A Guy Walks Into a Bar

“A guy walks into a bar; he had a conversation with a strange woman and then left the bar.”

This is one of the reasons my writing lingers at the novice level.  Description, description, description….

Description and those pesky five senses will be the death of me.

What did the bar look like; sports bar, dive bar, strip bar?  What did the bar smell like; stale cigarettes, aged vomit, high school locker room?  Was the beer flat and the peanuts stale?  Was it loud with crowds or quiet and empty?  Did the jukebox play love songs or a thump’en dance mix?  Were the bar stools hard and leather booths comfortable?

Details that make the reader feel they are in the bar, not outside peering through a cloudy window, the ability to weave the perfect amount of description without being cliché or droning on page after page over every little speck of boring detail.

A perfect balance of detail is the goal and every day I write to achieve that goal.

http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Fiction-Writing-Monica-Wood/dp/0898799082/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367861077&sr=8-1&keywords=elements+of+fiction+description

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