Having been in copywriting for so long, we sometimes lose ourselves to short-form content. When it comes time to unshackle our writing from the chains of brevity, it can be an exhilarating experience for some… but for others, the rust can also be hard to shake off. Where do we draw the line between being too descriptive and not enough? What even are the rules of descriptive writing?
When we get stuck, it can often be beneficial to consider solutions from a different perspective – and we believe screen writing offers the perfect balance between effectiveness and efficiency when it comes to quality details. Join Wordsmith as we explore descriptive writing like a screen writer!
Detailing basics
To give us more insight into how a screenwriter thinks, we consulted Karl Iglesias’ book Writing for Emotional Impact: Advanced Dramatic Techniques to Attract, Engage, and Fascinate the Reader from Beginning to End. “Description is not about what you say, but how you say it – how to shape your words to create specific emotions and moods,” Iglesias explains.
Although some people may think of a script as just a collection of directions and lines for actors, Iglesias could not disagree more. “Always remember that when you’re writing a script, it’s meant to be read. This means it should as exciting to read as the movie will be to view,” he explains. “If 95 percent of current spec scripts are awful to mediocre, this means 95 percent of writers ignore this essential factor.” Since a script is devoid of visuals, special effects and sounds, we rely on clever writing to paint a vivid scene.
Given Iglesias’ extensive experience as a script consultant, he has seen many bad scripts before and highlights the following as the most common rookie mistakes:
· Lack of care for appearance, formatting and styling
Before even reading a word, the first thing that any reader notices is the appearance and structure. If it looks a mess, it immediately dissuades them from wanting to continue – this is even more important when dealing with scripts and professional writing! “Readers know what a professional script looks like, and they can spot an amateur a mile away,” Iglesias describes. “A flawed format immediately tells the reader that if the writer doesn’t know basic formatting, chances are he/she doesn’t know craft.”
Iglesias recommends the use of specialised script-writing software, but for general writing purposes (like a Wordsmith Wordwise blog article), you can get by with a basic word processor and these very simple rules:
o Use headers, subheads and graphics to divide up content
o Choose a font and stick with it for consistency
o Divide paragraphs by their points – each paragraph should have an individual point that is relevant to the theme or subhead
o Use special formatting (such as italics, bold, underline) to emphasise certain words or points
o Use spellcheck religiously to avoid being tarred and feathered by the masses
· Overdetailing
Some people fell that lengthier descriptions equate to better detail. From adverbs and run-on sentences, to the colour of a character’s shirt and what a random dog is doing 5 blocks away, some writers just throw the metaphorical kitchen sink at their readers.
“Well-written doesn’t mean over-written,” Iglesias points out curtly.
Consider this example:
Steve, clad in his iconic blue vest and striped shorts, bounced up and down in his corner with anticipation as the referee announced the challenger. Having demolished the prior competition, he jeeringly stuck out his chin as he turned around to square up his opponent – an absolute behemoth of a man stood before him at an intimidating 6 foot 5 of chiselled flesh at a frightening 300 pounds, bulging veins, fists the size of a holiday ham.
Despite the stereotype of boxers being prone to skip leg day, the challenger possessed the thickest calves Steve had ever seen… as if somebody tore out two fire hydrants and shoved them into a pair of comically sized 11 shoes. Even the referee couldn’t help but swallow a gulp in apprehension as the challenger kept his beady gaze centred at Steve’s face.
It’s certainly a vivid description of an intimidating boxer, but it can be boiled down to “Steve the boxer meets scary opponent”. Iglesias would describe this sort of narration as novel-esque writing that is unfit for screenplays, but even we think novel writers need to curate which details to present (unless you are George R.R. Martin). You have to be selective about what details to present to avoid overcrowding the picture. “It’s about verb-driven, visual and active sentences that move,” Iglesias writes. “Most of all, it’s about succinctness, saying the most with the least amount of choice words – this is why great screenwriting is often called ‘visual poetry’.”
All the descriptions about the clothing and size of muscles are interesting, but unless it’s going to be referred to again later or is important to the plot, extensive one-off details are generally unnecessary. Here’s how we would shrink the example down:
Steve spun around to face his opponent. Despite feeling confident after his prior wins, his smug attitude crumbled – he felt like David standing before the mountain of a man that was Goliath… and with the rippling muscles and chiselled physique of Adonis to boot.
· Bad habits
Although anybody can grab a pen or computer and start writing, how well they can write is a different story. Iglesias is a firm believer that not everybody is cut out to write. As harsh as this sounds, he works in the entertainment industry – and in that industry, bad writing is simply unprofitable. Some of the more egregious offences include:
Using the passive voice:
“For some reason, the passive sentence sounds better in the writer’s mind that its active counterpart, but it doesn’t read better on the page,” Iglesias explains. When the object of a sentence is acted upon by the subject, it weakens the impact of the verb, like so:
Passive – The ball was thrown by Jeff
Active – Jeff threw the ball
The passive voice is grammatically correct, but it lacks confidence and conviction when compared to the active voice. You want your writing to be (or at least appear) convincing right?Using negative descriptions:
We don’t mean you should avoid negative terms – they make up a big chunk of our descriptive vocabulary – but you should avoid specific vocabulary like not, won’t, cannot and so forth.
So instead of “Jeff will not be going to the game” or “Jeff is not a brave person”, use “Jeff refuses to go to the game” or “Jeff is cowardly”. “It’s often better to show what you want to show the reader, not what you don’t want him/her to see,” describes Iglesias. “You’ll also use fewer words.”Using parentheticals and adverbs:
In screenwriting, parentheticals are often used to convey an action or emotion, like so:
Jeff (coldly): “You have no idea what I had to go through.”
The problem with this style of writing is that you’re telling the audience how to think and feel… and just like with using adverbs, they are lazy.
If our goal was to make the audience understand why Jeff was acting so coldly, we should let our story illustrate his plight – perhaps he was tortured, had to claw his way out of a hate-filled cesspool… whatever it is, the audience should be able to develop these feelings of empathy on their own without you needing to tell them.Using filler
Present participles such as “starts to” or “begins to” are an inefficient use of words. Why bother with “it begins to rain” when you can just write “it rains”?Using bad openers
If someone wanted to introduce a subject or object, seeing any sentence start with “there is” or “there are” is a big tell that the writer is inexperienced. Instead, use better verbs so that your subjects and objects can shine.
Bad: There is a cat on the fence.
Better: A cat sits on the fence.
Best: The cat surveyed its territory as it perched atop the fence.
Giving directions
Directions are more commonly associated with scripts, but they do pop up occasionally in writing through terms like “we see” or “we hear”.
“They’re not only unnecessary, they also break the fictive bond between reader and page by referring to the audience,” points out Iglesias. “When I write ‘a house’, we can clearly see a house. I don’t have to write ‘we see a house’…. It’s redundant.”
Keeping the narrative straight helps to keep your audience engaged!
There’s a lot more to descriptive writing, but this is a good place to pause and digest what we’ve covered. We mostly focused on bad habits this chapter, so do stay tuned for what you should be doing when trying to be descriptive.