Tips & Tricks to Writing on Wattpad

5 Tricks to Description

5 TRICKS TO DESCRIPTION
Reposting this because I changed the previous part ot a requests 'chatper' and moved it to the beginning of the story. I didn't realize you guys actually had requests, lol. :)

1) Show VS Tell

I bet most, if not all, of you have either seen, or received a comment saying 'You need to show more instead of tell!' or something along those lines. Everyone says that you need to show instead of tell.
The difference between showing and telling is that telling is more of a narrative summary, while showing is the scene itself. Most books actually have a lot of telling. If nothing happens in two weeks, we usually time skip, and just summarize the two weeks in a paragraph or two. That's telling.
A book should have both showing and telling. If it only had showing, we'd have a lot of meaningless scenes. If it only had telling, we wouldn't have enough action, and probably wouldn't feel as connected to the characters.
There are some stuff that you should show instead of tell, though. Like, show how your characters act, instead of just telling us if they're stupid or smart, nice or mean, funny or serious, etc. Also, show their relationship, and how it develops, instead of just telling us your MC was asked out.
Telling should only really be used if absolutely nothing happens, or if what happens isn't interesting, or relevant to the plot.

2) Once is enough

Don't keep repeating the same description.
Some people, when they write descriptions, like to try and make it fancy, or poetic, throwing in a bunch of adjectives. I think the term is 'Purple Prose'. Anyway, when writing descriptions, don't keep repeating a certain thing over and over. Let's say you're trying to describe a lake. If you've already put something like 'Sunlight gleamed off the surface of the water.' Don't put 'The sparkling, shining water was calm, peaceful.' afterwards. We already know it's sparkling/shiny/gleaming, you don't really need to tell us again. It sunk in the first time, and repeating it just makes it sound like you're trying too hard.

3) Make sure the descriptions fit your character

If you're writing in First Person, or Third Person Specific, your descriptions should fit your character. So don't add in details your character wouldn't notice, or care about, or know. When describing something, most people will keep it simple, instead of using a Thesaurus full of adjectives. Also, some things they might not know.
For example, a fashion designer might describe a dress like 'The dress was a glittering shade of emerald, with a sweetheart neckline. The bust was covered in tiny diamonds, forming a swirling pattern. The skirt fell to a few inches above the knee, swishing delicately around her legs.' Or whatever, I'm not a hundred percent sure that made sense, but oh well. Anyway, while a fashion designer might describe it like that, someone else, like your typical guy, might describe it like 'The dress was green and stopped halfway down her thighs.'
Your descriptions should fit your character. How they talk, what they know, how much they'd notice.

4) Tell us only what we need to know

Only include the necessary descriptions at the time. If we don't need to know about the lamp in the corner of the room that she's had since she was two, don't tell us about it.
If her bedroom doesn't really matter, don't take two paragraphs describing it. Keep it simple, just tell us what we need to know. If it's possible, space out your descriptions. Your character can say there's a bed in the room, but not actually talk about it until two chapters later when she jumps on it after a long day.
If there's something in the room that's really important later on. Say, there's a cupboard in the corner that becomes the place where the MC hides her ex-boyfriend's body, mention it. Maybe don't go into full detail and describe the wood and age of it, but say it's big and that it's there.

5) I don't really care about her designer outfit

I hate, hate, hate, hate it when a book has a whole giant paragraph detailing the MC's outfit. Especially if the outfit's not really important. If it's just something that she's wearing, and that's not going to either a) get in her way or b) help her later on, we don't really need to know. Just say she's wearing jean and a t-shirt and leave it at that. Don't go into full details about brand, and when she bought it and all that.
The only time an ourfit should be described in a lot of detail is when it affects something in the future. For example, if your MC's wearing a long,s weeping dress, then has to run from kidnappers and the dress makes it hard, then fine, describe a bit of how long it is, and how annoying it is to walk in it. But even then, be careful. Just describe what we need to know.
Describing an outfit in a lot of detail it tiring, and kind of pointless to read.

 

Next Tip: Cliché Scenes

~JJ :)