I am a technical editor for an airline, and recently my department moved from one building to a new one. I love my new office.
Everything is new and clean. It’s located in an airplane hangar, so I can just step away from my desk and go see the airplanes up close as the mechanics perform maintenance on them. At my former office building, thousands -and I mean thousands- of people worked on the property. Airline vehicles of all shapes and sizes trekked around. With all those people and trucks, it was noisy. In the hallways, yelling, talking, laughing. On the airport roads outside, honking, screeching, banging.
The new building is way on the north side of the property in a quieter part of town. Less than a hundred people work in it. So much calmer—which I love.
So, imagine my surprise when the manager of the department, my boss’s boss, said in a meeting he didn’t like the new quarters. This confused me, because he had championed the move; he really tried to sell it to my co-workers and me. And we like the new place so much more than the old one.
So, what’s up with that?
Here’s the thing: my manager is a super extrovert. He loves being around people all the time. He loves the hustle and bustle of our company. But when the department moved to a much more isolated facility, he found the place too quiet. Too empty. Boring.
I’m telling this account to segway into a topic I want to explore: how a character’s point-of-view influences description.
I used to think describing a room or a person in fiction was an objective process. But think about it—whoever is narrating the scene, whether it is first or third person, will describe something through the lens of their mind.
For example, take a girl and boy teen couple at a concert. The girl may see the lead singer of the band as sexy, interesting, and profound while the boy may see him as sweaty, smarmy, and pretentious.
Yes, the usual suspects still need to apply when it comes to description in fiction:
- Sensory details: address the five senses as much as possible. Rely on more than just what can be seen by the character. What do they smell or hear?
- Character action: avoid blocks of description by weaving in the actions of the characters; this helps avoid slowing the pace of the story.
- Figurative language: throw in a metaphor or some other figure of speech to help set the tone. For example: the funeral was a circus. A good figure of speech can go a long way in describing something.
- Word choice: pick just the right word. One person may describe someone as slender, while another person may describe that same person as skin and bones. Connotation of a word is important.
All these elements need to be used in description, but it wasn’t until recently I learned they need to be applied from the viewpoint character’s perspective.
So, while I love the new place where I work for its isolated location, my manager hates it for the same reason. I probably describe the building in a very different way than he does to friends.
Description Exercises:
- Describe a party scene from two different character viewpoints. The first would be of someone who wants to be there. Then describe the same party from someone who does not want to be there.
- Describe a coffee shop from the viewpoint of someone who wants to read in a quiet corner. She loves the coffee aroma and such. Then describe the same coffee shop from the viewpoint of someone who wants to play board games in the middle of the room with friends; however, he is concerned about the noise: the loud music or the coffee machines humming. Will the game players not be able to hear each other?
- Describe the first impression of a new person in a support group. One viewpoint should be from someone who likes the person. Another viewpoint should be from someone who does not like the same person.
Try one or more of these exercises and see what you come up with.
Friday’s Findings
- 5 Ways to Write Better Descriptions for Creative Writers
- Fiction University: How to Write Description Without Going Overboard
- Writing Descriptions
- Writing Description in Fiction
- How To Write Descriptions And Create A Sense Of Place
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-using-binoculars-in-between-stack-of-books-3769697/
Andrew M. Friday 
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