Positive Narration and Vibrant Description
How to Capture the Reader and Write Better Fiction
Oct 27, 2009
A good story will do well with interesting plot, good character development and appropriate settings. An amateur writer may wish to improve all of these elements with the writing style itself. Writers are of course entitled to their own styles, a few adjustments to narration and description in a story can help that style be even more interesting to readers.
Positive Writing in Narration
Try to keep the narration positive. Negative words include words like: no, did not, have not, are not and would not. Keeping the narration positive does not necessarily mean never using these kinds of words, it simply means forming sentences in a positive light. For example, if commenting on a character’s likes or dislikes, writing a sentence like, “Charles did not like skating,” would be writing in the negative.
The sentence could also read, “Charles preferred skiing to skating.” This sentence not only gives a little more detail about the character, but is written more positively, while letting the reader know that Charles does not like skating. This is not to say that the first sentence is not a good one, but that there are alternatives that function just as well.
Writing Lively Description
One of the last things an author wants in a story is bland description. A story may have great dialogue and a good storyline, but is that much more captivating with good, vibrant description. Good description begins with using suitable adjectives rather than keeping every sentence simple. Simply using a descriptive word for a noun can work well to characterize and shape an element of the story.
For example, “The cat jumped to the windowsill,” is a fine sentence that creates a mental picture of the story’s action. This sentence could read, “The white cat jumped to the windowsill, the chipped paint loosening at his footfall.” The sentence now adds colour to the mental picture and adds interest to the surroundings of the cat. The description of the windowsill as well as the cat adds depth to the scene.
Good description may also depend on the kinds of descriptive words used. A thesaurus is a valuable tool in finding excellent descriptive words. It is not merely a tool to find flowery language, but it can help to narrow down the synonyms of the adjective until the word chosen is the most appropriate for the sentiment of the sentence. For knowing which word is the most appropriate, a dictionary is also a valuable tool.
Dialogue to Develop Characters
Narration in the midst of dialogue is different from descriptive paragraphs. The narration between dialogue describes the dialogue, but it need not be as vibrant as other parts of the narration. The writing can be simpler because at that point, it does not carry the weight of the characterization.
During the dialogue in the story, the dialogue itself and not the narration is an excellent way to develop characters. By using a dialect, particular speech patterns, and particular vocabulary, the dialogue can form a character’s personality. The narration that accompanies the dialogue can then be simpler and be a support to the dialogue. Find more on Developing Characters with Dialogue.
To improve fiction writing skills and develop great writing style, an author may wish to work on expanding his or her descriptive vocabulary and practicing positive narration.
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