Writing is hard enough with the added stress of having to describe that amazing new world you have built from scratch. That's where this comes in. Descriptions can be really tricky to do right, but once you do, you wouldn't go back. In this article, I'll teach you how to engage you readers in your world by provoking emotion and how to make your descriptions seem like carbon copies of one another. Enjoy!
1. Use All Five Senses
Writers often get stuck on describing what their characters see when they enter a new environment. This must be a new realm, kingdom, state, or even a new room in a house. It can get very boring very fast when your descriptions consist of "there was a lamp in the corner with a pink covering and a sofa resting against the left wall". But if you include what your MC is hearing, smelling, feeling or even tasting when they enter a foreign environment, you're engaging all your readers sense and making the description more of an experience rather than a picture. For example, "The pink lamp shade was coated in a thick layer of dust that suffocated my nostrils. The mismatch sofa in the corner of the room sat atop a rough and worn down carpet."
2. Describe Relevant Things
When your characters enter a new environment, It's better to describe the elements that are the most important to the character or the story. Don't describe every element of their new environment - for example, your readers already know what a bathroom looks like, you don't need to tell them what colour the tiles on the wall are. On the flip side, if your MC's entering a bathroom in a different realm, and the walls are formed from weaving vines and magically fairy lamps - then yeah, you should probably describe that.
3. Remember, You're Writing From The Perspective Of Your Character
A person wouldn't logically notice every single things that's going on - so think about what's important to the main character.
For example, if you MC walks into her childhood bedroom, she's not going to mention the carpet on the floor. She's going to talk about the dollhouse that she was obsessed with when she was four or the glow in the dark stars she stuck to the ceiling with her mum. What is the character meant to notice or see differently now compared to when she was little?
4. Add Emotion
Descriptions are there to provoke an emotion from the reader to make them feel connected to the space, and therefore the book. If you descriptions aren't causing an some sort of emotion from your characters, then your readers aren't feeling anything either. Make them feel something.
5. Don't Be Too Telly
SHOWING a reader how a character feels about a place is more impactful than TELLING a reader how a character feels about a place. For example, a character plaining stating that she hates her childhood bedroom has no emotion behind it. But if you describe how boring and depressing her childhood bedroom is, then the readers will get the memo that she doesn't want to be here.
For example, "The walls were painted that same dull brown, and the bed still so lumpy that I could see it's deformity from across the room. The window was cracked from where my little brother launched a baseball into the glass years ago. It was a time I didn't want to remember."
6. Spread Out Your Descriptions
You don't need to description everything about a new environment a character goes into. If a character walks into a living, they can notice the sofa and the fire place and the coffee. But maybe a few paragraphs down they're trying to find someone on the coffee table and they notice all books and old coffee cups that are scattered over the glass top. descriptions don't need to be paragraphs long. If your character has already been in this space before, you can mention a detail that you didn't mention in the initial description.