How Character Drives Description

Life is full of random details. Fiction is not.

One of the great things about being a writer is that you can “own” anything. Just put it into your writing. When I found this depanneur (corner store) in Old Montreal, I knew it had to go into the novel I was working on. I just loved it.

Ray Bradbury wrote about the importance using objects you care about in your writing. “What do you love most in the world? Big and little things, I mean. A trolley car, a pair of tennis shoes? These, at one time when we were children, were invested with magic for us.” (Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing) In fiction, “magic” is contagious. When you write with love, your reader connects through your passion. Even the tiniest details require this care. If you toss off a description, your reader will feel that lack of emotion.

In my new, as-yet-unpublished novel, Marigold, one of my main characters, has to find someone who now lives and works in a penny candy shop, a place Mari remembers from childhood. But wait, what happened when I wrote the description? “On my way home from work on Friday, I climbed a steep, winding path called Blow Me Down Lane... The shop was just around the corner from our old school. Rushing in with friends to buy caramels and jawbreakers, I’d never really looked at it, but that day, I saw it with the eyes of an adult. If Market Town had a contest for least appropriate shop name, Royal Sweets might have won. Where a neat canvas awning should have been, a metal fire-escape ladder sloped at a tipsy angle. Flakes of old paint showed under a fresh coat of pea green. I would have replaced that trim before spending good money on paint. ” I love this place but my description is not flattering. That’s because Marigold isn’t me. She has her own set of values, based on her upbringing as the daughter of a shop owner in a very narrow society. Inside the shop though, she finds that the young woman she knew has been transformed by the warmth and happiness of the family she married into. Without knowing what I was going to do, I used the shop to create a contrast between outward appearance and inner emotions. The description of place lets the reader see Marigold’s inner feelings without stating anything obvious. This happened because I wrote without preconceptions, letting my character think for herself. A simple description came to serve the story. Life is filled with random details. Fiction is not.