Craft of Writing

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Craft of Writing

Patricia A. Henisse

Keeping Descriptions Consistent

Have you ever been reading a novel ЦЦ a real page-turner ЦЦ and realized the author's description of a person, place, or thing changed somewhere along the way? You're reading along, caught in the pull of the story, and suddenly realize the discrepancy. You stop, search back through the preceding chapters and discover, yes, in Chapter Two the main character lived in a "manicured Tudor with brick walkways," and in Chapter Seven he is defending his "stylish Victorian home" from robbers. The flow of the story has been interrupted and you wonder if the novel received proper editing.

How embarrassing, you think. I'm glad I didn't write this one.

You can save your fiction from these discrepancies by using some visualization and graphic representation techniques. Apply these techniques throughout your writing process and your descriptions of characters, settings, and property (props) will remain consistent from beginning to end ЦЦ and your readers will focus on your story, not your errors.

Paint Pictures In Your Mind
Actively visualizing the characters, settings, and props in a story as you write the initial outline cements the images in your mind and allows you to make notes as to their description. When I first sketch my ideas for a story, I visualize the characters, settings, and significant props that fit the plot. Here is how I fix these visualizations in my mind.

When I create a character. I imagine what the character looks like and then describe him/her to myself. John is six feet tall and has brown hair, combed with a bang and parted on his left. If possible, I think of someone I know who looks like the character. John looks a lot like the young James Garner. I note these descriptions in the margins while I jot down my ideas.

As I describe a setting. I conjure up the picture and think, The house is in a remote location, no one around for miles, and looks like the house my brother rented when he was in the service. Again, I note these descriptions in the margins.

When adding a significant prop. I try to be as specific as possible, such as: Dee's car is an extension of her personality; not just a car, it tells us something about who she is. She drives a fire engine red Jeep Wrangler with a black hardtop, chrome bumpers, white lightning stripes, and a Class-2 Hitch with a four-bike foldaway rack. All these details are noted as above.

Create References That Work
Creating graphic representations of the characters, settings, and props in your work strengthens the picture of them in your mind and gives you a hard-copy reference. Writers who prefer visual or kinesthetic memory aids find the creation of these references particularly useful. Once I have the story outlined, I find or create pictures, drawings, or maps that show the features I have visualized. Then I label or highlight each feature I mention in my descriptions. It may seem like a lot of trouble to create these references, but they will help you write credible descriptions that add to, rather than detract from, your story.

Characters. To remind me of what my characters look like, I cut a picture out of a magazine or find a photograph that matches the picture in my mind. If the picture is close, but not exact, I draw in the difference. My character wears hoop earrings? Then I draw the earrings on the picture. The brother has a scar on his chin? I draw in the scar.

To keep the family relationships of the characters consistent, I draw a family tree starting with the earliest mentioned ancestors and ending with the last generation of characters. I make a box on the tree for each family member and include the year of his or her birth and death. I am careful to spell the names as I want them to appear in the final work and place nicknames in parentheses.

Settings. If the setting of my story is in an area I can visit, I go on a field trip with my digital camera. I find the setting I want to use for the story and take photographs from several angles. Back at my computer, I upload the photos and decide if they are what I want. Does a photo have a tree that is not in the story? Then I use my photo editing software to erase the tree from the picture. Will I use the house in the picture? Yes? Great! No? Then I erase the house. Once I get the photos I want, I print them on a single sheet of paper. If I want to add something to the photo, I add it in on the computer (if I have it in a file) or I draw it in after I print.

If I must construct the setting in my imagination, I use the following methods to recreate the pictures in my mind. To describe just the right house, I look at an architectural reference book, such as A Field Guide to American Houses, by Virginia and Lee McAlester (й1984, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.) or Great American Houses and Their Architectural Styles, by Virginia McAlester et al (й1994) until I find a house close to the one in my mind. I check to be sure the house fits the time and location of my story (to maintain the credibility of the setting), and then I trace or draw it onto a clean sheet of paper, adding or subtracting details to fit my visual image. Did I say there was a stone fence? I draw it in. A potbelly stove? I draw in the chimney.

It helps to get a bird's eye view of larger settings such as rooms, houses, and landscapes. To depict a room, I draw a floor plan showing the location of pieces of furniture, doors, windows, and significant props. I also draw a floor plan of the house as a whole so I know the exact location of each room and the relationship of each room to the others. Then I know the bathroom is at the back of the house off the central hallway, between the kitchen and master bedroom, and I consistently describe it in the same location.

Sketching a map of every building, fence, driveway, walkway, change of terrain, tree, flower garden, or other significant feature in a landscape helps me prevent reader confusion. With this reference, I will be less likely to describe Ben turning left off the porch to go to the barn and later describe Sally turning right to get there (walking directly into the side of the hen house I described in Chapter Five).

Drawing an arrow pointing north, on all the drawings and maps of larger settings, helps me determine the direction from which sunlight streams, the wind blows, and weather fronts advance. This reference keeps my characters from sitting on the front porch watching the sunset after I have described the front of the house facing east.

Props. Creating a hard copy reference for significant props, particularly if a prop is symbolic, helps me to describe the prop accurately and highlight its symbolic nature. These references are usually easy to find or create. For example, a picture of the red Jeep Wrangler described earlier could be downloaded from the Jeep Web site or cut from a Jeep sales brochure. Once, when researching a setting for a story, I picked up a moss-covered piece of sandstone. Later, when I needed a bit of symbolism in the story, I used the stone.

Vigilance Makes The Difference
Once the references are created, I hang the pictures, drawings, and maps near my computer for easy reference. Each paper has its own place so I can glance up from the screen and check a detail without breaking the flow of my work. The vigilant checking of each detail as I repeatedly describe the characters, settings, and props assures me of consistency.

As the writing continues, the story can take on a life of its own and some of the details change. Perhaps the house grows a porch so there is a place for the dog to hide, or Aunt Sarah doesn't need her glasses because she became blind in an explosion in Chapter Three. When the story changes the details, I change the drawings to match and use the "Find" feature in my word processing program to search for and change references to these elements in the chapters I have finished.

The Whole Nine Yards
If these methods work for you, you can expand their use beyond descriptions of settings, characters, and props. For example, to maintain consistency in the days and dates used in a story, I find or create a calendar spanning the dates during which the story took place. Then, when I describe an event that happened on October 7, 1992, I know it was a Wednesday.

To maintain consistency with history, I check a historical reference book, such as The Timetables of History by Bernard Grun (Simon & Schuster, Inc.) for major events occurring at the time of the story. I list the most interesting events on a sticky note and post it to my computer monitor. This allows me to weave a historical event into the story, increasing credibility. It also can help me avoid an implausible occurrence such as a parade in Johnstown, Ohio in the days following the big flood.

These techniques will help you describe settings, characters, and props with clarity. They also will help you maintain consistency in your descriptions throughout a work of any length. In addition, these techniques will save you from the embarrassment of discovering inconsistencies in your descriptions after your baby has gone to press.

About the Author:

Patricia Henisse was born in Clarksburg, West Virginia, grew up just outside Detroit, Michigan, and now lives and writes in Longmont, Colorado. She has been an occupational therapist, health care administrator, freelance writer, geriatric case manager, cheese-maker, and employment consultant. Patricia has published several works of fiction and non-fiction in publications as varied as Rehabilitation Management, Common Lives, and the Mountain-Ear.