Writing Tips

Writing Descriptions Using the Seven Elements

This post is about writing descriptions using pictures and what I call the Seven Elements. The seven elements are 1.-5.) the Five senses,  6.) thoughts and feelings, and 7.) exposition and foreshadowing. People live by all of these elements every single day, so why shouldn't your characters? Pay attention some time while you are doing something. You might surprise yourself.

While you are reading this, what kind of chair are you sitting in? Are you slouching? Your neck feel strained yet, or do you have a headache from reading a lot? Or is that headache from the tension in your shoulders because you're desperate to block out noise, or you needed an escape from the day-to-day of your intense drama-ridden life? Or is the headache from a medical condition, but you're determined to power through it? Okay, so are you feeling intrigued by what you are reading, or bored? Those are physical manifestations of the environment around you for the sense of touch and sight, and for the emotions of boredom or intrigue, as well as hints of exposition and possible foreshadowing. Your thoughts are the evaluation of what I am writing.

Let's use this scenario below to cover the seven elements I use when writing.

Sight: The letters on the screen are black, and the screen lights up the dark room. The light fragments through the scratched lenses of your reading glasses on the desk. (Hint of exposition and emotion, since the glasses are not well taken care of:) Might as well read the rest of this, you're almost half-way through anyway, right? You yawn. (Hint of foreshadowing. If you're yawning, you may end up falling asleep on the desk, which could lead to some other unwanted things happening, like a sticky note on your head, or waking up to the smell of coffee, but the lights are off and the mug is empty, which means you missed your brother and didn't get to tell him that important message. Again.)

Hearing: While sitting here, you can hear the whirring of the motor from the fan above. It's slightly off-center, so it creaks back and forth like it might fall at any time. The strings dangling from it are swaying lightly (sight due to the back and forth creaking motion that drew you to look up, which is a cause-and-effect aspect, leading from one sense to another. You do this everyday by listening, thinking, observing, reacting.)

Then a fly buzzes by your ears for the twelve-thousandth time, and you jerk your head away to look at it. You look for the flyswatter in order to smack it, but you catch a glimpse of the clock on your screen.

Where is your brother? He was supposed to be home before Mom and Dad got home. (Hinted emotion again, and more hinted foreshdowing and exposition. Dramatic questions throughout a passage will intensify page-turning in a reader. And they don't have to be framed within the passage. The passage itself should be designed to provoke a reader to ask them.)

Touch: The fly lands on your arm, and you smack it. It leaves a red mark (sight aspect of cause and effect leading from touch to sight again), and the red mark stings.

Your teeth grit together. (Back to touch and emotion again.)

Ew. Fly guts are on your skin.

Grimacing, you turn your arm and shake it. It doesn't slide off, so you take one of your other pencils and scrape it off, throwing both into the trash bin next to your foot because it is absolutely disgusting and there is no way you are going to use it again with fly guts on it. (Thought aspect related to emotional response to the touch of fly guts on the skin.) 

Your chair begins to turn side to side, and your feet kick every now and again, thumping the underside of the desk with your shin. It's uncomfortable.

Emotion and/or thought: You sigh. This is a boring entry. Or is it? Yeah. It is. Yet it's worse, because you're waiting on your brother. He still hasn't come home. You can't focus. But you push through anyway, because it could be helpful on improving your writing. Because just sitting there in despair means nothing will change and you won't get anything done.

This chapter is mostly vague (evaluation of why reading it leads to emotion of boredom, and also elevates the conflict within the character), and you would rather be spending your time writing something more fun, or reading something better. Well, honestly, even drawing or doodling is better at this point, but this is just slightly helpful enough that you'll be able to improve. And it's helping the tiniest bit to keep your mind off of the big fight that is coming. The fight. Ugh.

Now your mouth is a bit dry. You haven't taken a drink for quite a while. But the coffee is old. It's cold, and it's gross.

Smell: A horrid smell drifts up your nose, and your eyes water. It smells like sweaty sneakers and rotted melon rinds. Horrified, you look over at your brother, who's just snuck in through the back door, and you smack him because he is standing there smirking at you. "You farted, that's nasty!" He snickers over crop-dusting you, shrugs, and walks away still laughing--and you're fuming. And contemplating how best to tell him what happened to his favorite guitar. (Each of these are reactions to the sudden smell, which I described in detail, but also, it reverts to continued elevation of what is coming, as well as what actually happened.) Oh, you can't wait to get him back. He'll pay for that.

Taste: It's horrible. You can taste it. Covering your nose and trying to return to the screen and read through watering eyes, you wait for it to pass and are grateful when it finally does. Finally. Clean air again! After his having farted on you, now you can't wait until he sees what his ex-girlfriend did to his guitar with fingernail polish and spray paint.

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Now, if you noticed, I covered every element in a logical order, bouncing back and forth from how one sense might make a person then rely on another to analyze a situation and respond to it.

We use these elements in just such a manner every single day, so in writing, it is most natural to do the same. Many readers most enjoy a story that flows this way, as it feels so real that they imagine it more clearly.

You, as writer, are basically directing a movie for others to watch in their heads. What you focus the mind's camera, or eye, upon is what they will notice when they watch the mental movie you have created.

Make sure to shine a spotlight where you want them to look, and highlight what you want them to notice. What isn't important to flow, intensity, and provocation should be background noise. Just barely there enough to enhance what is important.

Make this a living, breathing thing that even ensnares you.

If you don't ensnare yourself and just rush through a basic outline of the story, not only will your reader get annoyed and leave your work half-read, you will find yourself without a true following. Which is because the continuous hot-potato game of the elements are not being utilized to enhance what is happening in your story. To provoke readers to have questions they need answered, and to submerge them in something that feels utterly real.

Immerse yourself in every sense your characters may endure. Consider how it is relevant to the issues they face and the pressure they feel. If it isn't relevant, don't include it. Or barely, barely, barely brush over it. LIVE THEIR LIFE. Then your readers will live it, too, and your fan base will explode over the years as you cultivate it. Then it won't be so much about a readership as the pride you have over having become such an excellent writer. Younger writers will come to you for advice, then, and you will be their expert.

Extras: Often, if I can't think of a way to start a scene, I will search for a picture in a magazine article or something and begin describing it using the seven elements listed above. It often breaks the dam that holds back my creativity, until I have put those first few words or paragraphs onto the page. If I can't find a descent picture, sometimes I often rely on a memory and try to think of the details that I most often saw in the place, describing them as I passed them or took notice of them. Try writing a scene for a specific piece of music, too. Those are quite fun, and they bring out certain things that might surprise you.