We all know that when you’re writing you sometimes just want to add and add every little detail and description that pops into your mind, sometimes though it can be too much and can overload your reader. This post will hopefully help you balance consistency with the want of being creative.
First things first: Descriptions.
Descriptions build the basis of any good story. They can build what a character looks like, how they act, where they are, and what they do, but we only need the basic information. So while it may be nice to describe every outfit the character wears, one sentence is probably enough. Keep it simple: Their hair was the colour of the sun, glimmering with their blue eyes. By leaving some details up to interpretation, it can also help the reader build their own vision of the character.
When describing places make sure to include only the important details. Everyone knows a room has four walls and a doorway somewhere, including all the other stuff. Is the furniture different from normal rooms? Are there odd paintings on the wall? Describe the things you wouldn’t normally see in a room to build the description. For example: the room’s walls were bare and the only lone piece of furniture was a bed in the corner. The window overlooked a massive garden that was brimming with life and magic.
You want to keep your reader interested. If you keep adding information they may skip over the descriptions altogether which is not a good thing.
Another thing to do when describing things and writing: keep things short and sweet. Don’t have too many long paragraphs or long lengthy pages. Make sure you separate your writing and have dialogue on neat lines. No one likes looking at a big chunk of writing and thinking they have to read it all, keep things separated and you’ll find that people may read your writing quicker even because of the new space.
When in the middle of writing, a lot of the time I find myself just wanting to add more and more to the story, I want to add an extra line of dialogue or another whole scene. But I have to top myself. I don’t want pointless scenes or pointless dialogues. An analogy I use is to pretend you’re writing in blood. Make sure everything counts and everything has a purpose. If it doesn’t, remember that you only have a limited amount of blood (words) to use and everything has to mean something. If your line of dialogue does not contribute to the plot, cut it. If a scene is pointless, cut it. There are lines where you cut too much and some pointless scenes are needed however for character building, arcs, and relationships, but don’t make them filler scenes.
Filler scenes are random scenes here and there that break up the action but don’t move the story forward. Make sure every scene is moving your story forward.
That’s it for this post but we hope you found it useful, if not, let us know in the comments and we can make a post on your suggestions.
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