Describing, Sometimes A Tough Choice

For some, description comes easy. For others, not so much.


In his book On Writing, Stephen King elaborates on the descriptive process he uses by telling us: "For me, good description usually consists of a few well-chosen details that will stand for everything else. . ."


Details. But sometimes, the details are what stumps a writer. Which details to use? Which sense to convey? 

Below is a picture that, at first glance, might evoke several kinds of emotions and descriptive words. Collegiate, barren, gray, and whatever else comes to mind. The choices to describe it are limitless. 


A good guideline is to make description personal to the character as often, and whenever, appropriate. Description can be beautiful, haunting, gross, passionate on its own. Make it personal to the character, and it becomes part of the whole that uplifts a character to unforgettable.

Straightforward: You could see glimpses of the tower through the bare branches of the old beech tree, eyeless windows reminding you of the house three doors down from where you grew up. The house where your death began.


Poetic: Light sifts in tangled shades of dusk and rose through the wizened arms of the beech tree. It echoes your shifting mood, shadow and gray, luminous and soft, as you walk slowly to the meeting place.


Humorous:  The beech tree's limbs were out of control, like an alien race who grew one arm too many and got tangled up in itself. The tower behind it glowered like I knew Mama Jo would glower, only with death ray eyes, if I didn't get myself home in time.


Succinct: Red tower. Bare winter tree. Cold and gray. Ugh. . . 


How would you describe it? 

WTF?

Now I know where the words: "Run For Your Life" came from. 

Chicago. Day before yesterday. I could have been toast.

After The Storm

Dear Jem,


What does the world look like after a storm? 


Answer:

Tornado sightings everywhere yesterday. The town sirens were in a frenzy and when you have neighboring towns adjacent to you, the symphony of sirens was almost worse than the storm. Almost. Eighty mile an hour winds, torrential downpours, and my trees looked like Muhammad Ali after a bad match. 


We survived, to this beautiful sunset.

Chimera by Rob Thurman

The official back jacket blurb for Chimera:



From Rob Thurman, national bestselling author of the Cal Leandros Novels, comes a sci-fi thriller that questions what makes us human, what makes us unique …

…And what makes us kill.

Ten years ago, Stefan Korsak’s younger brother was kidnapped. No one knew who took Lukas, or why. He was simply gone. But not a day has passed that Stefan hasn’t thought about him. As a rising figure in the Russian mafia, he has finally found him.

But when he rescues Lukas, he must confront a terrible truth–his brother is no longer his brother. He is a killer. Trained, brainwashed, and genetically transformed into a flesh-and-blood machine with only one purpose–assassination. Now, those who created him will do anything to reclaim him.

And the closer Stefan grows to his brother, the more he realizes that saving Lukas may be easier than surviving him…

I love Rob Thurman's Cal Leandros series. Action-packed, unpredictable and the series reels a reader in with dark ease. It's fair to imagine looking up from a Leandros book and realizing it's way past midnight, and your alarm is set for six a.m. Even knowing that, you'll read on.

I felt a little diffident about Chimera before I read it. The elements didn't appeal so much to the kind of fiction I usually picked up. Russian mob? eh. I read it anyway, because I trust Thurman's writing. Nowhere, not even on her recently ongoing renovated website, has she disappointed when it came to the writing.

And in Chimera she killed.

Thurman's writing reaches a new level of awe, a depth that produces layers of emotion in a reader from cover to cover. Everything blended seamlessly and excitingly together -- the characters, the plot, the twists and those scenes of touching emotion, heartache and rawness that make the read unforgettable. 

 Her writing in this book also had its moments of gorgeous luminosity --

 ". . . I opened my eyes and raised my head to see blond hair haloed by oscillating red and blue lights. . . The car jerked to the left as the blazing lights careened off to the right. I went with them, pulled along in their wake until I was lost. They flew around me, brilliantly glowing butterflies. I soared with them long and far until I sailed off the edge of the world. . . "

-- combined with heart searing humor:

" Five hours later, I nearly lost my brother again.

It was in a public restroom. Forget the eye-watering stench of the flowery disinfectant that was worse than the smell it was meant to cover up. Ignore the tile colored a puke green that made your stomach heave and gave you a desire to check the bottom of your shoes.  Concentrate instead on puffy white feet, one in a cheap loafer, one bare and twisted to the side. Take a look at those as they show beneath the stall door. White, white skin splotched with purple veins and resting in a puddle of blood so fresh that the warmth of it steamed against the icy tile."

My overall assessment? Edgy characters, a plot that twists and turns at every page, an unexpected ending that's both startling and satisfying. . . Five stars. Easy.

Father's Day -- a weekend graced with good food, great drinks and fabulous conversation. You never expect to get outstanding steaks or meat from someone's cookout. You expect that from fine restaurants with chefs connoisseur. But at a cookout? Hell yeah. 


This was no ordinary burgers and hotdogs with perhaps a side of brats to tempt the palate. This was a cookout meant for kings! I just happened to be the lucky queen on the side.


The steak was melt-in-your-mouth butter. I had mine served with mushrooms and an oriental salad on the side. Afterward, there was ice cream cake. I was a heavenly passenger this weekend and no one could pull me out of my bout of divine experiences.


The awesome Lynn Viehl has a cool post listing random generators, from plotting to generating horse's names. Can you say Mr. Ed?

Turtles and things

This time of year, the turtles shamble out of our lake in the back and find the nearest mulch patch to bury their eggs -- which always happens to be my garden. They dig and destroy all plant life nearby with single-minded resolve in their effort to protect their unborn. I don't mind so much. I just replant whatever they dug up and it always survives. The law of nature I guess. But there's another law of nature that disturbs me more. After the poor turtles fastidiously waddle slowly from their homes in the lake, after they bury and rebury and sigh over the laying of their eggs, after they waddle back content that their offspring are now safe. . . the coyotes come along at night, dig up the eggs and --


Well, need I paint a picture?

Not that I want to make my first post in a long time a complaint post, but it's hard to write pithy comments when something funky's going on with the back. Yes, my back. As in 'baby got back.' I always thought I'd be pretty cool about things like pain. I felt sorry for those 'older' people who talked about their back pain in great detail at family parties. Now yep, there's me, waxing eloquent about my damn back.

I woke up yesterday and something with teeth and claws had gotten a hold of my lower back over night. I felt like an accident victim bent over all day and groaning every time I had to twist, or turn, or move -- which was pretty much all the time.

Good new though, it is better today. Not by much, but better. I still am finding it hard to write, thus here I am on blogger. Blogging. Writing to a vast audience of one. Me.

Now I'm off to go contemplate the virtues of the Kindle vs the IPad. I want both. Is that too greedy of me?