objects and people we describe, but also the right words that evoke the particular image or emotion appropriate to the story.

Good description employs specific, concrete detail so the reader can see or experience what is described through various senses.

Third, “it is not enough simply to engage the senses. We must also represent the fictional dream through word pictures—and, wherever possible, these should be moving pictures.”

Good description often uses figurative language. Aristotle argues that metaphor and simile are at least as important in prose as in poetry, since prose doesn’t use other tools such as thyme, meter, and established poetic forms.

Even with these elements, description can be ineffective. It must serve the larger story.

The rewards of description:

·         Creates illusion of reality, supporting the fictional dream

·         Engages the reader on emotional and intellectual levels

·         Establishes characters and settings quickly

·         Frames points of view

·         Advances the story

·         Changes the pace and tension of the story

·         Links scenes, times, and places

·         Unifies theme

·         Sets mood

·         Acts as a musical score beneath the story line

If even Aristotle could discuss description as an important element in writing, we need to employ it in our own work of today. We have two thousand years’ worth of advice.

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The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Scholastic Press, 2008

Our part of District 12, nicknamed the Seam, is usually crawling with coal miners heading out to the morning shift at this hour. Men and women with hunched shoulders, swollen knuckles, many who have long since stopped trying to scrub the coal dust out of their broken nails, the lines of their sunken faces.

This bit of description sets the tone of depression and despair of the story.

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When I passed the baker’s, the smell of fresh bread was so overwhelming I felt dizzy. The ovens were in the back, and a golden glow spilled out the open kitchen door. I stood mesmerized by the heat and the luscious scent until the rain interfered, running its icy fingers down my back, forcing me back to life. I lifted the lid to the baker’s trash bin and found it spotlessly, heartlessly bare.

Here the author’s painted a stark difference between the bakery’s warmth and the rain’s chill, between a full belly and starvation.

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Prim will undoubtedly sleep with my mother tonight. The thought of that scruffy old Buttercup posting himself on the bed to watch over Prim comforts me. If she cries, he will nose his way into her arms and curl up there until she calms down and falls asleep. I’m so glad I didn’t drown him.

Always the pragmatist.

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That’s all for today. Happy New Year!