Can Everything Be Described?

[Rebus]

Are there many undescribable things out there, do you think? Or are there a few, but with skill the rest can be described? Or can everything be described if you've got the talent?

Because occasionally I come across something that I just cannot describe. Mostly smells, but that's not all that surprising I guess, since there aren't that many smell related words in English. You're pretty soon down to comparing it with other smells. If you've ever smelt Paraldehyde you'll know what it smells like, but if you haven't there's very little I can say to describe the unpleasant weirdness of it. It's clings to you for hours, it slowly creeps into your awareness, it's horrible. But I can't describe it.

So... what do you have trouble describing (if anything), and how do you get round it?

R

[Stratadrake]

Romance. I just avoid the subject entirely.

Well, [i]occasionally[/i] I might try to write a touching scene between two characters, but I always try to understate their connection with each other. Absolutely, positive, no superficial "I love you! Don't go!" type lines, those are so false.Real emotions between two characters aren't necessarily so overt; sometimes the most touching moments, are the ones with no touching at all.

Oh and that smell you were trying to describe? Not that I know what it's like, but I think the word is [i]formaldehyde[/i].
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[LightningAurora]

I'm happy to say I can do Romance (I think, anyway..), but what I have most trouble is writing any kind of fight scene. It just ends up getting extremely boring and unexciting. I envy all of you who can write it effectively.

[JediRevan20]

I seem to be a Romantic\Comedy writer, mostly. I cant seem to avoid it, because when I always end up haveing a male and female character falling in love with some crazy thing happening to them. I dont understand it either.

But, I think that most things can be described, but I dont find it too difficult to describe fight scenes. But, I have a tendency to have a bit too much dialogue T.T in the heat of battle, or if it is a climactic battle, I carry it on too long.

[Stratadrake]

[quote]what I have most trouble is writing any kind of fight scene. It just ends up getting extremely boring and unexciting.[/quote]

You just have to know how to make them interesting. Have you ever played Final Fantasy, the older ones particularly?

The typical Final Fantasy arranges your party and the enemy team into neat rows, and then you calmly take turns whacking each other through the turn-based, menu-driven architecture. After hours and hours of it, combat gets BORING.

Take a real-time combat system on the other hand, you have to keep moving, you have to pay attention to your location, watch out for that wall here, and don't fall of that edge there. You have to approach within range before striking the enemy and get out of range when they attack. It's a fundamentally more active approach to combat, you have to learn to pay a lot more attention to what's going on and it keeps the combat interesting a lot longer.

Now, translate this into a novel context. If all you have in a fight are the people standing still and trading blows, yes that will become repetitive and boring. Learn how to mix it up. Take into account the same factors you'd have to consider while playing a real-time-combat RPG.

* Don't just focus on decsribing the actions taken by each character. Put some thought into your battles, not just narrative thought and planning but character thought too. Don't just keep writing that they trade blows, inflict minor cuts & scrapes, and heal when needed.
* Keep the characters moving. Battles tend to 'shift' one direction or another as they progress. Sometimes you may start a battle in one location but end it in another.
* Make the battles HARD. Portray a fear that one mistake and it's all over. Never, ever make the battle look too "easy" for the reader. If it looks like a foregone conclusion that the main characters are going to win, then the enemies aren't strong enough.
* Just as you keep the characters and enemies moving around, play the battle like a tug-of-war. Maybe the battle starts out with the main characters beating their opposition. But then something happens and the opposition rallies together, and the tide of battle turns for the worse. Suddenly the battle becomes much more interesting.

Essentially, real heroes are not fearless, we just think they are. ;)

A good way for learning the mechanics of an effective fight sequence is to read and watch effective fight sequences in books and movies.....


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[Rebus]

[quote]Oh and that smell you were trying to describe? Not that I know what it's like, but I think the word is formaldehyde[/quote]


Paraldehyde is an anticonvulsant drug. I think, were we to start administering [i]formaldehyde[/i] for seizures, we'd be in court within the week.

But other than that, that's good advice Strata

[Stratadrake]

Foot in mouth syndrome strikes again. I never heard of the other one, and it did sound reasonably similar, so . . .
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[silver_dreams]

there are certain things that are really difficult to describe, so i normally end up working around it ^^;