Imagery in Writing

[Louanne Learning]

It seems to me one of the important goals of good writing is to form images in the reader’s minds.

Maybe it helps for the writer to imagine they are watching a video of their story and then describe in words what they see.

Maybe it’s about appealing to all the senses, or using metaphors.

It doesn’t mean describing things you don’t need to – everyone knows what a car looks like, and is it relevant to your story exactly what kind of car it is?

But imagery is especially powerful when the writer attaches a picture to abstract things. This, I think, really fosters reader engagement.

It’s about not just telling, but showing.

So, instead of writing - The fire crackled.

Here it is, with imagery –

“What is more cheerful, now, in the fall of the year, than an open-wood-fire? Do you hear those little chirps and twitters coming out of that piece of apple-wood? Those are the ghosts of the robins and blue-birds that sang upon the bough when it was in blossom last Spring. In Summer whole flocks of them come fluttering about the fruit-trees under the window: so I have singing birds all the year round.”

― Thomas Bailey Aldrich



I love to hear your thoughts and pointers about incorporating imagery in your writing.

 

[Louanne Learning]

“The brain had its own food on which it battened, and the imagination, made grotesque by terror, twisted and distorted as a living thing by pain,
danced like some foul puppet on a stand and grinned through moving masks.”

― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

 

[Banespawn]

I think mood is a very important part of description. We don't just want to describe a thing so that the reader can see it. We want to describe it so that the reader can feel it.

There's a guy on Youtube who breaks down writing by well-known authors. I've been watching some of his videos on GRRM and Patrick Rothfuss.

They are definitely worth a watch.

 

[Louanne Learning]

We don't just want to describe a thing so that the reader can see it. We want to describe it so that the reader can feel it.

I love this! Such an important point. Quintessential writing - images that move a person.

They are definitely worth a watch.

Thanks so much for sharing.

 

[Dogberry's Watch]

Everyone always talks about how Tolkien loved his trees, but we all know exactly what those trees look like, don't we?

I keep trying to say what I mean, but it's not coming out right. I think there's a vitality to the simple descriptions. I think with the example you gave above, with the crackling fire, the context of the fire is where the imagery becomes important. If I were to read "the fire crackled," it's a sound I know and love, but if it's meant to be a specific kind of crackle, then the rest of the room needs to be seen. Is that where the abstraction comes in? A character can hear the fire crackle, and maybe it spawns the living room of their great-aunt Margaret who's always cold. Or it's the summertime hunting trip with Pops. Maybe it's a solo hike through a state park and a stop for lunch at one of those grills that sits outside every single shelter.

So, in that regard, the fire needs to be seen, and heard. We'd need the crackle to kickstart the rest of it. This is not to disregard the example you gave, of course. I think oftentimes it's down to a writer's personal style that shows their use of imagery the best. I remember writing my essays at school where I'd be asked to discuss certain elements of a story we'd read in class, and one of the things we'd be required to touch on was the imagery used. It got to be tedious in some cases because in the world of literary fiction, those elements are well established, and thoroughly pointed out by hundreds of students. I think I once asked a professor why the fish couldn't just be a fish, and why we had to make it mean something to the writer, and the answer was something vague, but I think it's a good question.

Do we as writers want the reader to see what we see and feel? Or are we hoping what we write gives them the chance to associate their experiences with the scene we're setting? I think it's a bit of both, for me. I want a scene to be clearly defined, but not so defined, as you asked, that the make and model of the car is given. A red sedan with a busted hubcap does a far better job than a rundown Mercedes in terms of setting a scene (in my opinion, haha).

I don't know if any of what I've said is what you wanted, but it's what I thought of and tried to articulate. Maybe I did it well! I don't know. It's late, haha.

 

[Louanne Learning]

Do we as writers want the reader to see what we see and feel?

I think this is what is at the core of art. It's what makes a painting, or a story, a piece of art - that the receiver of the art feels what the artist felt while creating the art. Quoted below is how Tolstoy defines art in his book What Is Art?

If only the spectators or auditors are infected by the feelings which the author has felt, it is art.

To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself then, by means of movements, lines, colours, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling—this is the activity of art.

Art is a human activity, consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings, and also experience them.

I suppose this means that the writer must feel what they are writing, and those feelings are then passed on to the reader.

 

[Banespawn]

Do we as writers want the reader to see what we see and feel? Or are we hoping what we write gives them the chance to associate their experiences with the scene we're setting? I think it's a bit of both, for me. I want a scene to be clearly defined, but not so defined, as you asked, that the make and model of the car is given. A red sedan with a busted hubcap does a far better job than a rundown Mercedes in terms of setting a scene (in my opinion, haha).

Brandon Sanderson often talks about this in what he calls the pyramid of abstraction.

Specific details draw the reader in and ground them in the setting, enabling the author to present their more abstract ideas without losing the reader. If you can paint a clearer picture without adding more words, why wouldn't you do that?

One of the examples he uses is a dog. A dog is a fairly abstract idea because there are so many different breeds of dog. One person might imagine a chihuahua while another imagines a rottweiler.

Sure, you can say that the character has a dog, a fish, and a red sedan with a busted hubcap, and let the reader imagine all of that however they want, but that doesn't tell us a whole lot about the character. The specific details can help to show us who this character is. Maybe he has a rottweiler because he lives in a dangerous neighborhood and wants the added protection. Maybe he has a rundown Mercedes because he was once wealthy and has since fallen on hard times.

The specific details matter. They give us a clearer picture not just of the thing being described, but of the character and the overall setting. They help the reader to engage more with the story.

 

[Dogberry's Watch]

Well, yes. The busted hubcap in my example last night was on a sedan outside that the narrator saw, not necessarily the character's car. So, yes, the specifics matter, but they then matter to the character viewing those specifics.

It gets to the point where I ask myself how far into a detail I want to go. If the image I'm trying to show is for one character or all of them. Maybe my narrator doesn't know the man who used to be wealthy and has a rundown Mercedes because he's down on his luck. To my character, it's a busted hubcap.

I hope this doesn't sound like I'm firing back in defensiveness. I think you raise a good point, but it also asks further questions that I then wonder if we need to go that far with it. For that answer, I think it depends on the writer and the kind of story they're telling.

 

[Banespawn]

Well, yes. The busted hubcap in my example last night was on a sedan outside that the narrator saw, not necessarily the character's car. So, yes, the specifics matter, but they then matter to the character viewing those specifics.

It gets to the point where I ask myself how far into a detail I want to go. If the image I'm trying to show is for one character or all of them. Maybe my narrator doesn't know the man who used to be wealthy and has a rundown Mercedes because he's down on his luck. To my character, it's a busted hubcap.

I hope this doesn't sound like I'm firing back in defensiveness. I think you raise a good point, but it also asks further questions that I then wonder if we need to go that far with it. For that answer, I think it depends on the writer and the kind of story they're telling.

In that instance, yes, the specifics probably aren't important. The perspective character may not know the specifics, such that providing them would be a break in POV.

 

[Pyroglyphian]

It seems to me one of the important goals of good writing is to form images in the reader’s minds.

As a reader, I think visualisation happens automatically. One of the qualities of good writing (for me) is that it gets out of the way and allows this process to happen; it acknowledges the writer-reader contract. This observation probably says more about deficiencies in my own writing than anything else, wherein I’ve tended to dictate too much rather than allowing the reader the liberty (and enjoyment!) to imagine.

 

[wearywanderer64]

Imagery is like acting. It's so easy to get caught out at it. I've seen whole rooms being described and I thought, oh for heaven's sake, move on. Yet, with other writers I'm transfixed by the description. Graham Green, Dickens, and Steinbeck are fine examples of the latter. A big mistake I see is when imagery is just sandwiched somewhere that makes it look out of place. Or when a rough character with little to no education is describing something like a poet. Third person can work. In Stenbeck's 'Of Mice And men,' he describes the scene beautifully, preparing you for the two rough characters that are about to appear.

 

[Louanne Learning]

As a reader, I think visualisation happens automatically.

I'm not sure what you mean? You mean without the words?

 

[Pyroglyphian]

I'm not sure what you mean? You mean without the words?

I was thinking more, “A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.” (attributed variously...)

i.e., I don’t think the writer’s goal is to form images in the reader’s mind; I think this is implied in the act of reading.

With respect to my own writing, having been released from the need to commandeer this process of image formation, I’m free to focus on higher concerns such as the sequence of images, their position in the story, their depth, richness, vividness, etc.

It probably seems like hair-splitting, but I think it’s less about trying to control what’s in the reader’s mind and more about creating fertile ground for their imagination.

 

[Louanne Learning]

I was thinking more, “A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.” (attributed variously...)

i.e., I don’t think the writer’s goal is to form images in the reader’s mind; I think this is implied in the act of reading.

With respect to my own writing, having been released from the need to commandeer this process of image formation, I’m free to focus on higher concerns such as the sequence of images, their position in the story, their depth, richness, vividness, etc.

It probably seems like hair-splitting, but I think it’s less about trying to control what’s in the reader’s mind and more about creating fertile ground for their imagination.

I'm not sure that anyone is suggesting that a writer's goal is to "commandeer" or "control" a reader's mind.

But forming images as you read is an important part of the emersion into any story.

The words you read help to form those images. Yes, the reader's imagination is very much involved in the process.

 

[Banespawn]

I was thinking more, “A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.” (attributed variously...)

i.e., I don’t think the writer’s goal is to form images in the reader’s mind; I think this is implied in the act of reading.

With respect to my own writing, having been released from the need to commandeer this process of image formation, I’m free to focus on higher concerns such as the sequence of images, their position in the story, their depth, richness, vividness, etc.

It probably seems like hair-splitting, but I think it’s less about trying to control what’s in the reader’s mind and more about creating fertile ground for their imagination.

I think there's a risk of advocating our responsibilities as writers. I'm not saying you are doing it, but the writer who puts less effort into their descriptions because the reader will just imagine it is doing themselves, their readers, and their stories a disservice.

Obviously, you don't need to provide every detail, but where is the line? How much description is needed before the reader can take it the rest of the way?

I'd argue that the way we describe is far more important than how much we describe. Description isn't just about painting a picture. It's about setting a mood and pulling the reader into the story. Storytelling is a collaboration between the writer and the reader. We have to be sure we are doing our part if we expect the reader to do theirs.

It's not about control, per se. I'd call it more subtle manipulation. We don't write sad scenes because we want the reader to laugh. We don't plant red herrings because we want the reader to guess the truth. We are the ones steering the ship. If at any time we are expecting the reader to take the wheel, we're likely to run aground. As a writer, I want the reader to stand on deck and feel the wind on their face. I want them to gaze out at the vastness of the ocean and spy distant shorelines. Never mind the poor sap in the engine room feeding coal to the fire. The reader doesn't need to think about him.

 

[Pyroglyphian]

I'm not sure that anyone is suggesting that a writer's goal is to "commandeer" or "control" a reader's mind.

I suggested it in regard to my own writing (nobody else). I'm just sharing a view on the off chance it resonates with someone.

 

[Pyroglyphian]

I think there's a risk of advocating our responsibilities as writers. I'm not saying you are doing it, but the writer who puts less effort into their descriptions because the reader will just imagine it is doing themselves, their readers, and their stories a disservice.

Obviously, you don't need to provide every detail, but where is the line? How much description is needed before the reader can take it the rest of the way?

I'd argue that the way we describe is far more important than how much we describe. Description isn't just about painting a picture. It's about setting a mood and pulling the reader into the story. Storytelling is a collaboration between the writer and the reader. We have to be sure we are doing our part if we expect the reader to do theirs.

It's not about control, per se. I'd call it more subtle manipulation. We don't write sad scenes because we want the reader to laugh. We don't plant red herrings because we want the reader to guess the truth. We are the ones steering the ship. If at any time we are expecting the reader to take the wheel, we're likely to run aground. As a writer, I want the reader to stand on deck and feel the wind on their face. I want them to gaze out at the vastness of the ocean and spy distant shorelines. Never mind the poor sap in the engine room feeding coal to the fire. The reader doesn't need to think about him.

Thank you, yes – good thoughts – I quite agree. One result of the change I mentioned is that I’m now striving for a less-is-more approach – curating a few key details to share with the reader – but am actually probably achieving a less-is-less outcome. I’m likely underwriting and being vague, but this is a refreshing change (for me) from overdoing it. I suppose I’ll spend some time oscillating between these two extremes before (hopefully) arriving at a happy place in the middle.

 

[Rigor Mortis]

It probably seems like hair-splitting, but I think it’s less about trying to control what’s in the reader’s mind and more about creating fertile ground for their imagination.

Being new to writing fiction is something I offer to explain all my idiocies, something to bear in mind with what follows.

I can only agree with the points you've made. Being new to this, there's a tendency I try to resist of over-writing, by which I don't just mean adding details that are unnecessary, potentially detracting, but also the tendency to nail down the narrative to my singular notions, potentially smothering the reader.

I've not read Tolstoy, but on the old forum there was a thread that included his line of description in Anna Karenina (I think), saying something like she was a beautiful woman. That's pretty much it. Thing is, everyone knows what a beautiful woman looks like, even if blind from birth. I know what a beautiful woman looks like. So do you. That's what Anna Karenina looked like.

 

[Louanne Learning]

I've not read Tolstoy, but on the old forum there was a thread that included his line of description in Anna Karenina (I think), saying something like she was a beautiful woman. That's pretty much it. Thing is, everyone knows what a beautiful woman looks like, even if blind from birth. I know what a beautiful woman looks like. So do you. That's what Anna Karenina looked like.

I guess Tolstoy figured just saying "She was a beautiful woman" was enough to form an image in a reader's mind. And maybe it was?

It's a real balancing act, I think, between forming images and over-description. I know in my own writing, I tend not to be overly descriptive, but I still strive to immerse the reader in what I am writing - form pictures in their mind that put them in the scene. It does not always have to be as detailed as the example in the OP, but sometimes simply putting a character in a setting will do it. Then, rely on the reader's imagination.

But sometimes detailed descriptions rock! Then, the language itself must carry you away.

 

[Luxuria]

I know it sets the mood and I will indulge a writer when setting the scene. I do love GRRM's style. However, it's in how he weaves it into the other part of a chapter. But most everyone else, if they go on too long, I just skip the descriptions. (Looking at you, Stoker.) If there are too many 'metaphors', I also jump ship, because I don't have time for every fancy word or explanation. I just want to read the story, not try and decode what the author is trying to describe or contrast.

Sure, you can talk about how beautiful the mountains were while lit by the setting sun. But more 1 paragraph and I am out.