In my opinion, there is nothing that makes a story more believable, nothing that gives a reader more of a "You are there" feeling, than narrative imagery, which is a method of describing for a reader exactly the scene you're using in a story without being boring. One of the troubles with fanfic writers, in general, seems to me to be that they get so involved with their "kewl" plots and their host of fan-made characters that, often, everything else tends to go out the window. If you're lucky, you'll find a fanfic writer who does character well on top of plot. And there are those blessed few who do plot, character, and setting/mood/imagery very well. They're rare as unicorns, though. Most fic writers don't get beyond defining their plot with their stories. Which is a shame because, while plot (and character) is certainly necessary and great, it also certainly isn't all there is to writing! There are so many other nuances that make a story complete and entertaining and, to me, setting/mood/descriptive imagery is one of the biggies in that regard.

So, for those interested in developing this rarer skill, the following is a technique of doing so in a sort of hands-on way. I learned the technique from a professor of mine in college. He used it when he was teaching middle school, he made us do it, and I found that it was really helpful since, at the time, atmosphere and setting were weak spots of mine. And for me, learning by doing is always better than just sitting there listening to a teacher drone on and on… So, as I said, this exercise helped me a great deal, and I still to this day often repeat it in my journal, just to keep the skills sharpened, so to speak. And, once I became a teacher myself, I made it a point to incorporate this exercise into my own teaching repertoire. When I taught high school and college Creative Writing, after we had covered basic grammar and basic stuff such as plot generation, structuring, and pacing, we moved onto the basics of writing well. And, for me, one of the very basics of writing well involves the effective use of setting, description, mood, imagery, etc.

So, I'm assuming that if you're looking at this, you might be interested in improving your writing in this area. If so, that gladdens my heart more than you probably realize. So, I shall share my pet imagery-development exercise here. It may help you, it may not…but I know that it helped me and quite a number of my students in the past. So, here we go. There are two parts to the exercise and both are simple…though perhaps deceptively so. ;)

Writing good imagery/description is on one level simply an outcome of being scrupulously observant. You have to notice the little but meaningful things in a scene (Like a character's facial expressions, for instance.) first before you can accurately convey them to a reader. And then you have to express them in such a way that your reader will see that detail exactly as you're seeing it. In this way, I tend to think that there's a direct correlation between writing and drawing a picture, in that they both require you to closely observe what you see (Either with your physical eyes or with your mind's eye) and then recreate it so that others can see it as well and, more importantly, in exactly the same way you see it. When you're drawing, you do this with lines and shapes, colors and shading, etc. It's rather straightforward that way. When you're writing, you do the same thing, only you do it a little less directly, with words rather than with lines and colors. You draw a "word picture" using both simple description and more complex imagery, to which your reader can emotionally relate, in order to paint in your reader's mind a picture of exactly what you're seeing. And that, basically, is exactly what you're going to do here. In fact, you're going to do it twice.

Off we go!

Part 1

Observation, as I said, is everything when it comes to writing setting and mood, and this is your chance to be minutely, obsessively observant. Here's what you do:

Grab a notepad and a pencil/pen and go to a window in your house/apartment. Any window will do, really, though it'll be much more effective and interesting for you if you pick one that doesn't have a lovely view of, say, the wall of your neighbor's house — although you might be able to do something creative even with that! Sit yourself down. Now, observe. Notice every tiny little detail about the view outside your chosen window. Take at least five minutes just to observe, more if you have the patience. Drink it all in. Try to notice at least two or three things that you never noticed before because, frankly, unless you've already developed keen observational skills, there are probably dozens of things out there that you've never noticed before, and it's high time that you did notice them. :)

Now, once you've drunk everything in, here is your task: You are going to write a description of the view outside your window, and your goal is to do so in such a way that a reader who's never been to your house and who has never seen the view that you're going to describe could draw an accurate picture of what you're describing. The more clearly descriptive you are, of course, the more accurate your reader's drawing will be and your goal is to get them to produce as accurate and detailed a drawing as possible. So the challenge here is to convey as much as you possibly can in a way that will draw a clear picture in the reader's mind and, more importantly, in a way that will hold their interest.

You can use plain physical description, sure. But realize that after a while plain, unadorned physical description gets quite boring, for you and for the reader. A better way to go about it is through the use of imagery. For example, I could look out my office window here at my house and describe the tree that's there. I could write something like:

"There's an oak tree outside the window. It's sixty-five feet tall, and its trunk is fifteen feet around."

Does the job, yes, but is it interesting? Um, not very. Will the reader get a really clear image of the tree just by spouting off a few descriptive numbers? Um, probably not. And if you had to sit there and read something that went on like that for pages, you'd probably be falling asleep before you hit Page 2. You certainly wouldn't be interested in drawing that picture of the scene, would you? You'd be way too bored.

So, a better way to do it is through the use of imagery. Imagery is simply a method of describing something by relating it to something completely unrelated but with which a reader is already familiar, something that hopefully draws a clear image in a person's mind.

Just as a "for example," to describe my tree here, I might go about it this way:

"There's a huge old oak tree outside my window, the kind that would be at home on a stereotypical tree-lined Main Street of a stereotypical small American town. It has to be at least sixty-five feet tall, and its trunk is as big around as three NFL linebackers mashed together. It's so old that its thicker branches are like an old woman's arthritic fingers, gnarled and twisted by the ravages of time, and its trunk is as lumpy and misshapen as the same woman's spine…"

That's a little paragraph describing a tiny bit of the view outside my window, but still it manages to cram three different images into it:

And that's the key to imagery. You describe something a reader can't see for themselve by evoking an image that they can relate to, which in turn often gives them a clearer (and more interesting) picture in their head than dry physical description can.

So, your task here is to balance the necessary physical description with descriptive imagery. You don't want to use too much of either, although if you have to err on one side or the other, I personally feel that it's better to err on the side of imagery, as it's far more interesting and evocative. Yes, some things have to be described physically, such as a tree's position on the lawn, for example, or another object's position in relation to that tree, but, as I said, imagery is the far more interesting — and, as a writer, the more challenging — way to go.

So have at it! See what you can come up with. Make it as detailed as you can. Describe trees. Describe the grass. Describe other houses that are in your view. Describe any critters that might be in your yard at the moment. Describe any toys or other junk that might be lying around. Describe it all. Draw me a word picture, baby. If you feel like it, when you feel you've adequately conquered the view from one window, move to another and repeat the process from the start. Once is sufficient, though, for this exercise.

Now, being observant and being able to sit and describe something that you can actually see is great. That's the first step. The problem with writing, of course, is that you don't usually have the luxury of being able to physically observe the place that you're describing in your story. Either you're describing a place that's completely fictional — like, say, Cybertron — or you're describing a real place where you've never been in person. But you still, of course, want to give the reader that all-important "You Are There" feeling. So, this is where your imagination comes into play. What you have to do in this case is sit for a moment and visualize the scene you want to describe in minute detail, the same as you observed the view from your window. And then you do exactly what you did when you looked out your window; you describe, describe, describe.

And that's your task in this half of the exercise. Grab your notepad and pen again. You're going to sit down somewhere, hopefully when you won't have any distractions. (I recommend taking the phone off the hook.) You're going to close your eyes and visualize a place to describe. It can be somewhere that you've been before, but it's more challenging if it's a totally fictional place. Like, for instance, an idyllic place that you'd like to go to but have never actually seen or that doesn't actually exist in the real world. As you did with the view outside your window, you want to notice as much as you possibly can about that place in your mind's eye. And then, yes, you're going to describe it in writing in such a way that, hopefully, your reader can develop a picture in their mind's eye that's a pretty fair representation of what you're seeing. You'll want to do this in exactly the same way that you did it with your window scene, balancing physical description and imagery so that the finished description is both accurate and interesting.

And there you go! :) Certainly, doing this exercise won't teach you all that you need to know about writing description, but it's a marvelous tool for helping you to develop the skill. You can apply it to other things, too. You can describe a person in the same way. Or your dog/cat. Or a fictional character. You can describe the view out of every window in your house if you want to. You can describe your dreams this way. You can envision a new fictional scene in your head every day and describe it. I used to do that in my journal quite a lot. The point is that the more you habitually think about scenes and people and objects in this way, the more you learn to habitually relate what you see to other descriptive images, the more those things will naturally bleed over into your writing, without you having to think about it and/or put a lot of effort into it. And that, as I said, can only be A Good Thing. :) And, like I also said, observation — either directly or in your mind's eye — is the key. It's of the utmost importance.

So there you have it. :) Your mission, should you choose to accept it. Feel free to do it or not do it as you see fit. If you do decide to give it a go, feel free to share with me your results, if you like. I'd love to see 'em. Really!

This lesson will self-destruct in three seconds… ;)

BOOM!