I’m reposting this from the Woolaston Writing Workshop Blog.

Did you ever witness something so absolutely amazing, and then try to describe it to someone else, only to find yourself at a loss for words? You can replay the event perfectly in your own mind, but when you tried to describe it to someone else you found it difficult? This happens to me when I’m writing. I treat my books like movies and episodes of TV shows. I can see the action in my head, but sometimes I have trouble translating what I just “watched” onto paper (or computer screen). Sometimes I need to replay the scene a few times in order to get it right.

Being descriptive and providing details can pull your reader into your writing. If a scene sounds too boring or there aren’t enough details, your reader may lose interest. If there are too many details, the very same thing can happen. We writers can “see” our story when we’re writing it, but we also want our readers to “see” it as well.

I have an exercise that may help you if you have trouble being descriptive. My Creative Writing Teacher used this exercise when I was a senior in high school (shout out to Mrs. Tracy Rice-Weber!). My class divided into groups of three or four, and we looked through art and architecture magazines. We each chose a picture of a room or a house, and wrote a short story about the room or house, being as descriptive as possible. Then we read our story out loud to our group and it was the group’s job to look through our chosen magazine and find what we had described in our story. You couldn’t be lazy and say something like, “It’s a room with a blue chair at a table”. Boring! No, you had to be creative and put some effort into it, like, “She collapsed onto her ottoman, which was just long enough to support her”. Alright, we’re looking for a room with an ottoman…

I think I could come up with a pretty good ghost story for that room above, even if it is bright and well-lit.

Grab a magazine, or check out a picture of a room online (Pinterest is a great source for this). Spend a few minutes looking at the room. Notice as many things about it as you can: the furniture and how it is arranged. Is it older furniture or more modern? What color are the walls? Is there wallpaper? Hardwood floors or carpet? Area rugs? Now write a short scene that takes place inside that room, using the things you see in it. Don’t just say rug, say what kind of rug or what color. Don’t just say wallpaper, say floral if it has flowers or if it’s faded, mention that (the floral wallpaper, faded from time and exposure to sunlight).

Here’s another way: watch a scene from a TV show or a movie. If you’re watching a DVD or YouTube or a streaming service and you can pause and rewind, that’s helpful. Watch the scene, then pause it, and describe what happened. If there are people present, what did they say? What did they do? Was anyone emotional? Angry? Excited? Where did the scene take place? In a house or apartment? Outside? At a bar? In a courtroom (if you’re watching Law and Order)? Then go back and rewatch the scene, and see how many details you picked up on, and how many more you can include. If you do this a few times you’re going to be amazed at how many more details you may notice each time you do it. It’s like when I watch John Carpenter’s The Thing. No matter how many times I see it I always find some little detail I missed the first few times I watched it (or first 47 times, I’ve lost count).

I hope this helps. Happy writing, everyone.