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When an author breaks into a scene
to describe the furniture in a room or the cut of a character’s clothing, the
forward motion of the story is stopped. While there are cases when this is
required, the best sort of description allows the story to continue while still
conveying the necessary information. Let’s look at an excerpt from Graham
Greene’s Travels with My Aunt. Notice
how the author incorporates the description of a main character into the story
of his mother’s funeral.
When an author breaks into a scene
to describe the furniture in a room or the cut of a character’s clothing, the
forward motion of the story is stopped. While there are cases when this is
required, the best sort of description allows the story to continue while still
conveying the necessary information. Let’s look at an excerpt from Graham
Greene’s Travels with My Aunt. Notice
how the author incorporates the description of a main character into the story
of his mother’s funeral.
“It was, as I recognized with some
difficulty from a photograph in the family album, my Aunt Augusta, who had
arrived late, dressed as the late Queen Mary of beloved memory might have
dressed if she had still been with us and had adapted herself a little bit
towards the present mode. I was surprised by her brilliant red hair,
monumentally piled, and her two big front teeth, which gave her a vital
Neanderthal air. Somebody said, “Hush” and a clergyman began a prayer…”
Although we get a vivid picture of Aunt Augusta we are not
pulled out of the funeral to learn what she looks like. This description also
provides information beyond the older woman’s appearance. Seeing the aunt
through her nephew’s eyes we learn about the nephew himself, his attachment to
Queen Mary, his shock at her unconventional hair and the distance between him
and his relation.
Compare this with: “My aunt was an
unfashionably dressed, older woman with shocking red hair which she had piled
on her head. She had two big front teeth, which gave her the air of a
Neanderthal.” It has the same facts about the aunt’s appearance, but we get
much less out of it.
Go through your writing and see if
the story comes to a standstill when you describe settings or people. Readers
will put up with it for a little while, but eventually most people will just
skim through the paragraphs of description to get to the part where the story
resumes.
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