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I’ve been discussing description in a few of my recent blogs:

• “On Writing: Editing Your Description”
• “Description: If it Doesn’t Matter, Axe It!”
• “Description: MAKE it Matter!”
• “Description: Bring Your World to Life!”

Today, I’ll discuss how to make your description balanced—how to make it blend.

First, you must understand the Rule of Three’s. Stephen King discusses this in his book, On Writing, in much better detail than I can. So purchase his book—it’s an amazing book and worth it. And no, I don’t know Stephen King personally, and no one has asked me to say this. It’s just a really good book about writing. (Kids, it contains a few bad words, so ask your parents first.)

I’m assuming you all will read about the Rule of Three’s from the master, so I’ll just sum it up here:

• You only need three or four main details when you first introduce a scene. For instance, in A Prophecy Forgotten, book I of the Elysian Chronicles, needed to give the reader a quick introduction to The Treetop Inn, a key setting, not only in A Prophecy Forgotten, but also in Out of the Shadows. It deserves a paragraph introduction. I’ve highlighted my main details:
       The Treetop Inn had been the most popular meeting place in the City of Ezzer for five centuries. It was located in the top of one of the tallest trees in the city, and it was one of the only buildings left from the days of Edenian when Ezzer was king. The vast tavern’s only light came from a few glow torches and patches of sunlight that poured through its multicolored crystal windows. It had plump, cushy booths for quiet conversations, immense round tables with soft perching stools for lively parties, and the best honeywine and finest service in all Elysia.
  (The “best honeywine and service” are small bits of “telling” because I can only show so much.)
• The reader will fill in the rest of the details.Did I tell you about the wood-paneled walls? Did I mention the smells? I admit I cheated. I snuck in a few sounds (quiet conversations and lively parties), but you’re inside the Treetop Inn. You’ve filled in the details for me, saving me a bunch of work. (Thank you, by they way.)

Oh, remember that the Rule of Three’s applies to introducing characters as well.

You’ve started with your three to four main description elements, but you know you want to add description to more of the scene, and you should. But how do you add description without boring the reader?

Blend it in!

When I first wrote A Prophecy Forgotten, I included three paragraphs that described cherubians (my angel creatures) in full detail into my first chapter. A big writing mistake! I axed the paragraphs and blended the necessary detail into my narrative when I introduced Arch Seraph Zephor. First, I looked over my paragraphs and pulled out the details I knew I could show instead of tell:

• Zephor’s uniform (a seraph’s uniform, silver and black)
• Non-seraph uniforms (LAF uniforms, maroon and black)
• Cherubian wingspan compared to body height
• Cherubian wing color is not white
• Zephor is old.

These sections take place at different stages in “Chapter One: A Message of Hope.” I’ve underlined the “blended parts.”

     Arch-Seraph Zephor clasped his hands behind his back and paced back and forth along the wall that surrounded the Southern Command Tower. The black leather trim on his grey seraph’s kilt swished just above his knees. His black boots, by design, made no sound. Zephor ignored both the icy wind that rustled through his brown wings and the annoying sprite that kept singing in his ear. As he stared at the gloomy, endless sea of fog that surrounded the tower, the creases around his brown eyes deepened, and he wrinkled his nose. The fog hid the southern front’s charred, leafless trees and scorched grass, but it still failed to block out the territory’s smoky stench. 
     Zephor continued pacing around the wall, where soldiers wearing the maroon and black kilts of the Elysian army guarded the tower with their bows readied. Their black breastplates and helmetsbore numerous dents and scratches from recent battles. Notched swords hung at their sides; mud caked their boots, legs, and arms; and their shoulders hunched from weariness. Normally, Zephor would have complained about the lack of supplies and weapons and demanded to know why his country refused to send him reinforcements… He extended his wings, which were shaped like a falcon’s and measured twice the length of his body, and flew to the ground, where he continued pacing.
(To read the first chapters of A Prophecy Forgotten in their entirety, click here.)

Blending not only helped me add a description of cherubians into my prose, but it also helped me describe the Elysian military’s exhaustion, Elysia’s war-torn Southern Front, and hint at political turmoil. Double duty.

So take those details you want to include in your prose—details that will enhance the mood of your book (or your book’s soundtrack)—and blend them in. Don’t let your old crone just “point at the forest.” Make her “point a twisted, spindly finger at the shadows in the forest.”

You’ve added two sensory details to your story. You’ve enhanced your reader’s experience ten-fold, and you only used four extra words! That’s spending your words wisely! It’s giving your words double duty! It’s making your description matter! Best yet, it makes your world come alive!

Be sure to check out my new To Elysia and Back Again podcast every Tuesday! Click here for more information.

Fantasy novelist M. B. Weston is the author of The Elysian Chronicles, a fantasy series about guardian angel warfare and treason, which is being adapted into a graphic novel series by Wandering Sage Publications, Inc., with Weston penning the script and KISS comic book artist, Adam Black, doing the art. Weston hosts a podcast on her To Elysia and Back Again blog, which can be downloaded on itunes. Click here for a complete listing of the To Elysia and Back Againpodcast episodes. Weston is also the host of The Final Cut in Movies, an internet radio talk show about science fiction and fantasy movies on Ad Astra Radio, which can also be heard as a podcast on M. B. Weston’s Podcasts site or on iTunes. Weston speaks to children, teens, and adults about writing and the process of getting published. For more information on M. B. Weston, visit www.mbweston.com. Find out more about The Elysian Chronicles at www.elysianchronicles.com.

I’ve been blogging on writing description, and so far, I’ve discussed:

• "On Writing: Editing Your Description"
• "Description: If it Doesn’t Matter, Axe It!"
• "Description: MAKE it Matter!"

As I’ve mentioned before, you want your world to haunt your reader. (I feel like some paranormal ghost hunter, but I’m serious.) To inspire true “haunting,” you need to bring your world to life.

First, keep in mind how your reader experiences your world: through the five senses:

• Sight
• Sound
• Smell
• Taste
• Touch

(Ooh, look! Three S’s and two T’s! That makes it easy to remember!)

If you do your writing job right, your reader will turn off the visual words on the page and turn on his or her “inner movie.” (At this point, you’ve got your readers in your clutches and you can toy with them. He he he! *Evil smile* I love to toy with my readers’ emotions!) Once this happens, your reader begins experiencing your story through the five senses instead of words. Make those senses work for you! Use as many as you can!

During my editing process, I actually use five different colored highlighters to highlight all five senses I've written into my scene. A quick glance at the colors shows me what senses I’m missing. I take exceptions only with smells and tastes, as those aren’t always available.

To enhance the sensory experience for my reader, I then imagine myself as my main character. I put myself in his exact position, and try to let the scene come alive for me. What’s Davian feeling here? What’s he seeing? What’s he hearing?

I’ll show you an example of how this works. In Out of the Shadows, book II of the Elysian Chronicles, Davian and his soldiers escape into an old abandoned tower now populated with dragons. I wanted to create an “Aaaah” experience in my reader’s mind, kind of like when we watch Gandalf light up the big hall in the Moria. I needed to get into Davian’s head and imagine what he might be sensing. Because I thought beyond simply sight, here’s what I wrote (sensory details underlined):

     The door lifted, and the wind whistledaround the opening. Inside, Davian saw a great room over fifty yards wide. Round pillars reached from the floor to the ceiling one hundred feet overhead. Three wooden, four-tiered chandeliers that held almost three hundred glow torches each hung on the ceiling, casting green light across the room. Scores of dragons crawled in the stone hallways, up the pillars, and around the ceiling, and sounds of their claws hitting the stone echoed through the tower’s halls.
     Davian and the rest of his soldiers flew inside. He expected the temperature to drop the way it did when he entered a cave, but instead it felt warm. He looked around and saw fires cackling in the great hall’s ten main fireplaces.

Quite better than, “Davian entered the tower.”

Try this with your writing. Highlight the senses you’ve already incorporated. If you discover you’re missing a specific color (sense), fill it in.

Use caution or you’ll over-stimulate your readers. Tomorrow, I’ll discuss how to complete the balancing act in Making Description Blend.

Be sure to check out my new To Elysia and Back Again podcast every Tuesday! Click here for more information.

Fantasy novelist M. B. Weston is the author of The Elysian Chronicles, a fantasy series about guardian angel warfare and treason, which is being adapted into a graphic novel series by Wandering Sage Publications, Inc., with Weston penning the script and KISS comic book artist, Adam Black, doing the art. Weston hosts a podcast on her To Elysia and Back Again blog, which can be downloaded on itunes. Click here for a complete listing of the To Elysia and Back Againpodcast episodes. Weston is also the host of The Final Cut in Movies, an internet radio talk show about science fiction and fantasy movies on Ad Astra Radio, which can also be heard as a podcast on M. B. Weston's Podcasts site or on iTunes. Weston speaks to children, teens, and adults about writing and the process of getting published. For more information on M. B. Weston, visit www.mbweston.com. Find out more about The Elysian Chronicles at www.elysianchronicles.com.

Put it to work by giving it double duty!

I’ve been blogging on using description this week. If you’re just joining, you’ll want to check out the prior blogs:

• "Writing: Editing Your Description"
• "Description: If it Doesn’t Matter, Axe It!"

This next description trick makes me tingle—it’s that cool. MAKE YOUR DESCRIPTION MATTER! You’re the writer. You’re the one sitting at the keyboard day in and day out. Force your words to do your bidding!

How can you make your description matter beyond simply setting the mood? How can you make your description matter to your plot and character development?

Make your description work double duty. If you use the words, at least make them work up a sweat. You make your words work double duty by:

• Making them relevant to your plot
• Making them relevant to your characters’ development (No, I did not intend for that to rhyme!)

Let me use two examples from Out of the Shadows, book II of the Elysian Chronicles. Take a look at one of the description-heavy paragraphs from my prior blog and what I took out. More importantly, check out what I left in:

     Tom and Jake ran outside into Tecumseh Court, or T-Court, a courtyard of grey brick where midshipmen lined up for formations. Two once bronze, now verdigris cannons called Mars and Venus pointed at each other from atop stone bases, guarding the courtyard’s entrance with eternal vigilance. Past the cannons on each side of the court, t Two flags flew in the breeze. One bore the red, white, and blue of the United States. The other, the navy-blue flag of the Brigade of Naval Academy Midshipman. Both flags flew at half-mast to honor the dead in the Cincinnati bombing. Haven’t seen them flying at full mast since I arrived, thought Tom.
     Just past the cannons outside of T-Court stood the statue of Tecumseh–a bronze replica of the figurehead of the USS Delaware, a Union ship in the American Civil War. a ship the union scuttled at Norfolk during the American Civil War. The actual Indian was Tamanend, chief of the Delaware Indians. For some reason, midshipmen disliked the name Tamanend and after many nicknames including Powatan, Tecumseh–the war loving Shawnee chief–stuck. The old Indian’s head was shaved except for a tuft of it on top that fell down in spirals. A quiver of arrows hung on Tecumseh’s back–Gabriella’s favorite part of the statue. Tecumseh was a fellow archer.

• The names of the cannons don’t matter. I originally loved the idea of having the cannons “guard” the entrance to T-Court, but I just can’t see any way of making it relevant to the plot.
• The flags flying at half-mast matter. America and the World are far different in Out of the Shadows, which takes place ten years from now. I need the flags flying at half-mast, and I need Tom to notice it.
• I couldn’t bear myself to take Tecumseh out. Tecumseh is too much of a Naval Academy symbol to eliminate. I slashed some of Tecumseh’s history, but to make Tecumseh matter, I made him relevant to Gabriella’s character development. Gabs is an archer. I show her love and even addiction to archery In A Prophecy Forgotten, but I needed to show her attachment to archery in Out of the Shadows as well, especially since that attachment pushes her into big trouble. I gave Tecumseh double duty. When Gabs sees him, she doesn’t think “Union Ship” or “Naval Academy History.” She thinks: archery. Oh yeah! He matters.

I also put Tecumseh on double duty in the next paragraph:

Below, Jake [Tom’s best friend at the Academy] muttered, "Hold on." He stopped in front of Tecumseh and took out a penny. "For my chem test! Got to make my peace offering to the god of the 2.0." He tossed the penny at the statue, and saluted Tecumseh with his left hand–a ritual for superstitious midshipmen who wanted a passing grade point average of 2.0 or above.

Jake is a bit of an overachiever, but he’s not as prevalent a character as Tom. I can’t spend as many words on him. This scene shows his quest for good grades, and adds to his personality. Oh yeah! An unimportant Naval Academy ritual just became relevant!

When I write, I love to incorporate as much of the five senses as possible. (I’ll discuss that tomorrow.) Here’s another great trick to make your description matter: describe your scenery’s effect on the reader.

Two places in Out of the Shadows where I do this:

"Hold on," said Davian. "Listen to that." The wind blew through the trees. "I haven’t heard the wind in ten years." A bird chirped. "Or that either."

I want to show the wind and the birds in order to give the audience a sensory detail experience. I want them enjoying the woods Davian and his men traverse. However, I want my description performing double duty. I’m showing the wind and the birds’ chirps effect on Davian.He’s been incarcerated for 10 years. (Ooh, did I just give something away? Are you just dying to know what happens to Davian?) Davian, a military hero who focuses purely on his objective, is now noticing wind and birds. This shows a bit of his character and how he’s feeling. Double duty description.

Using description to enhance plot might sound difficult, but it can be quite fun. In Hunt for Red October, Tom Clancy spent an entire chapter describing how a submarine worked and describing a flaw one of the nuclear subs. Reading through that chapter makes the reader tense because he knows at the end: BOOM! If you work your description right, you can use it to control your reader’s mood and create suspense, hence enhancing your plot. Double duty.

Here’s an example from Out of the Shadows (with a few parts taken out for speed):

  Davian heard a whoosh above him to his right and felt a gust of wind. The fog swirled around him… They heard it again and felt the same gust of wind. Theo gasped and pointed to the sky where a long, reptilian tale disappeared into the fog above… Marcus pointed [into the fog] at something that looked like the wing of a bat, except it was green and about ten feet wide.
     After most of the fog cleared, a rust-colored dragon more than twenty feet tall sat ten yards away from them. The five claws on each of its four feet grasped at the rock it had landed on. Spikes as long as Davian’s hand ran down the dragon’s back, and they turned into spikes over a foot long at the end of its tail, which swished about on the ground in front of its feet. Five horns grew out of its head like a natural crown, and it pointed its long, thin snout at Davian, Boronan, and Marcus. Its red wings were folded on its back…. More fog cleared, revealing more than fifty dragons that surrounded Davian’s soldiers and unicorns. Twenty more circled them in the air.

Pure description, but highly plot-relevant. The description creates the suspense. It does double duty. I could have just sent a few dragons flying overhead, but that’s boring and clichéd! The dragons also are main characters, so I choose to spend a lot of words on them.

Tomorrow, I'll discuss using sensory details to bring your world to life.

Be sure to check out my new To Elysia and Back Again podcast every Tuesday! Click here for more information.

Fantasy novelist M. B. Weston is the author of The Elysian Chronicles, a fantasy series about guardian angel warfare and treason, which is being adapted into a graphic novel series by Wandering Sage Publications, Inc., with Weston penning the script and KISS comic book artist, Adam Black, doing the art. Weston hosts a podcast on her To Elysia and Back Again blog, which can be downloaded on itunes. Click here for a complete listing of the To Elysia and Back Againpodcast episodes. Weston is also the host of The Final Cut in Movies, an internet radio talk show about science fiction and fantasy movies on Ad Astra Radio, which can also be heard as a podcast on M. B. Weston's Podcasts site or on iTunes. Weston speaks to children, teens, and adults about writing and the process of getting published. For more information on M. B. Weston, visit www.mbweston.com. Find out more about The Elysian Chronicles at www.elysianchronicles.com.

Put it to work by giving it double duty!

I’ve been blogging on using description this week. If you’re just joining, you’ll want to check out the prior blogs:

• "Writing: Editing Your Description"
• "Description: If it Doesn’t Matter, Axe It!"

This next description trick makes me tingle—it’s that cool. MAKE YOUR DESCRIPTION MATTER! You’re the writer. You’re the one sitting at the keyboard day in and day out. Force your words to do your bidding!

How can you make your description matter beyond simply setting the mood? How can you make your description matter to your plot and character development?

Make your description work double duty. If you use the words, at least make them work up a sweat. You make your words work double duty by:

• Making them relevant to your plot
• Making them relevant to your characters’ development (No, I did not intend for that to rhyme!)

Let me use two examples from Out of the Shadows, book II of the Elysian Chronicles. Take a look at one of the description-heavy paragraphs from my prior blog and what I took out. More importantly, check out what I left in:

     Tom and Jake ran outside into Tecumseh Court, or T-Court, a courtyard of grey brick where midshipmen lined up for formations. Two once bronze, now verdigris cannons called Mars and Venus pointed at each other from atop stone bases, guarding the courtyard’s entrance with eternal vigilance. Past the cannons on each side of the court, t Two flags flew in the breeze. One bore the red, white, and blue of the United States. The other, the navy-blue flag of the Brigade of Naval Academy Midshipman. Both flags flew at half-mast to honor the dead in the Cincinnati bombing. Haven’t seen them flying at full mast since I arrived, thought Tom.
     Just past the cannons outside of T-Court stood the statue of Tecumseh–a bronze replica of the figurehead of the USS Delaware, a Union ship in the American Civil War. a ship the union scuttled at Norfolk during the American Civil War. The actual Indian was Tamanend, chief of the Delaware Indians. For some reason, midshipmen disliked the name Tamanend and after many nicknames including Powatan, Tecumseh–the war loving Shawnee chief–stuck. The old Indian’s head was shaved except for a tuft of it on top that fell down in spirals. A quiver of arrows hung on Tecumseh’s back–Gabriella’s favorite part of the statue. Tecumseh was a fellow archer.

• The names of the cannons don’t matter. I originally loved the idea of having the cannons “guard” the entrance to T-Court, but I just can’t see any way of making it relevant to the plot.
• The flags flying at half-mast matter. America and the World are far different in Out of the Shadows, which takes place ten years from now. I need the flags flying at half-mast, and I need Tom to notice it.
• I couldn’t bear myself to take Tecumseh out. Tecumseh is too much of a Naval Academy symbol to eliminate. I slashed some of Tecumseh’s history, but to make Tecumseh matter, I made him relevant to Gabriella’s character development. Gabs is an archer. I show her love and even addiction to archery In A Prophecy Forgotten, but I needed to show her attachment to archery in Out of the Shadows as well, especially since that attachment pushes her into big trouble. I gave Tecumseh double duty. When Gabs sees him, she doesn’t think “Union Ship” or “Naval Academy History.” She thinks: archery. Oh yeah! He matters.

I also put Tecumseh on double duty in the next paragraph:

Below, Jake [Tom’s best friend at the Academy] muttered, "Hold on." He stopped in front of Tecumseh and took out a penny. "For my chem test! Got to make my peace offering to the god of the 2.0." He tossed the penny at the statue, and saluted Tecumseh with his left hand–a ritual for superstitious midshipmen who wanted a passing grade point average of 2.0 or above.

Jake is a bit of an overachiever, but he’s not as prevalent a character as Tom. I can’t spend as many words on him. This scene shows his quest for good grades, and adds to his personality. Oh yeah! An unimportant Naval Academy ritual just became relevant!

When I write, I love to incorporate as much of the five senses as possible. (I’ll discuss that tomorrow.) Here’s another great trick to make your description matter: describe your scenery’s effect on the reader.

Two places in Out of the Shadows where I do this:

"Hold on," said Davian. "Listen to that." The wind blew through the trees. "I haven’t heard the wind in ten years." A bird chirped. "Or that either."

I want to show the wind and the birds in order to give the audience a sensory detail experience. I want them enjoying the woods Davian and his men traverse. However, I want my description performing double duty. I’m showing the wind and the birds’ chirps effect on Davian.He’s been incarcerated for 10 years. (Ooh, did I just give something away? Are you just dying to know what happens to Davian?) Davian, a military hero who focuses purely on his objective, is now noticing wind and birds. This shows a bit of his character and how he’s feeling. Double duty description.

Using description to enhance plot might sound difficult, but it can be quite fun. In Hunt for Red October, Tom Clancy spent an entire chapter describing how a submarine worked and describing a flaw one of the nuclear subs. Reading through that chapter makes the reader tense because he knows at the end: BOOM! If you work your description right, you can use it to control your reader’s mood and create suspense, hence enhancing your plot. Double duty.

Here’s an example from Out of the Shadows (with a few parts taken out for speed):

  Davian heard a whoosh above him to his right and felt a gust of wind. The fog swirled around him… They heard it again and felt the same gust of wind. Theo gasped and pointed to the sky where a long, reptilian tale disappeared into the fog above… Marcus pointed [into the fog] at something that looked like the wing of a bat, except it was green and about ten feet wide.
     After most of the fog cleared, a rust-colored dragon more than twenty feet tall sat ten yards away from them. The five claws on each of its four feet grasped at the rock it had landed on. Spikes as long as Davian’s hand ran down the dragon’s back, and they turned into spikes over a foot long at the end of its tail, which swished about on the ground in front of its feet. Five horns grew out of its head like a natural crown, and it pointed its long, thin snout at Davian, Boronan, and Marcus. Its red wings were folded on its back…. More fog cleared, revealing more than fifty dragons that surrounded Davian’s soldiers and unicorns. Twenty more circled them in the air.

Pure description, but highly plot-relevant. The description creates the suspense. It does double duty. I could have just sent a few dragons flying overhead, but that’s boring and clichéd! The dragons also are main characters, so I choose to spend a lot of words on them.

Tomorrow, I'll discuss using sensory details to bring your world to life.

Be sure to check out my new To Elysia and Back Again podcast every Tuesday! Click here for more information.

Fantasy novelist M. B. Weston is the author of The Elysian Chronicles, a fantasy series about guardian angel warfare and treason, which is being adapted into a graphic novel series by Wandering Sage Publications, Inc., with Weston penning the script and KISS comic book artist, Adam Black, doing the art. Weston hosts a podcast on her To Elysia and Back Again blog, which can be downloaded on itunes. Click here for a complete listing of the To Elysia and Back Againpodcast episodes. Weston is also the host of The Final Cut in Movies, an internet radio talk show about science fiction and fantasy movies on Ad Astra Radio, which can also be heard as a podcast on M. B. Weston's Podcasts site or on iTunes. Weston speaks to children, teens, and adults about writing and the process of getting published. For more information on M. B. Weston, visit www.mbweston.com. Find out more about The Elysian Chronicles at www.elysianchronicles.com.