Questions tagged [description]
Painting a picture with a thousand words.
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How to describe my character using their power ashes to ashes?
My secondary main character has the power ashes to ashes where he can make his enemy basically start to turn to ash and fade away (think Sandman when he fades away)
I write in 3rd person
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2
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How to describe someone whose eyes sparkle mischievously?
I've been told that I'm telling instead of showing when I say my characters' eyes sparkle 'mischievously.' How do you describe something like that? I've been looking it up and trying different tricks ...
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How can I describe actions in a story format?
I am trying to create a description/story about what someone will do, for example a description of a man baking a cake, because I need to create descriptions of actions as part of my work. I know that ...
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How do you describe the sound of a body being dragged through the snow? [closed]
How to describe the sound of a body bring dragged through snow
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Music in written form
I have a very hard time describing music in my writing. There's a particular scene where two characters are dancing along to piano music. It's a nice, romantic moment where they're the only people ...
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How can I write a young adult character as very excited without sounding like a child?
I want to show my young adult main character, as being very enthusiastic and excitable about her interests, mainly I want her to make a big deal about wanting to wear her mother's ceremonial (but ...
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How do you describe/insert an "uncommon" feature?
We have the typical common hair that's black, brown, yellow, etc. And we can call them brunets, blondes, redheads, and so on.
Even with eyes. We call them blue-eyed, brown-eyed, gray, etc.
What do you ...
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Alternatives to raising eyebrows to show surprise
I’m trying to reduce the number of clichés in my manuscript, and I’ve found 11 instances of characters raising their eyebrows. A couple I don’t mind, but it feels like too many.
What other actions can ...
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Any tips on how to describe fighter jet designs?
I want to write a fighter jet story, kind of like Ace Combat, but because I don't have any money to borrow names from certain aircraft in real life, I thought it would be better to just make up my own ...
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How do you accurately describe a race track without using an image?
How do you accurately describe a race track without using an image?
Let's say you have this image, but you can't use it as a reference. How do you manage to exactly describe it in a way someone could ...
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Is it correct to write or say "Am I seeing the dawn in my twilight?" [closed]
Is it correct to write "Am I seeing the dawn in my twilight?"
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how do I describe magic in a fictional story? [closed]
In my writing I need to describe a character being enchanted by a spell and pulled towards a house.
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How do I describe a character tripping but regaining their balance?
In the story, my protagonist is walking in a part of town that is not taken care of. My character, at this point in time, is super tired and trips over a clump of grass growing from the sidewalk.
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3
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Describing people in a book that is first person
I am writing a novel that is in present tense. I'm worried I'm going back and forth from present to past tense when I describe the physical characteristics of people my main character meets.
Here are ...
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answer
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Avoiding tedium and trivialisation from repeated events
I'm writing a sci-fi novel set on Earth in the recent past. In the novel, an alien giant robot destroys numerous cities in North America.
The first such occurrence, New York City, receives a lot of ...
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What is the term meaning calling a character by a described trait? [duplicate]
What is the technique called when a writer describes a character and from there forward refers to that character by one of their salient traits? For example, "The man across from her took in the ...
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How to write a protagonist in 1st POV, who is talkative?
My character is very talkative. As the narrator, how is she to balance her talkativeness in dialogue, narration, and description without making it boring, too long, or make it seem like she's dumping ...
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How can I spot if my story is being stalled or interrupted, and how do I arrange my writing so that it continues to move?
I would like for my story to continue moving, but I find that I interrupt action with details or inner thoughts, mood, emotion, etc. Hence, how can I spot an interruption in my writing that could ...
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How do I differentiate between mood, description, and action, and how do I reorganize my writing to focus on them in order to keep my writing moving?
I am trying to implement focus into my writing since I believe that is one of the many traits my writing lacks. It is not focus on the central idea, but description, action, and mood.
I have seen ...
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Dilating the beat
Consider the following sentences
She did not feel the bullet going through her skull.
vs
She did not feel the 9mm NATO Parabellum lead bullet going through her skull.
vs
She did not feel the nine ...
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The most interesting list
I want to describe the look of a room. In particular I would like for the reader to be overwhelmed by the many objects stacked on the shelves. This list of objects serves no purpose in the rest of the ...
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How to clearly convey the picture of a World War I-era car without mentioning World War I?
So I am working on a story that takes place in a setting with the aesthetics of world war I machinery and society but which does not take place in our world. Because of this, I can't just go about ...
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Characters' tone/pitch in dialogue
How does one go about showing a characters tone/pitch while talking?
For example, if someone said something that someone else doesn't believe and they reacted like:
bullsHIIt
or
whaAATt
Where the ...
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What are some ways to describe a character's clothing?
I have a hard time viewing clothing outside of the simplest descriptors. A shirt is just a shirt, shoes are simply shoes, pants, etc.
Basically, what I'm asking for is some clothing terminology?
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How would I describe the feeling of being buried alive realistically?
For context, this would be from the POV of children who are trapped in a high-rise office building during a monster attack in the city. They wouldn't have any injuries from the event; they would just ...
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Does anyone know any specific words that can be used to describe a character flying?
I feel like I've used words like "floating" and "hovering" too often, to the point of tedium.
6
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3
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How to find ways to enhance character's sensory experience?
A common piece of advice young writers get is to use all of the senses with which the POV character perceives their surroundings.
I can feel how important this piece is. I would like to describe ...
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Translating analogies in a 100 year old fairy tale
I am having a hard time translating analogies and descriptions in a fairy tale written a century ago. My fear is today's children will not understand the analogy at all or misunderstand it, and as ...
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How does one go about describing subtle movements in characters actions?
I'm struggling with figuring out a way to describe subtle movements in a scene that wouldn't normally be picked up on if not shown. For example:
A character is being put in a prison cell and another
...
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Help with describing an unconscious character
One of the characters in my book, the narrator, is suddenly knocked unconscious. How would I describe what he sees/feels?
Do I just have a big timeskip, with him confused as to what happened when he ...
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Can you be too graphic in your descriptions?
I am writing a Harry Potter-like DnD fantasy story, but for readers of ages 18+.
I have a description in my mind of the MC having lost his mother and his magic:
The feeling is like a hand being ...
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1
answer
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What do you call this nose shape?
What would you call this nose shape? I'm describing a southern Chinese character (not this guy). Snub or button-nose gets way overused and is not entirely accurate in this case.
EDIT:
The character ...
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4
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1
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Skin Tone Spectrum Glossary
I have a number of folks who aren't beige in my current novel and I'm trying to come up with more precise yet poetic names for the skin tones.
Is there a glossary of the skin tone spectrum ranging ...
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How do I describe a transformation? [closed]
In my story, my main character, a young man named Irian in an industrial human society, is captured, and transformed by merfolk into one of their kind (very standard merfolk, his legs are replaced ...
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How to maintain vivid description for recurring elements without repetition?
For my current project, the use of vivid description is essential for carrying across the particularly alien experience of the protagonist. This leads to a problem, however, when my protagonist needs ...
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How to write believable characters of professions I'm not familiar with?
I'm quite familiar with certain groups of people. In my career I often dealt with scientists, actors and artists. Therefore I'm quite confident describing such people in my stories. I am familiar with ...
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I want to explain something in a novel that shouldn’t exist in it
In my novel, the world is made entirely out of islands, but I don’t know how to explain this without using the word islands. In that world, there are only islands so they are just called countries. ...
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Is it bad if you start all your chapters with a description of the surroundings?
Is it bad if you start all your chapters with a description of the surroundings? I wrote 4 chapters and it looks terrible, because I always start in a room and I am just describing the room with the ...
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how do i write realistically as if i am being abused?
I can never think of anything other than the fact that being abused hurts because I can't relate to it .A little help please?
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How to describe races/ethnicities in setting where corresponding geographic locations do not exist?
In English, the common name for some racial or ethnic groups is a fairly neutral English word (e.g. white, black...). Others, however, are named only by reference to a geographic point of origin (e.g. ...
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How do I convey my character is of mixed European-Asian ancestry through description?
I have a protagonist who is biracial (mixed-race Caucasian-east Asian ancestry) living in the United States. I have a good idea of what their face and appearance looks like; they’re the kind of person ...
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How late is too late to describe a character?
I haven’t supplied much description of my main character, mainly because it didn’t come up naturally. Her parents are described, so you can get a basic idea, fair skin, light eyes—but I never list any ...
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What word could describe a person with integrity or the difference between a person with integrity and one without? [closed]
I am trying to get the perfect word to separate those having integrity and those who lack it. I am trying to describe someone who accepts full ownership for their choices even the more regrettable ...
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How do you describe things without making a list of characteristics?
Like my question above, I am mostly messing up at describing my character without making a huge list of words.
It sucks to know that readers are now skipping over the description that tends to be ...
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How do you write pause in a dialogue without making it look flat?
At times in conversations, there are pauses for various reasons; in videos, the contexts of these pauses are clear because of the characters facial expression. But while writing, at first you can use ...
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In an action scene, what is it called when a flying/thrown object changes rotation quickly after hitting something?
I am writing an action scene in which a character is thrown/falls and while they are flying through the air either the top or bottom half of their body hits an immovable object mid air, causing them ...
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How to write a scene about a main character who is crying?
I am writing a scene in which I want to show how my MC is still weak and vulnerable. My character is emotionally strong, but I am not able to describe a scene where she is crying in a room alone, so ...
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Free Gallery of Human Faces [closed]
I am working on a comic book script right now. Nothing of my draft (except dialogues) will be read by readers; the only purpose of my draft is to narrate the story to my friend, the illustrator.
...
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How would a character with a certain personality react in a certain situation? [closed]
I'm at a point in my story where the main character(M17) was in a huge car crash. He'd been in an overturned vehicle for about 10 minutes and had sustained heavy damage. A few of his friends had come ...
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How to convey a character's race/ethnicity clearly but appropriately?
When describing a character I usually provide some indication of their race/ethnicity since a lot of my work has multiracial characters and I tend to use elements of ethnicity in characterization. ...
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