CRAFT: Weaving character descriptions into narrative

As a beginning writer one of the things I had trouble with was describing my characters, so the reader could form an impression of them, but without resorting to using cliched or boring descriptions or clunky narrative.

Cliched descriptions might include:

• her lips were as red as rubies
• he was tall, dark and handsome
• she had long, red hair that fell to her waist
• the color of his eyes reminded her of the sky

(and I'm sure you can think of others).

Clunky narrative reads like a checklist of attributes or something you read in an encyclopedia, eg. starting at the head and descending to the toes.

The downfall of doing it like this will do a couple of things to your writing. A heap of narrative inserted into the body of story runs the risk of slowing down the pace. And if it reads like an encyclopedia list of attributes it might also pull the reader out of your story.

But how can you insert character descriptions and avoid this? The best way - check out your fav.author's books to see how they weave it into their books.

Here's a few examples descriptive narrative from some of my favourite author's work.

EXAMPLE 1 - the first comes from Denise Rossetti's THE LONE WARRIOR (Ch.1)

Death padded in pursuit, slipping through the double shadows without a sound. Like the worst nightmare Mehcredi could imagine, except this was all too horribly real. How much longer she could elude him, the man with the hunter's face?

Panting, she glanced over her shoulder at the dark figure pacing behind. As he drifted from one patch of shadow to the next, something pale gleamed where the light of the Sibling Moons tangled in his black hair. Feathers worked into a long braid, and . . . bones?

Were they finger bones?

We're in Mehcredi's POV and she's fleeing from another person - see how we already have an impression of this person from this description yet it's part of the action, not a "laundry list" of features?

Denise has woven the description into the narrative and used a question to make it stand out.

The shock thrilled down her nerves, making her head swim and her vision blur, but her long legs carried her away at a swift, stumbling run, lurching down a narrow alley, deeper into the reeking slum the people of Caracole called the Melting Pot.

 Again - action coupled with a description, this time of Mehcredi - the inference is that she's tall.

Turning to fight never entered her head. Gods, she'd barely scraped through the First Circle tests as it was, and her first real commission for the Guild of Assassins had been an unqualified disaster. No, she wouldn't have a chance.

Mehcredi uses a curse-phrase "Gods", and from the way she thinks of herself we know she's not a very good assassin.

She couldn't hear his footfall, couldn't detect any movement, but his presence behind her was a tangible force. Every cell in her body sensed him with the animal instinct of the hunted—his predatory focus, the grim relish with which he anticipated her death.

See how her impressions of him tell the reader something more about him?

From her left came the frantic click of claws on the cobbles, a soft whining noise. That damn dog! She might as well wave a flaming torch above her head and be done with it.

"Get lost," she hissed, glancing around for something to throw. "Scat!" But the little animal only skittered aside, continuing to flank her.

Mehcredi twisted and doubled back. One hand pressed to the stitch in her side, she reeled around a corner and inevitably, there he stood, waiting pitiless. He wasn't a great deal taller than she was, but much broader. Lithe and strong and graceful, where she was long-boned and clumsy and doomed.

Narrative again, but this time Denise has drawn a comparison between her two characters so we get more of a description of both.

She opened her mouth to shriek, to plead, but long-fingered hands fastened around her throat.

One simple description in an action sentence.

As he slowly increased the pressure, digging painfully into the soft flesh under her jaw, the man smiled, lips pulling back from white teeth.

Same again.

The expression gave him an eerie, chilling beauty. He could have been an avenging angel or a handsome demon. Either way, those elegant brutal hands were the sure instruments of her death.

More narrative and from this we know this guy is good looking.

EXAMPLE 2 - from THE LONE WARRIOR by Denise Rossetti (Ch.1)

"Your skin is fine enough, I suppose. And your coloring is certainly unusual. Silver eyes are rare in the Isles and unknown in Trinitaria." He made his face bland. "You'd bring good creds in a southern slave market."

Denise uses dialogue this time to convey and build a physical description of Mehcredi.

EXAMPLE 3 - from RAPTURE by Jacqueline Frank (Ch.4)

Dae (the heroine) is confronting Magnus (the hero) over how he's to treat her.

"Because of that bitch that bit you?"
That made him smile for some reason. He supposed it was the way she stripped the bullshit away from everything and laid it all out the way it was. He could get used to that. Although he wasn't sure about the rest of Sanctuary.
"Yes," he agreed.
"Well, just keep in mind, I'm a whole new kind of bitch, okay? And I won't bite unless one of two things happens."
"I'm listening."
"First, you don't ever try to cut my balls off just so you can be top dog over me. I won't do it to you if you don't do it to me..."

Listen to the tone of Dae's dialogue - what's the impression you get here of her? Strong, a bit rough round the edges, a woman not afraid to stand up to someone?

The author has done this through the use of dialogue AND she's made it a part of plot in the story rather than as something entirely separate.

So, go dig out one of your favourite reads, analyze how the author inserted a description of their character, then try it out yourself.

Have fun!

CRAFT: Attention Grabbing Beginnings (Part 4)

I hope you've been looking at the keepers on your shelf with new eyes, analysing what makes them tick. Besides revisiting some great books it's a great exercise in analysing what works, what makes them so riveting.

The last couple of keepers come from Sydney Croft (a new author on my "to keep" shelf) and Lyndsay Sands.

Faith Black has been beaten, drugged and imprisoned, but none of that scared her. No, what frightened her to the core was the man confined with her. Chained to an improvised medieval rack and bare form the waist up, he lay on his back, arms over his head, his incredible chest marred by bruises and a deep laceration that extended from his left pec to his right hip.
He might have been rendered immobile, but he was in no way helpless.
His weapon, far more dangerous than the telekinesis-to her, at least-was his overpowering sexuality, a force that tugged her toward him, made her burn with need despite their grave situation.
The opening sentence in SEDUCED BY THE STORM by Sydney Croft pulls me immediately into the book. A woman in a horrible situation, suffering, possibly helpless, definitely in danger.
How’s she going to get out of it? Wait a minute, she’s not worried about the danger she’s in, but the man chained to the rack opposite her? Is he the enemy? Hmm, she’s attracted to him. He’s trouble but not the sort I was expecting. What is it about him that makes her ignore a life threatening situation?
Gotta read on.

It was a high-pitched scream that woke Elvi. Piercing and full of terror, it ripped her from her sleep and had her moving before she was quite awake. She started up abruptly only to curse and drop back down when her head slammed into the wooden lid of the coffin. (THE ACCIDENTAL VAMPIRE by Lyndsay Sands)
Screaming victim – seen it, read it, it’s been done before in countless books. Someone responding to the victim – yep, also been done before. Head slamming into a coffin lid to rescue the victim – say what? Didn’t that grab you? Simple but effective twist on a ho-hum situation.

So, what makes an attention grabbing beginning?

• Creating lots of questions in the readers mind that need to be answered.
• Try using dialogue to open your scene– it’s active and immediately draws the reader in
• Sentence structure – short and sharp, use of alliteration etc. (I’m no grammar guru but you can see from some of the examples what to look for when analysing your own work)
• Empathy with the character – make the reader be able to recognise or relate to them in some way
• Take a familiar situation and give it a twist

My advice - get your own keepers off the shelf, read the opening paragraphs and analyse the tools they’ve used to hook the reader. Then try out those tools with your own writing.

Give it a go and reel in those readers hook, line and sinker!

CRAFT: Attention Grabbing Beginnings (Part 3)

I really enjoyed picking out paragraphs for this series of posts. It took me some time to wade through my shelves and decide which openings grabbed my attention but it was fun.

This week sentence structure played a big part in why I chose these two books as great beginnings. See what you think...

The next scene, from Nina Bang’s A TASTE OF DARKNESS, starts from the hero’s point of view.
Werewolves-furry pains in the butt.
Werecats-sneaky, whisker-twitching manipulators.
Werejerks-every freakin’ loser with a were in front of its name.
Reinn hated them all. But most of all Reinn hated his job. Guardian of the Blood. What a crock.
He’d been a warrior in some form or another for most of his thousand years of existence. When he’d finally decided to walk away from that life, he’d bought a house and property in the Colorado Rockies, and then settled down to be alone. That was it. He. Wanted. To. Be. Alone. No friends, no emotional chains, no vulnerabilities.
Yeah, he was one cold bastard. But he was one cold bastard who was still alive.
Phew, that’s one dark, tortured hero. More questions? No answers? Oh, didn’t that happen in the last scene we read?
Take another look at the passage. Reread the first three lines. Do you detect a staccato rhythm in the descriptive phrases? Like the internal ravings of someone angry at the world. Hmm, emotional overtones.
Also note the broken structure of the sentence towards the end – He. Wanted. To. Be. Alone. Attention grabbing? You betcha. Effective. Yep.
And what about this? No friends, no emotional chains, no vulnerabilities. More strong emotion that creates a need to find out why. You’ve got to read on to find out more.

“The King must die.”
Four single-syllable words. One by one they were nothing special. Put together? They called up all kinds of bad shit: Murder. Betrayal. Treason.
Death.
I’m a huge fan of J.R.Ward but even if I hadn’t been, this opening scene from LOVER AVENGED just grabbed me and I was skimming the words as quickly as I could to find out who, why, where and what the heck was going on.
Very sharp, short sentences. Each word carefully chosen for maximum impact. Tension and excitement. The last four one-word sentence just go from icckk, to uh-oh, gasp, and ewww. The mind is calculating scenarios and the eyes are racing down the page wanting to read more. Know more.
The illiteration of the ‘s’-sound in the first sentence is great – single syllable words. And the character has attitude – look at the phrasing of the fourth sentence – They called up all kinds of bad shit… Pretty powerful for a such a short opening scene.

Last post for this series next week!