Monday, January 25, 2010

Images

First, I'll do my writing exercise. For ten minutes I'll describe what I'm hearing. But today I'm also going to look outside, too.

Ten minutes on the timer:

Raindrops pattering on my roof. Outside the wind howls, and like a huge mouth opening wide, blows, rustling leaves on the trees, whipping and scattering loose leaves across the street.

The street is slick with rainwater, like large tears flowing from a giant's eyes.

Winter grips us in its hands, indecisive about the outcome. Will it be snow or rain or some of both?

Well, the timer just went off. That was interesting. I might be able to use those images in one of my stories.

I'm really trying to focus more on descriptions. I've looked over my WIP and find it sorely lacking in description. I think I need to remember what I learned in college poetry courses. One of my instructors told us to make sure we use all of our senses when we write. She said the readers need to see, smell, hear, taste and feel what we are sensing.

Sounds like good advice to me.

2 comments:

  1. It's perfect advice. I'm not good with description either, but one thing I've learned is that description shouldn't be there just for the sake of describing something. It should be there to give a sense of how the surrounding affect the characters, so that's what I focus on.

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  2. That's a good reminder, to use all the senses. I'm playing with a lot of description in WIP today.

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