Descriptive Writing

My friend DJ from Facebook asked for some tips on being a more descriptive writer.

First, read a lot of books from various authors. When you come across a descriptive passage you really like, read it again, study it. Notice what verbs and adjectives they used. Write that passage in a journal or type it. I've written passages from other books, from Stephen King to Dean Koontz, and that helped put me in the mindset of that author. It impacted my writing.

Learn to write poetry. Even if it's bad poetry. It teaches you about the rhythm of language. I spent some time writing a number of poems, some good, some not so good, but I trained my brain to write more descriptively. When you write flowery poetry for awhile and then go back to writing prose, you'll discover your writing has become naturally more descriptive.

Learn a plethora of new vocabulary. Play some vocabulary games. Challenge yourself to use words you don't normally use. I keep a Thesaurus handy, and when I'm revising a draft, I swap out plain words for more descriptive words.

Learn to use figurative language such as hyperbole, simile, metaphor, symbolism and personification. Knowing these gives you a great foundation for descriptive writing. And for the most part it is better to show than tell. Rather than narrate what's happening from the author's point of view, play the scene out from the character's point of view.

And remember that descriptions are also visual details of what's happening in your scene. I'll often write a first draft that doesn't have a lot of description. Just some basic action and dialogue. But then I'll re-read the chapter over and over, visualizing what's happening, and that's when I add more visual details.

I describe in ways that invoke the five senses: sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. My goal is for the reader to feel like they are in the scene, experiencing it through multiple senses. For instance, in the war scenes in my novel I described what my character Lt. Jack Chambers is seeing--the battlefield, the fog seeping through the war-torn forest, enemy soldiers charging between the trees. Then I added in some sound effects, like gunshots and explosions, soldiers yelling, the metallic crunch of tank tracks rolling over rubble. Then touch: the heat of the blast scorching the soldier's skin. Then taste: his mouth filling with dust and grit. And smell: the stench of death all around him. When you combine descriptions of all five senses, you create a visceral experience for your readers.

Keep challenging yourself to improve your craft and your descriptions will get better over time.

Publishing Missteps: Three Big Mistakes I'd Like to Do Over

When I first self-published my novel, SHADOWS IN THE MIST, I made a few missteps that taught me some lessons. First, I waited too long to contact book reviewers like Library Journal, Midwest Book Review, and local newspapers. My book was due to release in September, and I waited until about six weeks prior to contact book reviewers. I learned from reading their guidelines that they require books to be submitted for review SIX MONTHS before the release date. So I launched my book without any reviews to help it off the ground. If you are self-publishing, be thinking six to eight months ahead of your release date. Contact as many reviewers as you can. Here are a couple links for book reviewers.

http://www.midwestbookreview.com/links/othr_rev.htm http://www.geocities.com/ladyjiraff/reviewers.html

Another misstep I made was I came across a marketing company advertising they had a program called "The Bestseller Program." They offered consulting on how to make your book a "Bestseller." I paid a $1,000 for a couple of phone consultations that didn't really offer me much. First thing they told me was they couldn't guarantee my book would become a bestseller, so the program was misleading. Now that I've been in the publishing business awhile, I know that no one can predict if a book by a first-time author is going to be a bestseller. I ended up wasting $1,000 I could have put into advertising or bought a nice suit and some new shoes. So, authors beware of book marketing companies that promise you're book will be a bestseller.

My last misstep was I waited till six months after my book's release to get involved with social media groups such as Redroom and other popular sites like Facebook and Twitter. I wasn't much of a social networker and saw them as a waste of time. After hearing numerous success stories from other people marketing through social media, I finally jumped on the bandwagon. And saw a huge spike in book sales. Now, I've connected with hundreds of book lovers, writers, and book reviewers through social networking and I'm having a blast doing it. Had I known the benefits of social media marketing a year before my book's release, I could have built up some buzz and had readers ready to buy my book the day it released. When I release my next novel, DEAD OF WINTER, I'll be able to email a few thousand people prior to the book launch. Live and learn.

Do What You Love and The Money Will Come ... Eventually

A student I met online wrote:

Dear Mr. Moreland, I am curious about being a published author and what my chances are at being successful. My teacher says, "Do what you love and the money will come." Would you as a writer agree with that statement and say it is true?

I agree with your teacher, "do what you love and the money will come," eventually. Just know that being an author is a lot more than just writing fiction or non-fiction books. There's a whole business to it. I spend several hours each week focused on marketing, blogging, and writing the next book. It's a job where you do a lot of work up front and the rewards pay off later, in dividends. But I love being an author and that's why I'm willing to do the work.

Most book writers I know, including myself, have a backup career that pays the bills while we write books. Bestselling author James Rollins, for instance, was veterinarian. Stephen King started out as a high school teacher. David Morrell and Gary Braver are writing professors at universities. My "day job" is working as a freelance video editor, editing documentaries and corporate videos. I write in between video projects or early in the morning, (5:00 a.m. - 8:00 a.m). If you write enough books, and one or more of them become bestsellers or made into movies, then authors can earn enough to write full time and be paid millions for the books they put out. Just ask Stephanie Meyer of the Twilight series if her royalty checks cover her living expenses. Authors such as Stephen King, Nora Roberts, James Patterson, and Jim Butcher have achieved the ultimate dream of turning their writing into financial success. Not every writer who publishes a book achieves this, but it's certainly possible. I'm willing to guess that every successful author has two things in common: persistence and belief in their writing. They never give up and they keep believing what they are writing adds value to people's lives.

I also know a lot of writers who build a solid career around being a writer, like public speaking, publishing blogs, teaching seminars, teaching at universities, technical writing, copy writing, script writing, editing manuscripts, proofreading, journalism, writing magazine articles, etc. There are countless ways you can make money as a writer. All you have to do is find your niche--what you love to write most--and see if there is a career you can build around that.

So, again I say, if you love writing, if you have a strong enough passion to put in all the hours it takes to be successful, then definitely follow your dream. You don't have to be a celebrity author to make a steady living in this business. Just keep believing and keep writing. And keep your "day job" until those royalty checks finally start arriving in the mail.

Special thanks to Tyler K. from Facebook. I love receiving questions from aspiring writers and posting answers here on my blog. If you have a question about writing, publishing, or marketing, feel free to email Brian@BrianMoreland.com. I receive a lot of these, so I'll get to it as quick as I can. Brian

Interview #2

I just did an interview with LiteralRemains.com. You can read it at

http://www.literalremains.com/?p=1214

Writing Conflict and Great Fight Scenes

One of my friends on Facebook recently asked: How do you get the mechanics of fight scenes into stories, and construct them well enough to keep people interested, and the scene exciting?

First you have to build conflict. And conflict always starts light and builds over multiple scenes. For instance, in SHADOWS IN THE MIST, my main character Lt. Jack Chambers has an antagonist named Lt. Fallon. They have a bad history, so I use their past falling out to create some immediate tension. From the moment they get assigned to work on the same mission, they don't like each other. I create tension in their dialogue as they take a few verbal jabs at one another. Every scene that follows, Chambers and Fallon argue more and more. Later their hatred builds to the point that they're slugging each other. All this builds up to them battling in a climatic scene with weapons. So, the key is your protagonist (hero) must always have an antagonist (villain) who oppose one another. No matter how much they dislike each other from the beginning, start building conflict slowly, light to heavy.

Another thing is your protagonist and antagonist have to have a reason they hate each other that's believable. A common reason is two men are in love with the same woman or are competing for the same job or are on opposite sides of a war. They are enemies competing for the same prize. The opposing characters can be between two women (as in the movie BRIDE WARS) and also between a man and a woman (ROMANCING THE STONE or FOOL'S GOLD). The tension builds as they go from bickering at one another scene after scene until it builds into a heated screaming match. This also builds sexual tension, which is why the man and woman end up tearing each other's clothes off. That's the formula for a great romance novel. They dislike each other from the start, have opposite viewpoints, bicker, argue, fight, have passionate sex, and then fall in love.

The next time you read a book or watch a movie, notice how the conflict builds over time. Notice by the time two people are screaming at each other or fighting with fists or weapons, you the viewer are ready for that action, because it's been building in every scene prior. When you build conflict scene by scene in your novel, then the actual fight scene happens naturally. Your characters will take over the story and let you know when they're ready to duke it out.

In answer to your second question, the way to keep your reader interested is you create believable characters that are human and passionate about opposite ideals. The protagonist and antagonist are so headstrong that they'll do whatever it takes to get their way, and they are righteous about their viewpoint. Watch the movie DOUBT. It's classic conflict that builds into a brilliant verbal match between Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. When two of my characters get into a fight, I always ask myself, what's the worst thing that could happen that could come out of this? What would be the worst outcome for each character in the fight? And that's usually the way I write it.

On Writing Horror and Suspense

When writing horror, don't hold back. Tap into your deepest, darkest imagination and write whatever your imagination gives you. Avoid censoring yourself. I've written some pretty twisted scenes and thought: I can't let anybody read this. The violence is just too brutal. But then people would read it and say they loved the scene.

I enjoy writing and reading fiction that originates from truth. When I say “truth” I mean that the scene was written from the writer’s heart. There’s a great distinction between stories written from an idea and those written from an author’s heart. The way to tell the difference is a story written from a writer’s heart evokes feelings in you when you read it. So in the case of writing horror, which explores darker themes, the genre attracts readers who want the writer to give us everything he or she has within her. As you type words across your computer screen, unleash whatever's clawing to get out. At the core of good protagonists and evil villains is a darkness driven by fear. Readers of horror can relate to fear, because we all have inner demons that we battle from time to time.

Suspense is putting a character into a situation where the reader knows danger is present. Example: a cop enters a house where a serial killer is hiding. All the lights are out. The cop finds a mutilated body, and it’s his partner. The dead man’s face has been skinned off. We might already know the killer likes to peal off the faces of his victims and wear them as masks. Now the cop has tracked down the killer to his lair. Every second the cop is exploring that house, we're on the edge of our seats, wondering when the killer is going to leap out of the shadows. We can ratchet up the suspense as our hero discovers a basement where shelves are lined with mannequin heads, each one draped with shrivled skin masks staring at our hero with hollow eyes and twisted grimaces. The more we learn how dangerous the killer is, the more suspenseful the scene gets.

Describing violence and gore: As far as gore goes, that's a matter of taste. Horror includes a whole spectrum from psychological horror (with very little gore) to splatter punk (graphic gore and violence - Brian Keene's zombie novels are great examples). So write gore according to your taste. Extremely gory novels attract a certain group of readers and tend to repel others. So, again, write horror the way you love to read it.

Writing descriptions: If you're writing suspense, keep descriptions to a minimum so you can keep the action driving at a fast pace. I describe settings in short paragraphs, then I start the action or dialogue. I generally interweave descriptions with the action. In SHADOWS IN THE MIST, I have a platoon take refuge in an abandoned Catholic church that's suffered a lot of war damage. I don't describe the church all at once. I give a brief description when the soldiers first reach the church. Then I describe a little more and a little more, as the soldiers explore the church with their flashlights. At some point the reader puts it all together and sees the big picture. When describing a setting, feed the reader a little at a time, so the setting becomes its own mystery--a place full of wonderful discoveries and hidden darkness.

We don't have to describe every detail. I like to allow the reader's imagination to fill in the gaps. Buildings like churches, castles, mansions, hospitals create their own image. If it's a minor scene, I'll just say my character entered a Catholic church. I describe more the action happening within the scene rather than paint the setting. When you allow the reader to use his imagination, in a sense you and the reader are co-creating the scene together in the reader's mind.

Writing emotions: Your ultimate goal is to evoke emotions in your readers and have them fall in love with your characters. But you can't contrive emotions or the scene will feel flat or trite. I first create characters that I, myself, fall in love with and care about. Then whatever happens to them evokes emotions in me. When I write dramatic scenes or scary scenes or action scenes where my protagonist is running for his life, I have to feel what's happening. I drum up those feelings of anger, fear, sadness, love, lust, and then write what my character is feeling. This happens naturally when I get into the story and I'm in tune with my character. The love scenes between my leading man and lady are by far the most fun to write. :) Again, don't hold anything back. Write about people you love and then write whatever you're feeling as they face conflicts with antagonists who will do everything in their power to stop the protagonists from achieving what they most desire.

Interview #1

I just did an interview with Bookgasm.com. You can read it at

http://www.bookgasm.com/interviews/qa-brian-moreland/