Descriptive writing
I recently read an article, 'Halt! Who goes there?' by Mem Fox for the subject I'm doing on Literacy. Which has made me reflect on my writing and reading habits, and why I think other people might read. I always want to write (usually fiction) when I'm supposed to be working on an assignment or preparing for an exam or other form of test. This has been true since I was in Year 11 studying for the semester 1 English exam! Which, thanks to my awesome English teacher, actually had a creative writing section as part of the exam. There are few other times when I am as creative in developing characters and plots!
Anyway, back to the article. Mem Fox brings up four things in this article (written as a dialogue): Relationships, Reality in Writing, Rejoicing in choices, and the Return of the affective. She uses anecdotes in presenting these to the other participant in the dialogue, who gives some feedback. I really enjoyed her writing style - I generally have loved her children's books, but I have not read much of her other writing - and I loved the way she allowed for reader presuppositions to come to the fore in her descriptions of scenarios. Initially when she described her students and her teaching approach I had in mind a junior primary class, while she was actually describing a university group. This is an interesting tension which I sometimes think about when writing: how much description is really necessary, how much is helpful, and how much becomes heavy and slows down the story, maybe even boring the reader?
It is interesting to think about how different authors write. JRR Tolkien, for example, is often considered to give substantial descriptions in The Lord of the Rings, and yet if you look through for descriptions of his characters you will find very little information given. Legolas, for example, if memory serves me correctly, is described as being an elf from Mirkwood, the son of the king of Mirkwood when he is introduced. And then he is never described throughout the rest of the story! His hair colour, skin colour, height are all left unspecified. This can be done on purpose, to allow the reader to make assumptions which are later challenged, and I have tried to do this a few times. It would be an interesting exercise to write a brief description of one or more of your favourite characters, then to read through the book they are from and note down how the character is actually described by the author, and to see how much you have added or forgotten.
Hmm... I'm tempted to actually go and do this for one of my favourite characters, but that series of books are all interstate, and I wouldn't be able to check it for nearly three weeks... Plus I have assignments to work on...
One thing I am particularly fascinated by is the tendency to tell the reader what colour eyes every character has. How many people could you accurately tell what their eye colour is without checking? Who among you, outside of my family, could tell what colour my eyes are? (Feel free to comment if you think you know! It would be interesting to see what you think, and whether you are right!)
And then there is the description of clothing. But how much notice do we generally take of what people wear? And how significant do you think these details are? They rarely have any direct bearing on plot development. But sometimes these details are significant. So, how much do you want to know? (This is not to even begin to discuss the weather, dating and timing of stories.)
There are different opinions about this topic, and even on whether or not one style over the other is 'better' writing. I think it really comes down to the personal writing style of the one writing the story combined with the general expectations of the genre they are writing in. Crime fiction is often driven by specific, small details, while other genres may leave more up to the reader's imagination in the details of the scenes described.
I really enjoy reading fantasy, because I enjoy the differences such stories portray from the 'real' world, and I enjoy the types of story lines they include. I enjoy the descriptions, but I also like when there are few enough details for me to fill in the gaps myself.
This is one of the key areas of difference between books and films. Details which are insignificant to the plot of a book, and may therefore be left unspoken, may need to be represented in a film. Legolas has hair, so Peter Jackson and company had to decide what colour hair he would have in the film, and if they wanted that to be different from the hair colour of the actor, they had to decide how to make it happen. (I am personally a huge fan of the decisions they made, but that's another story!) Where scenes and clothes are more carefully described in a book, a film adaptation decides whether to make that the exact way it is presented in the film, or whether to do something different. And these are often hotly debated by fans and viewers afterwards!
Anyway, back to the article. Mem Fox brings up four things in this article (written as a dialogue): Relationships, Reality in Writing, Rejoicing in choices, and the Return of the affective. She uses anecdotes in presenting these to the other participant in the dialogue, who gives some feedback. I really enjoyed her writing style - I generally have loved her children's books, but I have not read much of her other writing - and I loved the way she allowed for reader presuppositions to come to the fore in her descriptions of scenarios. Initially when she described her students and her teaching approach I had in mind a junior primary class, while she was actually describing a university group. This is an interesting tension which I sometimes think about when writing: how much description is really necessary, how much is helpful, and how much becomes heavy and slows down the story, maybe even boring the reader?
It is interesting to think about how different authors write. JRR Tolkien, for example, is often considered to give substantial descriptions in The Lord of the Rings, and yet if you look through for descriptions of his characters you will find very little information given. Legolas, for example, if memory serves me correctly, is described as being an elf from Mirkwood, the son of the king of Mirkwood when he is introduced. And then he is never described throughout the rest of the story! His hair colour, skin colour, height are all left unspecified. This can be done on purpose, to allow the reader to make assumptions which are later challenged, and I have tried to do this a few times. It would be an interesting exercise to write a brief description of one or more of your favourite characters, then to read through the book they are from and note down how the character is actually described by the author, and to see how much you have added or forgotten.
Hmm... I'm tempted to actually go and do this for one of my favourite characters, but that series of books are all interstate, and I wouldn't be able to check it for nearly three weeks... Plus I have assignments to work on...
One thing I am particularly fascinated by is the tendency to tell the reader what colour eyes every character has. How many people could you accurately tell what their eye colour is without checking? Who among you, outside of my family, could tell what colour my eyes are? (Feel free to comment if you think you know! It would be interesting to see what you think, and whether you are right!)
And then there is the description of clothing. But how much notice do we generally take of what people wear? And how significant do you think these details are? They rarely have any direct bearing on plot development. But sometimes these details are significant. So, how much do you want to know? (This is not to even begin to discuss the weather, dating and timing of stories.)
There are different opinions about this topic, and even on whether or not one style over the other is 'better' writing. I think it really comes down to the personal writing style of the one writing the story combined with the general expectations of the genre they are writing in. Crime fiction is often driven by specific, small details, while other genres may leave more up to the reader's imagination in the details of the scenes described.
I really enjoy reading fantasy, because I enjoy the differences such stories portray from the 'real' world, and I enjoy the types of story lines they include. I enjoy the descriptions, but I also like when there are few enough details for me to fill in the gaps myself.
This is one of the key areas of difference between books and films. Details which are insignificant to the plot of a book, and may therefore be left unspoken, may need to be represented in a film. Legolas has hair, so Peter Jackson and company had to decide what colour hair he would have in the film, and if they wanted that to be different from the hair colour of the actor, they had to decide how to make it happen. (I am personally a huge fan of the decisions they made, but that's another story!) Where scenes and clothes are more carefully described in a book, a film adaptation decides whether to make that the exact way it is presented in the film, or whether to do something different. And these are often hotly debated by fans and viewers afterwards!
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