Aren’t descriptions those portions of books that you skip? Aren’t they boring? Don’t they stop the forward movement of the plot?
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Sometimes they do. But when you are the writer, you don’t have to stop the movement even if you are describing something.
Make something move.
An effective writer makes a description move. Wind blows the curtains. The sea surges on the shore in frothy waves. The train plows through fields of ripe winter wheat. You get the idea.
Read the following description of an abandoned cabin from Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire and figure out what is moving:
The cabin stands on the banks of the unpotable waters of Salt Creek, a shallow stream on a bed of quicksand. . . . Turnbow Cabin itself is a well-preserved ruin (nothing decays around here) made of juniper, pinyon and cottonwood logs, no two alike in shape or size. The crudity of the construction followed from the scarcity of wood, not lack of skill. The cracks between the unhewn logs were chinked with adobe; a few fragments still remain. . . . There is a doorway but no door, a single window and no glass. The floor consists of warped, odd-size planks. In one corner is a manger for horses, an addition made long after the death of Mr. Turnbow. Cobwebs complete with black widow spiders adorn the darker corners under the ceiling. In the center of the room is a massive post of juniper shoring up the ancient, sagging roof, which is a thatchwork affair of poles, mud and rock, very leaky. As shelter, the cabin cannot be recommended, except for its shade on a hot day.
What was moving?
Did you figure it out? Do you know what is moving?
When you read about this cabin in ruins, you first see the cabin from the outside. Then you move to the inside—actually entering through the doorway with no door. Then you see the cabin from the floor to the ceiling. What’s moving? You are!
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Even though the logs, cobwebs, and black widow spiders don’t move, you move through the description because the author changes the vantage point from outside the cabin to inside, from the floor to the ceiling and the roof. The reader’s vantage point is constantly moving.
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Now it’s your turn: Write a description of some place you love or some place you can’t stand. Be sure to make something move, even if it is the reader’s vantage point.
