- Inspirations
March 23, 2013
Writing: how to describe a room.
- Keep it simple.
- Talk about colors, patterns, decor, and unique architectural details, if they're relevant.
- Talk about furnishings and props, especially if characters use them.
- Talk about anything in the room if it reveals something about the characters within.
- Talk about space.
- Talk about unique details that readers may not usually associate with a given place (especially for sci-fi and fantasy works, where the settings are purposefully different anyway).
- Describe it naturally with your own personal writing style and sensibilities.
- Get technical or overly-explicit.
- Divulge in unnecessary details.
- Tell about room's atmosphere or impression; show it instead.
- Overthink or overdo things.
- Dump details in one long paragraph.
- Describe things in a dull, dry, choppy, or uninteresting manner; use your natural narrative voice.
- Describe things that the reader will already assume for a given place, especially if such things don't contribute to the story.
16 comments:
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i like ur writing style....
You are a great writer. I'll uses some of your examples in the future.
Brilliant, brilliant writer you are!
Thanks for this write up. Very well done.
Thank you. I came from Doug Walker's review of the second episode of Avatar: the Last Airbender where he talked about how the show makes you feel like you're in a room, and so I was wondering how one might do that in writing.
Thanks the writer
really helpfull thank you
Thanks, this has really been helpful.
This was really helpful thank you very much.
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Lea`Brooks Contributor Contributor
How would you describe this room.
Discussion in ' Word Mechanics ' started by Lea`Brooks , May 20, 2016 .
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_5693602ab1037296e8e506d36b317435'); }); This is essentially what a bedroom looks like in my story (though it's much wider). Two solid walls and two others covered with these open archways. But I'm struggling to write it so that it makes sense. Any pointers?
Witchymama Active Member
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_5693602ab1037296e8e506d36b317435'); }); Ok first of all, I now know what I want for my dream bedroom. You could describe it as open air. I don't know, but I would probably describe the room based on directional views from inside it. What does the character see when on the bed? While sitting at the vanity?
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_5693602ab1037296e8e506d36b317435'); }); Witchymama said: ↑ Ok first of all, I now know what I want for my dream bedroom. You could describe it as open air. I don't know, but I would probably describe the room based on directional views from inside it. What does the character see when on the bed? While sitting at the vanity? Click to expand...
SethLoki Retired Autodidact Contributor
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_5693602ab1037296e8e506d36b317435'); }); A colonnade style bedroom, its high ceiling supported by ornate and proud alabaster columns, each arched precisely to the other. All grand inside too with a marbled open space that's purposely mezzanined fore and aft to afford views of the city and countryside.
matwoolf Banned Contributor
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_5693602ab1037296e8e506d36b317435'); }); Open air room with big concrete posts supporting the ceiling, and a flush vanity.
Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_5693602ab1037296e8e506d36b317435'); }); matwoolf said: ↑ Open air room with big concrete posts supporting the ceiling, and a flush vanity. Click to expand...
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_5693602ab1037296e8e506d36b317435'); }); Really, what was the curious slogan scripted over the way to Geoffrey's chamber, and in this place of such atmosphere, she stroked her neck.
Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_5693602ab1037296e8e506d36b317435'); }); It reminds me of something either from an Italian Villa, or of a Romanesque inspiration. Though I would like to think there would be windows on a bedroom that lavish and extravagant, otherwise it would be littered with all sorts of things you would not want in there. Otherwise that is what I would describe it as in terms of what it looks like, using the main features of the room itself. It was of columns that held the ceiling high and off the marble floor, and the large panes of glass filling the archways of the ornate pillars.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_5693602ab1037296e8e506d36b317435'); }); Cave Troll said: ↑ It reminds me of something either from an Italian Villa, or of a Romanesque inspiration. Though I would like to think there would be windows on a bedroom that lavish and extravagant, otherwise it would be littered with all sorts of things you would not want in there. Otherwise that is what I would describe it as in terms of what it looks like, using the main features of the room itself. It was of columns that held the ceiling high and off the marble floor, and the large panes of glass filling the archways of the ornate pillars. Click to expand...
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_5693602ab1037296e8e506d36b317435'); }); They had glass, but ok... Can I get a partial credit for ornate pillars and archways?
peachalulu Member Reviewer Contributor
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_5693602ab1037296e8e506d36b317435'); }); A columnated breezeway that the garden was starting to claim. Vines had already woven through the archways.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_5693602ab1037296e8e506d36b317435'); }); Cave Troll said: ↑ They had glass, but ok... Can I get a partial credit for ornate pillars and archways? Click to expand...
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_5693602ab1037296e8e506d36b317435'); }); Four stumps, thick, cold stumps, stretched to an ornate high roof, decorated in our legends of antiquity. I touched the clasp of my toga, and caught by gust it flew seawards, my message clear to Mark Anthony. 'Huh, hmm, huh, huh, errr,' he said, spirit forces caught in his throat. The senator tore at his groinplate, and candle lit, draped the plate across my full Arabian breasts. 'Retain modesty of Aristotle,' he said, his penis swinging in shadow, the one horizontal stump climbed this house of vertical attraction. I knew how it would not be long, how our bath time together, how a dozen individual slaves attending to our sexual whims would bring us to the verge of very, very burst on this mountain top, under gods. Oh do shut up, dick head.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_5693602ab1037296e8e506d36b317435'); }); Never mind.... (whistling and walks away) @Lea`Brooks
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_5693602ab1037296e8e506d36b317435'); }); I built it in the Sims, but it's not letting me upload it....
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_5693602ab1037296e8e506d36b317435'); }); Lea`Brooks said: ↑ I built it in the Sims, but it's not letting me upload it.... Click to expand...
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_5693602ab1037296e8e506d36b317435'); }); Ha-ha! I figured it out. Observe: Preferably, the brown fences in arches would be stone fences. But I don't have the option to do that.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_5693602ab1037296e8e506d36b317435'); }); Fab–but (as mentioned on a concurrent thread) poss a bit draughty. If that bed were mine I'd be draping the 4 poster with material all diaphanous like for excluding mozzies and a more secure sense of snug. Stop press. Cue Twilight Zone leitmotif. Wifey here has just loaded up Minecraft and by strange coincidence is crafting something similar (not asked for her motive); I was peering into this writing forum world at your image while over the lid of laptop something quite similar is being worked on in another virtual arena. I think it's spooked me a little.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_5693602ab1037296e8e506d36b317435'); }); SethLoki said: ↑ Fab–but (as mentioned on a concurrent thread) poss a bit draughty. If that bed were mine I'd be draping the 4 poster with material all diaphanous like for excluding mozzies and a more secure sense of snug. Click to expand...
IHaveNoName Senior Member Community Volunteer
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_5693602ab1037296e8e506d36b317435'); }); The room was large, tiled in marble, with a small fireplace at one end. Two of the walls were colonnades; beyond them lay balconies.
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In the expanse of the room, though I was quite still, I felt my soul begin a ballet dance.
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