Descriptions Through Their Eyes

They say that the best description when writing a story comes through the character’s eyes as it opens a little window into the way the character perceives the world, enriching the story in more than one way. While reading People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, I came across an excellent example of this.

But before I get into that, a little background. This book is written from various points of view, which changes the way things like a city can feel or is shown. For example, a war-torn city is very different and presents different concerns and treatment to someone who is wealthy and educated versus someone who is poor and persecuted. (That’s the thing I love about point of view, suddenly you can have a completely different story.)

However, what I’d like to highlight is the difference between two of Brooks’s characters in how they view and perceive an older male character. What they notice and how they present it is very different. Here are the two examples:

Example 1: He was leaning on an ebony cane with a silver top. His hair too, was silver, rather long, brushed back from his forehead. He was wearing a dark velvet jacket with pale lemon piping on the lapels. At his neck he wore a bow tie in the nineteenth-century fashion, a long piece of patterned silk tied loosely under the collar. He had a little white rosebud for a boutonniere. (Page 95.)

Example 2: “He’s a trip, isn’t he? With the velvet suits and that whole last-century thing he’s got going on.” (Page 101.)

Who do you see?

Does the reader identify with one description more than the other? For me, yes. And in some ways, the second example helped reinforce what I had read earlier about this character because, honestly, the first go round didn’t create a clear mental image despite the specific description. I suppose I didn’t have an example ready-made in my head for me to attach this description to and say, “Ah, yes. I see.” In fact, the “lemon piping” distracts me from the overall image my mind is trying to create every single time I read the passage. Isn’t that odd?

Which one grabbed you? Which one created a sharper, more specific image? Which one quickly gave you the essence of the character?

The First Five Pages: Viewpoint and Narration

January 29th, 2008–The First Five Pages: Viewpoint and Narration
This chapter, for whatever reason seems to have stalled me out. I don’t think it was this chapter, specifically, rather just events unfolding and taking a cumulative effect.

You know you’ve stalled when you find more amusement in watching the garbage truck trying to dive through huge drifts of snow than think about your writing. Or, you know, going and meeting your husband’s cousin who happens to be on the ‘disowned’ side of the family.

Anyway, I did go out and study other viewpoints for narration like Lukeman suggests. This in fact, is part of what has distracted me for at least five days. And you know what I discovered? I discovered that the authors that are my (Chick Lit) heroes write in <gasp> first person, present tense! Eeeek! Call the writing police! They are making bestsellers and breaking a forbid rule. (Then again, the rule says you have to be a really good writer to get away with it, which evidently they are.)

But can I? Well, time will only tell, of course. But it has bolstered me enough to not go and change all my manuscripts away from first person present tense. (That and the kind words of other writers on this site.)

So, I will ignore the plows and garbage trucks and the fact that it was really fun popping our little car through big snow drifts so my hubby could get to work, and get down to work myself.

After I have some more tea. And maybe check my email.

Later…Okay, I did the exercise where you change the narration in your story. I changed a scene from first person to third, just to see what it was like. It was interesting. I may use it someday. Although, it felt like I was giving too much to the reader. I could be so definitive–that was a refreshing and interesting change. Yet, there was no real room for interpretation as I could just jump into each character and explain them. Less work for the reader. Less work for the writer. Although, I suppose once you are talented at third person, you can leave little hints and clues for the read instead of hitting them over the head.

On a totally separate vein…I saw the CBC show last night, ‘The Week The Women Left Town’. Cool premise. It appealed to the sociologist in me.