Potential controversy in the Writers forum! A thought about the modern use of description.

[Writer]

Simply, American writers do not use heavy imagery today. I read a lot of light imagery or motifs, but no flamboyant description as was common with the Romantics. I almost get the sense that modern American writers are running away from describing the world. They just tell the story and that is all.

Do you agree with this observation? If so, do you believe it's due to a heavily visual world that requires less written description? Or is it market-driven, writing to appeal to a mass audience with low attention spans and no interest in flamboyant description?

Certainly the Modernists departed from the Romantics at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Perhaps writers today have followed Hemingway and Steinbeck with "post-modernism" but isn't that an overused, commonly misapplied term? Each person has a different concept of post-modernism. In other words, post-modernism is itself a post-modern concept. So how can we describe modern American writing?

I'd love to read your feedback on this.

[WCGreen]

1. So much of todays fiction is interior based, on mean based on

the reflections of the writer...

so naturally the exterior descriptions would fall off...

But I agree with you, we need more description of the surroundings...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. My dear Writer........

I agree with your assessment.

So often, it seemed to me, I would get bogged down in the minutiae of lengthy descriptions.

I'd find it impossible to remember all the stuff being described. It was as though my brain was overloaded with details that were not germane to the story.

I finally found myself skipping those parts. And when I'm writing, I used only the sparest of details for descriptions. I really prefer doing it that way.

That's my take on it....

[fasttense]

3. Sometimes with some of these writers

I feel like the world they are describing is no thicker than the sheet of paper I'm reading it from. There is so little description, I don't feel like I'm in a real world. It's like I'm in the character's head and know what he is thinking, feeling and doing, but I'm hidden away in the deepest recesses of their brain and can't get near the world outside their head.

Often this leads to cliche short hand descriptions of the character's environment. But it sells.

So yes, sometimes there is too little description.

[petgoat]

4. There are tricks to get a lot of mileage out of a bit of description.

Using specific verbs and nouns, for instance.

Trudged, sprinted, sauntered--in walking.

Letter jacket, smoking jacket, hunting jacket, bowling jacket, favorite jacket,
homburg, CAT hat, overalls, apron, welder's mask, dungarees, dress whites,
parka, cuirass, bunker coat, poncho--in attire.

They go a long way to build a picture.

Another trick is to focus on an element that implies the rest.

If memory serves, when Marlowe goes up to the Sternwood mansion, he first talks
with a chauffeur who's tinkering with the limo. That sets the scene and we don't
need a lot of talk about cliched turrets and ivy and roof tiles and what have you.

Chandler/Marlowe's similies are another way of getting mileage out of a few words
because they not only describe what's there but show Marlowe's attitude about it.

Chandler and Hammet are both pre-TV writers who write very visually but economically,
well worth study.

[Writer]

5. It publishes AND sells - indeed!

And it doesn't even employ woody words as petgoat describes below - it's banal, self-absorbed writing. "I thought about him while staring at my cold cup of coffee, sipping away my misery" or "I rocked in the old swing and reflected on my boring, usual childhood," etc. etc. There are fantastic pieces of work produced using few descriptive words, but after a while, the writing feels stilted and lacking. I crave more.

A part of me blames Stephen King, although he is the KING of woody words, so perhaps I shouldn't be so harsh. ;) But I think the market today (not the publishers but the READERS) crave quick, easy to absorb books a la Dan Brown. I'm waiting for a turning point in American writing. When will something new step forward?

[marions ghost]

6. hmmm...interesting question

It is a self-absorbed, action-oriented age. Maybe less time for observing in general makes people less inclined to need it when they read.

As for this 'heavily visual' world, well, I could see that it might make it easier for readers to quickly imagine a scene with only sketchy details. But you'd think that those who are still READING in the age of the video image should have more patience than most for verbal descriptions.

Of course it's quite a challenge to read books that have so much description they leave nothing to the imagination.

[Orrex]

7. Good question

Thirty-three pages into the description of a sail and I was ready to throw Moby Dick overboard.

Speaking for myself, I'm typically much more interested in what's going on than in how the set is arranged. That is, I read a book (or story) for the characters and their interactions, so that the choice of lace on the curtains is close to irrelevant. It's ultimately an aesthetic choice, based on personal preference and on what we find important in a work.

I also suspect that some writers who try to pack their works full of glorious imagery too often veer into overly heavy expository digressions. That is, they spend so much time crafting a world or town or parlour that they can't resist the urge to let the reader see every last detail in it, even if 99% of it has nothing to do with the story.

The tendency toward laconic, scene-sparse prose might also involve a drive to accomplish more with less, so that the writing is intended as a precise instrument for conveying the story rather than a sledgehammer with which to bludgeon the reader.

Again, this is clearly an aesthetic choice, and a definitive right or wrong answer would be difficult to find.

[Redbear]

8. My wife loves rich details in writing and complains mine is sparse.

I'll bet there is a market for the type of writing you are discussing.

[Wetzelbill]

9. I like both styles, sometimes even from the same writer...

Like Cormac McCarthy, if you read "Blood Meridian" which he wrote in the mid- 80s, it is very rich with description, but then if you read "No Country For Old Men", which came out like in 2005, it is almost like a well-written screenplay it is so sparse.

I think that it depends on the writer. If somebody is great at description they will make it highly readable and beautiful, but if somebody is great at sparse writing, well, they can make that compelling.

I have tried my hand at both styles, I like to emulate and be a bit of a chameleon, I have my own style which I enforce in both types of writing, but I like to mix it up. Mainly, I am pretty sparse though. My published stuff tends to be sparse, anyway.

In any given era the styles change. Poetry is a great example. Read Tennyson, or even Neruda and compare that style with some of the newer poets. Quite a contrast, right? Still all good stuff though. Right now, I would say since we are in a highly political, MTV age, you get work that is quicker, snappier and sparse, that is more inclined to reflect a more obvious message. Like Chuck Pahlaniuk. "Fight Club" or "Choke" are hardly subtle. The writing is quick, fast, first person and entertaining. That's the new generation really, although, Chucky P. is highly stylized to the point where he has gotten a bit trite. Only so much you can do with style. Plus, nowadays everybody has an opinion and they try to shove it down our throats. Myself included. Writer's egos are notoriously huge, and have become less subtle in writing over time. Less subtlety has evolved into sparse opinion. Some of it is good, some of it is not.

I think the next evolution will get back to more description. I've actually started it myself. I've gotten to the point where I want to concentrate on craft, and not so much on my own ego and entertainment.

[Orrex]

11. McCarthy is a great example in answering this question

Even in Blood Meridian or Suttree, McCarthy's use of imagery is seldom static. That is, he doesn't spend a page and a half describing the dashboard of a car or the configuration of a sail. Instead, he focuses his gaze on the action at hand or the setting in which the action takes place, and from there he moves directly to the course of events. The bar fight in Suttree is a magnificent example of this: McCarthy uses stirring, poetic description in painting a violent and bloody scene, but every description is bound to its associated action or character.

In answer to the OP's question, this is indeed a technique that's rarely seen among modern authors, and as you note even McCarthy's style has adapted. I find the evolution to be a good one, since it tends to deny an author the crutch of dazzling description that, ultimately, should be subordinate (IMO) to the narrative sequence.

[Wetzelbill]

12. nice reply

Yes, I agree. I feel the evolution is a good one. If a writer is skilled enough they call pull any of it off. Often, I think the state of writing doesn't so much depend on the literary style of the day, but the skill of the person actually doing the writing. Dazzling description can definitely be a crutch, but when done right, it's a marvel. Same goes with sparse writing. It can be great and it can be pretty bad too.

[smoogatz]

10. I think it's largely a false premise.

What's really changed since the Victorians is the decline of full-on third-person omniscient point of view, which allows for a much more expansive (even florid) use of description. Most contemporary writers favor limited omniscient or first-person, which lend themselves to a more economical and streamlined kind of writing. The change has a lot to do with the rise of modernism, and is connected to urbanization, industrialization, and a general increase in the pace of urban life. We don't ride to town in horse-drawn buggies anymore; why shouldn't literature reflect the "feel" of the culture in terms of its pacing? It's not that we're dumber than we usd to be: we're just a lot less patient.

[fasttense]

13. Not everyone lives the urban life.

Millions voluntarily live in the country.

Just the other day, I saw ball lightning explode over the tops of the mountains and a shooting star break into a thousand pieces and fall like fireworks. In the spring the serenade of frogs and birds can be deafening. Hawks and eagles perch and soar as they hunt field mice and rabbits. It is an amazing background of beauty, and I believe that is what is left out of many books. Authors write the sparse urban paced books because they live in sparse and urban environments. They surround themselves with static buildings so that the actions of people seem all that more important.

I would not advocate returning to the never ending, paragraph length descriptive sentence, a technique the Victorians seemed so fond of using. It does get boring. I suspect there is a happy medium but few writers are able to find it.

[HamdenRice]

14. Television, global commodities, increasing sameness

In the old days, pre TV and pre mass global market, if I wanted to describe what a person in California was eating to a person in New York, I might have to describe exactly what this newfangled "hamburger" was. Today almost everyone in America and the western world knows what a Big Mac is, or a computer, or sneakers or a track suit, so it is redundant to describe it.

Moreover, if I were to write about someone being in Paris, I don't need to describe it, because TV has shown virtually everyone what a stereotypical view of Paris or New York or London looks like.

On the other hand, writers today describing places off the beaten path will often go into much more description of location or describing unusual non mass commodity items will use more description.

[Orrex]

15. That's an interesting critique

It could be further argued that this "increasing sameness" is a largely external phenomenon, and the "difference" or "individuality" of a person has become internalized, or at least made less immediately tangible. If Bob and Sue and Harry and Ellen all buy the same stuff from Ikea, then their personalities, rather than their surroundings, take on more of the burden of identifying them as individuals. This, I think, is consistent with the trend (in American fiction, at least) to strive for greater focus on character than on plot or setting.

[HamdenRice]

16. Taken to extreme ...

That's an interesting corollary to my argument. You could also look at your argument this way:

You wrote:

"If Bob and Sue and Harry and Ellen all buy the same stuff from Ikea, then their personalities, rather than their surroundings, take on more of the burden of identifying them as individuals."

But there is a school of post modern writing (too obnoxious for me to actually read) in which characters are described by way of the products they consume.

I did see a movie based on a novel that uses this strategy: "American Psycho" based on the novel by Brett Easton Ellis. Here is the Wiki comment on the main character, Batemen, in the book:

"Bateman is extremely style-conscious, and appears an expert in fashion and high-end consumer products. In his narrative, he frequently describes his and other people's possessions in exhaustive detail, even noting trivial articles like pens, socks, and pocket squares; he also describes his own wardrobe and accessories, including the material of which they are made, the name of the designer, and the store where they were purchased. Bateman incisively answers his friends' and co-workers trivial queries, authoritatively explicating the difference between various types of mineral water, which tie knot is less bulky than a Windsor knot, and the proper way to wear a cummerbund, pocket square, or tie bar."

[Orrex]

17. About that postmodern bit

But there is a school of post modern writing (too obnoxious for me to actually read) in which characters are described by way of the products they consume.

Obnoxious is right, and about the only thing more obnoxious is an argument with a person who actually professes to believe in that gobbledygook in real life.

I mean, sure, there's a lot to be said about the image that one projects via the consumer choices she makes, but that places the primacy on the perception of others and entirely nullifies the input of the person re: her own identity. Heck, it's not as though we're talking about a tangible, physical object here; identity is as much a will-o-wisp as you're ever going to encounter, so why does postmodernism give the least authority to the person most affected by it?

In any case, to address the point you aptly made, I think that it's reasonable in practical terms to form general impressions about a person (or character) based on that person's purchases or surroundings or attire, but postmodernism creates a strawman when it demands that the entirety of the character be summed up in those criteria. In terms of reality it shortchanges the individual by trivializing her as a collection of petty deeds, and in terms of fiction it shortchanges the reader by reducing a character to a caricature formed of minor and comparitively impersonal descriptors.


Time to go to bed. I sound like a half-assed graduate thesis.

[HamdenRice]

18. To be fair to Brett Easton Ellis

The point he seems to be trying to make is that these people are so vapid that they have no personality or character, and their commodities stand in for the character they are lacking. Others however seem to think that commodities actually are character and are, as writers, as vapid as the characters that Ellis is lampooning.

The problem with Ellis is that it's a good joke, but not really a satisfying device for carrying one's interest over the course of a novel.

[sybylla]

20. John Updike plays with mass consumerism and its effect on people

in his Rabbit novels but my favorite is In the Beauty of the Lillies where the lives of the main characters are changed by movies beginning with their advent near the turn of the century.

You might find the deeper consideration of the individual and mass consumerism much less obnoxious.

[sybylla]

19. That's exactly what I was taught

In college, in classes both in history and sociology, we talked about the advent of Mass Media beginning with cheap mass produced books like the dime novel at the end of the 1800's and how it changed the world.

We went from having very regionalized tastes in food, clothing, language, home construction, mores, social activities and more, to having a more universal knowledge and preference for those same things. In other words, mass media took away our individuality, our regionalism, because we all began to adopt the same tastes. And mass production made it possible for us to own the same things from coast to coast.

For example, in 2001 we traveled to Virginia and Maryland on vacation and had a hard time finding anything "regional" to eat. With the exception of the one meal we had at a tavern in Williamsburg, we never found any food we couldn't find back home.

So it follows that one consequence of the loss of regionalism is that though I live in the midwest, I know what a palm tree looks like, I know how the ocean behaves. Even in international terms, I know what a leopard looks like or a giraffe or an orangutan, or a temple in Tibet, not because I have ever been in physical proximity but because I have seen the flora, fauna, places and people from all over the world on television or in books.

And if it's a sure bet your reader has seen it, you sure don't need to spend much time describing it in a book.