Descriptions

*If I know one thing about writing, it's that most people want their books to have good descriptions. This can be hard for some people to do, however, when they are trying to find good words to use for the description, whether it be a place, person, or object. I'm going to cover place descriptions, and if anyone else wants to add their opinions, ideas, or preferences, don't be shy! Go ahead and add to mine, or cover a different description topic!* -@CloverthePurpleThumbedGnome

# **Place Descriptions: Tell me, what does grass feel like?**

Finding the right words for a description is hard, and sometimes starting it can be harder. Say this is what you have for your description:

*The girl stood on a hill, but the hill wasn't normal, it had a magic-y look to it. It had purple grass, blue flowers, and a beautiful tree in the middle.*

Now, if you prefer it that way, go ahead and keep it. But, if you're like me, you want something more. You want your reader to **feel** what the MC is feeling, you want them to imagine the hill as **beautiful** and **different**. But you don't know any words to use describe it. That is where we are going to start.

In my opinion, the easiest way to find words is using what you've had since the very beginning! Nature. So, say you want to start by adding something more to the grass, what do you do? Try going outside, find some grass (Not too hard, right?) and take a good look at the grass. Now tell me, what is the color? Well, obvious, isn't it? The grass is green, duh. Now you might be thinking, I know the grass is green! How is that supposed to help?! But, just simply **telling** yourself that the grass is green **can** help, because what can the color green be? It can be pale, or vibrant. Welcoming, or cold. there are lots of different ways, but, **our** grass is purple. So, let's pretend you want you're grass something more then just the well known purple. Well, that's an easy fix, your grass can be magenta, violet, lavender, the list goes on. I'm going to choose magenta. Now, close your eyes, reach down, and brush your fingers against the grass, how does it feel? Grass can feel itchy, soft, comforting, those are already good words to choose. so you can choose one of those, or keep going, the choice is yours. these words can easily be used for the flowers as well, and don't be afraid to get creative. Let's see our description so far:

*The girl stood on a hill, but the hill wasn't normal, it had a magic-y look to it. It had vibrant; magenta grass that was soft on your toes, pale blue flowers, and a beautiful tree in the middle.*

Doesn't that already sound better? Just by adding a few descriptive words, your sentence can come to life. This process can work for more then just grass and flowers, however. Find a tree, listen to the wind, study your dog's behavior, I can assure you, you're more capable of finding descriptive words then you're letting yourself believe.

# **Place descriptions: Is Magic-y even a word?**

So, now you know a simple way to find descriptive words, but what about the objects you don't have around your house? Many people make fiction books about unknown worlds and make-believe creatures that you don't have roaming around your front yard. So it can be pretty challenging to make sure your reader is feeling what you want them to feel. Now, look at your simple description above. You know the MC is on a hill. You know the hill is unheard-of, but do you feel it? Does the words used make you feel as if you're in the moment with the character, staring at this wonder with which you stepped foot on? Maybe, but it might not sound the way you want it to sound. 'Magic' is such a common way to explain something make-believe, and 'Hill' is also very common. you want your hill to sound enchanting, or mystical.

Here's something for you to do... Find the word you want to change, (let's use magic for this example). Now, the word 'Magic' isn't always a good word to use, so let's start by brainstorming words similar to it.

Here's what I have:

1. Enchanting
2. Mythical
3. Charming
4. Exquisite

These are already good words to use, but if you want to, search them up in a thesaurus, and make another list of words with similar meaning. You can use this with pretty much any word, so let's use it for 'Hill'.

1. Knoll
2. Hillock
3. Mound

Now, all you need to do is choose the best sounding word, and add it in.

*The girl stood on a small knoll, but the knoll wasn't normal, it had an enchanting look to it*. *It had vibrant; magenta grass that was soft on your toes, pale blue flowers, and a beautiful tree in the middle.*

Better now? I think so. There is lots of other ways to add to your description, like similes, personification, metaphors, the list goes on. Using all of this, you can make an amazing description, let's see what we started with:

*The girl stood on a hill, but the hill wasn't normal, it had a magic-y look to it. It had purple grass, blue flowers, and a beautiful tree in the middle.*

Now let's see how much changed after using the tips I mentioned above, similes, personification, and more:

*She looked toward the blond haired girl, who now stood on a light, grassy knoll. The knoll certainly wasn't normal, and had an enchanting, yet welcoming look to it . It was coated with spades of magenta grass that felt soft on your toes, pale blue flowers, and a beautiful, towering tree served as the centerpiece.*

# **Describing moments: How do I describe a moment, or feelings?**

When you're writing descriptions about moments, or feelings, it's hard to make the readers feel the same way your character is feeling. One way you can do this is by "exploding" a moment. You might have a few sentences that seem a little too bland, or boring, and you'd like to make them more interesting to read. To do that, you need to add emotions, and actions into it. You need to make your characters important. Here's a few examples, and a free template you can use: Examples & Template - *@Fluffyneondinosaur*

# ***Your turn!***

*I hope my tips and suggestions help! If you have your own ideas, opinions, or preferences, please feel free to add them in. Adjust mine if you find something that doesn't work, or give me ideas! Also, if you have your own way of creating object or person descriptions, that would be lovely! I hope this helps, even if it may not be the most professional way of doing it. -@CloverthePurpleThumbedGnome*