Out topic from Skye Taylor is: “Setting the Scene: Or as one blogger has suggested: Your scene is a sketch, not a photograph.”

To me, this topic concerns the amount of description needed to make a scene come to life for the reader, without becoming boring because it gets in the way of plot development.

I’ve had a beta reader comment on my current work, rapping me on the knuckles for not having enough description. She couldn’t put herself into some of my situations, because my sketch lacked enough lines. So, I’ve re-read a few of my earlier award-winning books, and selected a couple passages:

A sudden, loud booming noise made his head turn to the right. Ahead and about a hundred metres further out, a huge, blue-black shape surged out of the sea, rising far above Tamás’s five-meter height. Up, up the great whale soared, then he noted with horror that several smaller, but still very large shapes were attached to her: to her tail, to a fin, to the end of the great sail on her back. Black and white spots marked these creatures.

The whale turned at the top of her rise, and plunged head first back into the sea. A great plume of foam arose, marking her disappearance. Oh, the poor thing! Tamás thought, and changed direction toward the spot. By the time he got there, he could see no sign of the prey, or the pack of hunters. Saddened, he turned south once more.

Artif said, “Darling, that’s life. Those orcas were hunting. They need food as much as you do.”

“Surely, you’re right. But that great, intelligent creature, to have to suffer like that!”

“We have no right to interfere in the workings of nature.”

With his mind, he knew she was right. All the same, he wished he could have done something to help the whale, the victim, the sufferer. Sadly he travelled on, under the ever-wetting curtain of fine rain.

After perhaps another period, the gray world turned pink. First a wide, upwardly facing red sliver of a circle poked below the low clouds of the horizon. Soon, this sank into the sea, so that now a wide strip of fire with circular edges spanned sea and sky, at the edge of vision. A low-flying bright pink blanket lay low over a bright pink sea. A huge, brilliant double rainbow appeared, flying along with Tamás as he rhythmically rose and fell above the waves. He could not take his eyes from it, until he got a crick in his neck from looking to the side. The rainbow and its rosy background disappeared as the topmost tip of the sun drowned in the sea, but in his mind’s eye he saw it for long after.

He flew on for a while, then ordered the camp down into the water. He landed on the flattened top, had a hot meal and a drink of chocken, then tied on and settled for sleep. He turned himself face down, above the floating camp, in order to minimize the discomfort from the continuous drizzle.

He couldn’t sleep for a long time, being kept awake by warring images of a rainbow sunset and a tortured whale, Nature at Her best and worst.

This is from Sleeper, Awake. In case you haven’t (yet) read the book, let me explain: Artif is a virtual person who is in contact with everyone via an implant joining all people and all computers on Earth into a single intelligence. Tamás and his camp aren’t actually flying over the ocean, but are using a device that pushes off against the surface, at a maximum height of 5 metres. Chocken is a delicious drink something like hot chocolate, and a period is a metric hour: one-twentieth of what is 24 hours to us.

Second, this is the start of Anikó: The stranger who loved me:

I’ve always thought that ‘an aching heart’ was a cliché, a metaphor, a mere turn of phrase. But during my daily visits to my dying mother, I learn that it is an exact description. My heart is where I feel the pain of grief.

Oh, I don’t cry, even in private. I haven’t cried since childhood. When I am with her, in that antique and under-equipped hospital room, I pretend to be cheerful and optimistic, pretend that of course she’ll get better. We both know that she never will.

I watch the solid, muscular body of my brother as he bends over her. His ear is almost touching her lips, so he can hear the less-than whisper of her voice. He repeats whatever he thinks she has said, waiting for the nod or shake of her head before bending over again. She is giving instructions, about paying the car insurance on time, about reading the water meter. She lists the names of people to telephone because they should be able to help me with my book about her life. It’s to be my memorial to her, but, even on her deathbed, she is my research officer.

The thinking part of her brain could still vie with a chess champion. Everything else is dying.

The first one is almost all description. Its contribution to the story is character development. In the second, the description is plaited in with other elements, and is hopefully invisible. It is meant as a hook. Does it work that way for you?

So, this is my idea of the right number of lines in a sketch. What is too much?

In one of her books, Jean Auel spent 3 pages describing the appearance, contents and furnishings of a cave, I kid you not. Three pages! I read to the end of the descriptive passage just from scientific curiosity, but then didn’t bother to read on.

And have I answered the question of the topic?

Let me know in the comment field below, then visit my friends:

Skye Taylor
Diane Bator
Anne Stenhouse
Connie Vines
Helena Fairfax