An extremely common writing foible I see when I’m editing novels reads like this…
“Hey!” Nathan heard a voice say.
Nathan turned to see someone approach him on the sidewalk.
“What are you doing?” the man asked.
“Hey, Egya! Working on a blog post about why it’s confusing when characters and settings are only belatedly described as a scene is unfolding,” Nathan said.
Nathan has known Egya since college. He’s Nathan’s best friend and he hangs out with him on a regular basis.
“Oh,” Egya said. “Tell them they should just be straightforward.”
Egya was wearing a trendy navy jumpsuit with a hooded sweatshirt and a flat leather cap. They stood on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn and it was snowing heavily. Throngs of masked pedestrians scurried past them to escape the blowing flakes.
“I am,” Nathan said.
Here’s why this approach can be disorienting: When you provide scant details about what’s happening in a scene, the reader will fill in gaps on their own. So as you belatedly provide more detail, you force the reader to constantly revise their mental image of the scene, which can be exhausting. In the absence of clear information, they may construct a “default” image that might not be correct.
Let’s go back to the passage.
“Nathan heard a voice” is vague, so the reader will likely assume he’s being approached by a stranger. Otherwise, why wouldn’t he just recognize his best friend’s voice?
Then, we gradually realize this isn’t a stranger… it’s Nathan’s best friend. Well, why didn’t Nathan just say so??
We get a quick vague detail about a sidewalk, but I’m guessing you weren’t picturing a snowy landscape thronged with masked pedestrians…
Every new detail that’s added forces the reader to go back to update their mental picture in a way that can quickly become disorienting and cumbersome, particularly the longer the details are delayed.
Instead, if you just pause to set the scene and describe characters as they arrive, it usually makes much more sense to the reader. You can just tell the reader who people are.
Like so:
It was snowing heavily on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn and throngs of masked pedestrians scurried past Nathan to escape the blowing flakes.
“Hey!” Egya shouted.
Nathan turned to see Egya, his best friend, someone he has known since college and hangs out with on a very regular basis. He was wearing a trendy navy jumpsuit with a hooded sweatshirt and a flat leather cap.
“What are you doing?” Egya asked.
“Working on a blog post about why it’s confusing when characters and settings are only belatedly described as a scene is unfolding,” Nathan said.
“Oh,” Egya said. “Tell them they should just be straightforward.”
“I am,” Nathan said.
This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but at least be conscious of breaking it.
When the anchoring perspective enters a new physical space: describe it. When a new character arrives: describe them immediately and contextualize who they are from the vantage point of the anchoring perspective.
You don’t need to wait for a break in the action, you don’t need a convoluted “trigger” for the description, you don’t need to wait for the narrating perspective to have specific thoughts.
Just hit pause, describe, and explain.
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Art: Winter Scene in Brooklyn by Francis Guy
Last night I participated on a PBS Webinar on Hemingway. The panel discussed 4 of his short stories. One was Indian Camp, which I am reading again… slowly. It is a great example of what you are discussing in your blog. It’s easy, yet richly clear for the reader, putting us in the story. Thank you for your post.
This is a really good point. Perhaps, unless there’s something the author wants to withhold, all narration should flow like a movie or a real life situation. We see and then we hear. We hear and then we judge or form an opinion. In instances where we hear first, as soon as we become aware of the source of the sound, the reader should be shown what we’re seeing. It does appear a more profession technique on the page. Also helps the reader to suspend disbelief.
Thanks, Nathan!
Wow, Nathan! As I read this, I immediately realized I had done that exact thing in my current WIP: belatedly described a major character. I introduce him in the third sentence on page one…and don’t describe him until page ten! I have no idea why I did that. Every other character is described as soon as they are introduced.
I had to fix it while thinking about it, so went right to my file, opened the story and made the correction.
Thanks for the jog. Really improved the start page.
Jeepers. I can’t remember ever picking up a book that read like this. Thank the gods for the editing process.
So much this. In the past year I read at least two novels in which, I’m not kidding, you follow a character and his best friend for twenty pages, and then he finally describes his friend with something like, “Roger is six foot four, and has blond hair down over his shoulders, so he tends to stand out in a crowd.” Twenty pages in! Asking me to revise in my head every scene I’d just read. It made me want to throw the book at the author.