Descriptions and What We Can Learn From (Visual) Artists

by Rosemary Johnson

My colleague, Kathy:  “Tea, Rosemary?”

Me:  “Yes please.  My mug is on the tea tray, the white one with flowers on.”

Kathy: “I can’t see a white mug with flowers on it.”  Pause.  “I can see one with butterflies on it.”

Me:  “Oh yes.  It does have butterflies on it.”

I have to confess that this conversation was real and took place, at my work, last week.

My drawing of my cup is
better than this. 
The scanner makes it look awful

As a writer, descriptions are not my best point - because I always want to get on with the story.  When I'm reading, I tend to skip over descriptive passages, especially in Victorian novels where they tend to go in for that sort of thing.  Recently, for my church book club, we were asked to read Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.  Flaubert described the nineteenth century France countryside in photographic detail, and Rhys’s depictions of the Caribbean were vivid and deeply emotional.  However, I have to admit that I didn’t finish Madame Bovary, because it bored me rigid, and I’d only award two stars to Wide Sargasso Sea.

Flaubert and Rhys clearly had developed brilliant observational skills.  Flaubert lived in nineteenth century France and Rhys in the Caribbean.  In The Oaken Heart (which I’ve also read recently), Margery Allingham relates how a village coped with wartime; Allingham’s descriptive powers were also astute and she made her subject-matter fascinating, probably because she was describing people rather than scenery.  All of them were writing-about-what-they-know – to quote the usual writers’ adage.

My friends who draw and paint tell me that they spend more time looking than applying pencil/charcoal to paper.  Perhaps, I could improve my observational skills through art.  After that incident at work, I drew my tea mug and a water bottle – which were both in front of me.  Then, recalling a funny incident which occurred the previous weekend, I drew my granddaughter wearing my shoes – one high-heel and one flat – but I couldn’t remember her expression exactly and this is important.  To my mind, it is more effective to describe a character’s facial expression when they’re experiencing a particular emotion than to state “She looked angry/ happy/ surprised… etc’.  Descriptions of people, in my opinion, engage the reader in way that descriptions of beautiful scenery don’t.

I’m working on my descriptions.  A lot of authors do it better than I am, but – I'm afraid to say – many others are in the same place as me.

Rosemary Johnson has had many short stories published, in print and online, most recently at The Copperfield Review, 101 Words and Café Lit.  She has also written a novel about the Cold War which she is – take deep breath – trying to get published.  In real life, she is a part-time IT tutor, living in Suffolk with her husband and cat.