Writing Excuses 6.11: Making Your Descriptions Do More Than One Thing

Writing Excuses

Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler

Business, Careers, Fiction

4.6 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 15 August 2011

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Let's talk about some ways in which your descriptions can do more than just describe. You're not just trying to tell us what the room is like. You're also setting the mood, telling us about the POV character, and establishing some of our progress through the story.

Howard (who rarely works in prose) offers some unexpected insight by talking about the way panels are composed in his comic. Mary offers even better insight by pulling the same principles through the domain of puppetry. Dan tells us how some of this is done by filmmakers. But yes, we finally do come back around to prose and how to accomplish these things with words.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Shades of Milk and Honey, written and narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal

Writing Prompt: Go someplace, use all five of your senses, and for thirty minutes write about the place you're in. Not the people though. Just the place.

And Because It Needs To Be Google-able: "Mary Robinette Koala" -- it might be more than just a pronunciation guide.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This year my family will be having our 67th annual Christmas Eve dinner.
0:04.8	It's a menu passed down from my grandmother through my mom to me.
0:08.8	The entire family shows up.
0:11.8	I'm talking fourth cousins once removed and this is not an
0:15.1	exaggeration which means that during the lead up I don't have time to menu plan or
0:20.0	cook anything else. That's when I turn to prepared meals like Factor, America's
0:26.0	number one ready-to-eat meal delivery service. Factor can help you eat well for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with chef-prepared, dietition approved, ready-to-eat meals delivered straight to your door.
0:37.0	It allows me to save time and not eat garbage while tackling all my holiday to-do's.
0:42.0	So if you want to cross meal prepping... while tackling all my holiday to-do's.
0:42.6	So if you want to cross meal prepping off your list
0:45.8	this holiday season, consider factor.
0:48.4	You can skip the meal planning, grocery shopping,
0:50.9	shopping, shopping, prepping, and cleaning up, and get factors fresh never frozen meals delivered
0:55.8	to your door.
0:56.8	They're ready in just two minutes, which my dad says is the appropriate amount of time to cook
1:01.4	a meal.
1:02.4	He has no idea. The point is, all you have to do is heat and enjoy.
1:07.0	And if you're trying to squeeze writing into the holiday press, it might be useful to know that Factor isn't just for dinner.
1:15.1	Count on extra convenience any time of the day with an assortment of 55-plus add-ons to suit various
1:20.8	preferences and tastes.
1:22.8	So you can carve out some writing time in the morning by choosing quick breakfast items,
1:27.2	lunch to go, grab and go snacks, or ready to eat cold-pressed juices, shakes, and smoothies.
	...

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