Thanks so much for elaborating! I have been groping toward those principles, and you have just saved me a lot of time. In the memoir I am writing, I’ve noticed I will often over-describe a new scene or even person at first. Then when either makes a reappearance, I am apt to not describe at all! There is psychological truth in what you advise: not everything can or does strike us at first, at least not consciously, so 360-degree detail is the result of repeated encounters—and makes a lie of initial over-description. And we do notice what we notice in each instance for various reasons. A narrator does not see like God but like a human.

Per my previous comment, I do root for Michigan, where my wife got her doctorate, though we live in Columbus and met at Ohio State. And each of us has a degree from OSU. I got bitter when I was marketing manager of Ohio University Press and half the time reviewers would praise “a new book from Ohio State.” Now, at little Otterbein University, the gorilla just galls me on general principal. Okay, a bit of jealousy. All the same, I admire the mindless mania of Buckeye fans even as I hate it.

Thanks. A lot. I knew I wanted more.
I have been thinking about tackling this topic for my upcoming graduate lecture at VCFA, and there you were, commenting on it.

I hope you had/are having a successful tour.

Thanks, Teresa! So good, as ever, to hear from you!

Hi, Jodi,

What I mean by transient description is really twofold:

First, beginning writers often assume that they need only to add as much detail as possible to make a scene come alive. This is a common enough misconception but a misconception nonetheless. It often results in a compounding of unactivated modifiers. In other words, the narrator is simply describing one thing, and then another, and then another, and there is no movement between them. For instance, we see a living room, and the inexperienced writer will show us the couch, the curtains, the persian rug, the dusty doilies. But the room doesn’t come alive. A more experienced writer will show the room in relation to the character in question. In other words, the things in the living room don’t exist in a static state for the purposes of fiction. Rather, they exist as the character comes into contact with them. This can be A) physical, or B) emotional/psychological/mental. When we look at the world around us, we most often see the parts of that world that pertain to us, that resonate in the heart, body, and mind. In this way, a vibrant, realistic scene is most often built of transient description in that the descriptions either move from one thing to another to another based on how the character is physically interacting with the space, or the description moves from on thing into character consciousness/body, which triggers an action, which may include more intake of physicial/environmental stimuli, which move the reader back into consciousness/body. Etc.

Cheers,
Bruce

I forgot I was reading a blog post. I wanted to turn the page to see what happened next in this lyrical tale of love traversing borders. How deftly you travel from woman to story, from family to life.

I got snagged only once, to re-read your words about description. Those thirteen words grabbed me and won’t let me go.

More advice along these lines would be well-received.

Best wishes,
Jodi

Thanks so much, Cherry!

“the heartwood of my imagination” is, I’m afraid, an example of a writer stealing from his own material. Something very much like that line appears in the novel, and perhaps the fact that I’ve used it again here is proof of my self-consciousness, of my pride, of my egocentric tendencies. But these, too, are uniquely human traits, and I own them with self-awareness but no particular regret.

I’m glad you found something to which you could relate in the post, and I hope you enjoy the book.

Bruce