The Spice of Life

I wanted to write a little something on how details can shape and improve writing. Here, a selection of random characteristics and some examples. Hopefully, these will help identify problem prose or present spice like adding a burst of flavour to a good meal.

DETAIL

• Sights, Sounds, Smells, Tastes;
  • When describing a colour, what colour — be descriptive even in the hue. Don’t stop with “blue” or “green”, try hunting down variants. The colour of an object/light can tell you not only about it but about your character’s state of mind/memory.
  • Use this technique for other senses like sounds and smells. If your character is in a fresh food market, what are the smells, colours, sounds and how does the scene reflect on your character’s mood in the moment.
  • Using words like cinnamon taste or citrusy-lime zest can present for the reader an immediate image.
  • These details can also trigger memories that can give the reader a little more insight to help define a character.
• Affectations
  • Be specific in character actions and how it reflects on themselves or their state in that moment.
  • Are they studying their nails (ignoring what is being said), are they wiping sweat from their brow, are they itching the stubble at their chin to show thought. Perhaps they are pinching the bridge of their nose.
  • Many non-verbal communications can hint at the mood of the character, how they want to present themselves or perhaps are distracted and not being conscious in their movements.
  • Sometimes you don’t even need dialogue if you have a good grasp of your character’s non-verbal communication.
  • These might not be actions but instead physical things that trigger emotions.
    • He tightened her arms at her chest.
    • The sweat at his neck chilled.
    • An icy finger teased his spine.
    • A cold steel block landed in her stomach.
    • She hunted around his flat expression.
    • Beside his mood, he couldn’t help but taste the rise of bile.
    • Liquid eyes moved languidly.
    • She tongued her molars.
• Slang, Dialogue and Characterful speech
  • As with how they hold themselves or move, people also speak in different ways.
  • Give characters distinctive affectations in how they speak. These can define a character quickly and showcase their mood/state of mind, helping them stand out from the melange of other characters. When writing story with a large ensemble and lots of cutting between characters, this keeps the reader on track.
  • Using slang, cultural affectations, and a plethora of other traits to differentiate people can be used for comedy, mood and show character development.
  • An “upper class” dialect will be different from a military soldier’s slang or a businessman’s jargon.
  • Hinting at or splashes of repeated idioms or phrases can become a catchphrase to differentiate a character’s sensibilities.
• A Note on Character and Place Naming
  • When naming places and characters, think about how they work together and how they can conflict with each other.
  • Characters in particular can become confusing for a reader if they all have similar sounding names: Amanda, Anna, Adrian, Ariana. Use names that can be easily differentiated, especially when stories get more epic in scope. If you are intercutting between multiple characters in different locations, grounding them quickly can be vital to prevent confusion.
• The Flow of a River
  • Using characterful affectations and descriptions of sensation and non-verbal communication can also help bring pause to the action, help the reader with a beat to learn a little more about the world, character or emotion of the moment.
• More than 5
  • Something I like to think picture is that there are far more than the common “five senses”. Some examples are;
    • A sense of danger.
    • A sense of itchiness.
    • A sense of thirst.
    • A sense of hunger.
    • A sense of pressure.
    • A sense of movement and rest.
    • Thermoception – the sense of hot or cold.
    • Kinesthetic sense – awareness of the position and movement of muscles and joints.
    • Body awareness.
    • Interoception – internal body sensations such as heartbeat or digestion.
    • Nociception – the pain sense transcends the standard physical touch.
    • Equilibrioception – the sense of balance.
    • Chemoreceptors – the brain’s medulla detecting blood borne hormones and drugs as well as the vomiting reflex.
    • Electroreception – ability to detect electric fields.
    • Magnetoreception – ability to detect magnetic fields.
    • Proprioception – detection of your body parts are in space even if you can’t see them.
    • Time – the ability to detect the movement of time, cause and effect and one’s position in time’s arrow.

So, next time you write, try thinking about finer details to help a reader better understand the mood, scene, world, reflection or character. Let me know what you think and if you’d like to see more of these guides.