I should try to...
get better at describing people and locations?
Or, more accurately, actually start describing stuff in general.
Anyone have any like, tips?
Guided exercises or whatever?
I am probably the wrong person to give advice on this, because I worried about it for years, then basically shrugged and kept doing what I'm doing.
I think I've talked on here about writing the entirety of Mother Weep-No-More then realising I hadn't mentioned hair colours for either main character? Yeah.
I wanna say there's definitely a right way and a wrong way to set up environments in particular. In I think uh, the Old Testament, there's a passage describing a tabernacle that just goes on and on and on and on for like a full page in the King James, which is a substantial volume of content. Tolkien often is constructing lore in tandem with their scenery, chewing the stage and lingering over many details which probably is too micro-focused for most writers, let alone audiences. But regardless of the rules I learned, I always break the rules when I'm doing something fast. Here's what I think of though when I'm wanting to focus on environments:
-Describe the Size of the Scene
-Establish the boundaries of the Playspace (positive or negative space)
-Lead the eye to Object of Focus
-Tighten around Object of Focus
-Expand back outwards
-Use the Space to Characterize the Scene
-Advance the plot as you move through the space
Here's a long Example:
The massive, oddly shaped court-yard was imposed upon on all sides by towering walls. It was mostly a diamond shaped floorplan, except one end had been awkwardly stretched out, creating a narrow and uncomfortable gap between the two faces of building. Running from top to bottom, countless square windows overlooked the skewed courtyard, at least 10 stories of windows with uncomfortable uniformity overlooking the same space. The courtyard itself was a mix of concrete and grass, an unsettling little patch of green with small strips running perpendicular to it on all sides, the lines of grass were almost like arrows, tapering and pointing one to the strange planter-box rise that the centermost patch occupied. The team moved cautiously, following the segmented sidewalk-like pathing from the gaping inlet they had stumbled through, their guns and cameras sweeping from side to side as they dispersed into the courtyard and advanced in a fan-like delta. The transition from faint yellow wallpapered, featureless office hallway into an abstract brutalist oversized airport dog park was as abrupt as any of the transitions this world offered, as-if some game developer got bored and bluntly merged two levels together, stitching their tilesets at the seems. Even the massive open-air spaces felt like a cage, from the threshhold it was clear that there was a featureless ceiling tightly clamping down from the apex.
Commander Tycho glanced at his wrist-watch, the mission clock had advanced 2 hours in the time it took to pass the threshold and enter the courtyard, and as they advanced nervously through the sniper's heaven of a killzone alleyway, the time ran up and down, the analogue watch 'glitching' between several orientations. Upon reaching the odd focal point of the altar-like rise, the team paused and nervously muttered under their breath, the center of the atrium had the transponder they were following the radio signal to alright... a pale, bloody stump of what was presumably Archer Team's leftenant clung the emergency transponder, the splash of crimson only visible now as the team stood at the edge of the elevated planter-box. He noticed now the wash of blood leading over the opposite lip, a disquieting crimson patch of plastic AstroTurf giving way to concrete, the zig-zag of blood impossibly long for its volume of fluid implied by the trail which abruptly terminated into a tiny square box. From the center of the courtyard, the trail seemed at least 50 meters long (the size of a football stadium's field and then some). With nothing else to follow and the endless windows looking down upon the team which left them exposed to being hunted by countless entities, Tycho swallowed hard against the tension in his throat, and ordered an advance.
