Description through characterization

For many readers, one of the more effective ways of describing a scene is through the viewpoint character. The technique is a sub-category of “description as seasoning,” which I talked about last post, but it’s hard to describe in a brief paragraph. Hence this post.

The first thing is that, when most people enter a room or a park, they see the whole thing…but they don’t register everything, much less remember what they see. When I drive down a new street, I see the whole street, but I could not tell you the color of the second house on the right without checking…unless it was unusual in some way (painted in stripes, or neon green when all the other houses were neutrals, or had a full-sized mural on the front).

This is how most people work. There is so much data available when people look around themselves that our brains are programmed to ignore most of it unless it is 1) a possible threat (moving, unfamiliar, large), 2) unusual, different, or unexpected (e.g. an elephant walking through a supermarket), 3) congruent with the viewer’s focus (as with the selective attention video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo ) or personal interests. Realistic characters, unless they have reasons to be hyper-aware, aren’t going to work any differently. They’re going to register things according to how relevant they are to that character, starting with anything threatening, different, or interesting.

The second thing is that, when people enter a new place, they do a lot more than look at it. I tried to go to a new restaurant this weekend, and the first thing that I registered when I walked in the door was the thumping bass beat of the much-too-loud music. I left. I couldn’t describe anything else about it in detail without going back to check deliberately. When I walk into someone’s house—especially if I’ve been there before—I might notice if something major has changed. I will definitely notice if I smell bread or cookies baking, or if something smells musty or burnt. I might notice if the person is using potpourri or air freshener, but I don’t tend to register that unless it’s rather strong—for me, that’s more of a subliminal effect. When I come into a building from outside, I register temperature changes, especially pleasant and unpleasant ones—“Why is the air conditioning turned up so high?”

When a viewpoint character enters a place, they aren’t just seeing it. They’re experiencing it, and they register different parts of the experience as they become more personally relevant. If I walk into my sister’s house when it’s bitterly cold and windy out, the first thing I register is that it’s nice and warm. I’ll notice the smell of the curry next, and only then realize that she’s rearranged the furniture (and if the furniture is where I expect it to be, I won’t notice it at all unless there’s stuff piled in the chair where I usually sit). On a similar day, if I’m really hungry when I get there, I’ll notice the curry-smell first, and the warmth second.

That’s what I mean when I talk about description through character:  describing things as the characters experience them, particularly the viewpoint character. The viewpoint character allows more internal reactions and sensations (“The doorknob felt rough. She let go hastily, brushing rust from her hand”), but you can also have a non-viewpoint character enter a room, sniff, and say, “Curry for dinner again?” or “Smells like something died under the refrigerator.” Characters who are already familiar with a place can comment on things that have changed—“When did you cut down that big oak?” “You finally got a writing desk.” All of these give you a two-fer—the reader gets a bigger picture of the place in which the scene is happening, while also getting some information about the character.  Sometimes, you get a three- or even four-fer—descriptive details, characterization of the speaker, plus more details and characterization of the POV character through their internal reaction to what the non-POV says or does.

Stage business works similarly to dialog and character reactions. The viewpoint character may not register anything but “it’s a flower garden” until a secondary character starts sneezing because they’re allergic to goldenrod, or somebody else tries to pick the rugosa roses and gets stabbed by their many, many thorns. The viewpoint character may not know that those are antique side tables until they try to set a teacup down on one and the host pitches a fit about possible damage to the finish. The viewpoint character can watch other people making a close examination of something—a dent in a car door, a portrait, the pattern in a rug or curtain, a pile of tools left out by the back door—that didn’t mean anything to the POV until somebody else displayed interest. And the POV character’s reaction will provide yet more information, whether it’s “Why is he peering at that thing,” “Isn’t that just like Suli, fussing about china patterns,” or “OMG, that shovel Ivan picked up has blood on it!”

The main problem with this style of description is that the writer has to pay attention. A tough-guy character who rarely says anything other than “yup” or “nope” isn’t likely to comment—verbally or mentally—that the cerulean-and-cream brocade curtains remind him of the Greek Key china his Aunt Sophia brought with her when she emigrated forty-two years ago. Not unless the character has consistently made similar mental comments right from the start of the story (if he’s been doing this verbally, he’s clearly not a yup-or-nope kind of guy). And not only does the character have to be a person who would notice the curtains and connect them to a family memory, he has to be someone who would call them cerulean-and-cream instead of blue and white, and refer specifically to a Greek Key pattern, rather than “the geometric border on the fancy dinnerware.”

In other words, word choice becomes even more important, because it not only has to convey some objective physical characteristics of the place or object or person being described, it also has to do so the way the particular character would say/think/notice it. This makes it a poor choice for writers who like ornate descriptions such as “the freshness of morning breathed and shimmered in that lofty chamber, chasing the blue and dusky shades of departed night to the corners and recesses,” unless they can actually write a character who talks and thinks like that all the time.