This is not Vodka
A short rant on using descriptions
There is a strange and tragic tendency that people have to describe things by what they are not. For example, as I hold up this pair of binoculars to you, I would like you to know that this is not Vodka.
The tragedy in this is not only the disservice it does your prose, but the underlying nature of this sort of evasive descriptions to undersell your product. Eradication of this tendency from your writing allows your writing to make the transition from verbose to descriptive and allows you to bridge the gap between you and your reader with much greater efficiency.
The tragedy in this is not only the disservice it does your prose, but the underlying nature of this sort of evasive descriptions to undersell your product. Eradication of this tendency from your writing allows your writing to make the transition from verbose to descriptive and allows you to bridge the gap between you and your reader with much greater efficiency.
Of course, it would be amiss of me to pretend that such description never has a place in literature, but that will not stop me from preaching extreme caution. Telling your audience what something is not, despite what it should be can be a magnificent way to bring a character to life, but does still need to provide illumination into the subject itself.
eg: She thought of him as the first soldier she had met who was not broken by war.
eg.She thought of him as the first soldier she had met who was not broken by war; able to hold himself straight and dabble in smiles and laughter, eyes not lost in the shadows of what once was.
eg: She thought of him as the first soldier she had met who was not broken by war.
eg.She thought of him as the first soldier she had met who was not broken by war; able to hold himself straight and dabble in smiles and laughter, eyes not lost in the shadows of what once was.
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Comments