I believe there is an art in storytelling and using descriptive words that makes a good piece an excellent piece. A description of a character that makes you chuckle because it reminds you of an old teacher, or makes your heart ache a little because it reminds you of someone you no longer speak to. Maybe, it even just reminds you of someone who was stood next to you in the checkout line at the shops: but this specific recollection is significant in helping you visualise and feel the story that you are being told.
There is a type of writer, whether they are experienced or not, who has really studied those around them; not in a judgemental way, exactly, but in a way that they have mentally noted the quirks of personalities and the way people exist. A lot of good humour in writing (and stand-up comedy, for that matter) comes from acute observations that allow us to laugh at ourselves and those we are closest to. Yet, in the literary world, it should also be observed that one can use this skill to create entirely meaningful characters, whether they are ‘good’ or ‘bad’, that stay with us long after we have finished a book. This then creates the difference between a one-dimensional character (based on tropes, archetypes, and stereotypes) and a three-dimensional character – one who feels so real you feel as though they must be based on a real person or scenario. In often cases they are.
Around 10 years ago, I heard my mum laughing from the other room. She was sitting reading a book, tea in one hand, actually laughing out loud. I was baffled. I asked her, what was so funny? She was reading Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, which I had studied at school.
The line that got her was the main character’s observation of a police officer in the early pages –
“After 12 and a half minutes a policeman arrived. He had a big orange leaf stuck to the bottom of his shoe which was poking out from one side.”
It’s just perfect, I remember her saying, because that is just exactly the type of thing you’d notice in someone, but not usually bother to point out. This brief image of a police officer has stuck with me for years now, and I felt such a small, somewhat insignificant yet specific detail about his outer appearance told me so much about him as a character. I recall he is only in the book for three pages or so, yet it stayed with me.
There is another brief description of a taxi driver in Rachel Ingall’s Mrs. Caliban (a wonderful short story I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone). The line is: ‘The taxi arrived, driven by someone who looked like an eleven-year-old girl with a beard.’ I’m not sure why this cracks me up so much, but I can just vividly imagine the scenario. It comes out of nowhere and the juxtaposition of describing a character as looking like a young girl with a beard is so specific it just makes me think it must have been a thought that Ingalls had when encountering a real person.
Aside from humour, the use of incredibly specific descriptions can also serve as a technique for creating an image of beauty, sincerity, and vulnerability, which again can make us really become close to a character. If we dive into the depths of classic literature, that of Flaubert, for example, his descriptions of characters and clothes make you think of the type of person who would put such an outfit together. From A Simple Heart: ‘All the year round she wore a kerchief of printed calico fastened behind with a pin, a bonnet which covered her hair, grey stockings, a red skirt, and over her jacket a bibbed apron such as hospital nurses wear.’ The specificity of Flaubert’s observations here is sublime. It makes his character seem so much more authentic, as though he was watching a girl from his window and describing her clothes down to the material and colour. It allows us, the reader, to visualise her as well, and create a personality for her in our minds.
Contemporary writer Rachel Cusk similarly has stunning ways of lacing together attributes of personality and appearance that make each of her characters so unique, yet so realistic. From Kudos: ‘A tall, bulky, somber-looking man had entered the lobby and was standing not far from us looking absorbedly at his phone. With his thick black curly hair and black beard and large pouchy immobile face, he looked like one of the giant, pitted statues of Roman antiquity. (…) He was much taller than her and held his head very erect so that when he looked down at her his eyes appeared to be half closed, which gave the impression he was either bored or mesmerised by their conversation.’ This exquisite detailing of the character gives us again a vivid description of his personality, which you can visualise in your mind as clearly as a film scene. It further tells us that he either looks down on people literally, or metaphorically; something we can decide ourselves when given further context. Cusk has a way of making each of her characters beautiful, but not in the stereotypical way. She does so in a way that makes us feel as though she has witnessed each of her characters from birth, through childhood, she knows what pleases them, what hurts them, even if they only appear for a couple of pages or so. Reading her work sometimes feels like you are intruding on a document so personal and delicate, you shouldn’t even be allowed to read it.
I feel like one of the first things we are taught when writing stories, even as infants, is to describe characters and settings – an art that we sometimes lose touch with as we become too engrossed in building atmosphere by context and dialogue. My opinion is, the more specific the better. Of course, in moderation. But a snappy line defining a character can elevate a piece of writing. I think it is important to emphasise how the use of specifics can elevate a vast variety of genres, so no matter what your piece is about, it is a practice that can be used for any piece of literary work.
There are certain exercises you can use to practice characterising people in this way. For several years I have kept a notebook with me at all times to collect small nuances of people’s personalities or appearances that I can pick and choose from when creating characters. You can also think of it like when you have an inside joke with a friend: what makes it so poignant? Its specificness. Furthermore, by reading the work of others, you can begin to piece together and realise what makes you personally create an image of a character in your head. Specific descriptions can be either long or short-winded, as demonstrated by my examples above, and the varying lengths can too certainly make a piece more interesting. Another technique is creating a detailed character profile for your story. Find out what they like, dislike, and what brings up bad memories for them. How do they part their hair on a Sunday? Would they realise if they had a big orange leaf stuck to the bottom of their shoe?
If you’re worried a line you’ve written might be too specific, I urge you to give it a try anyway. Specificness is a literary technique that can be difficult to master at first, but it can truly make people fall in love with, or despise your characters. Once you realise you can take inspiration from literally everything and everyone around you, it will come to you naturally: take inspiration from the characters that surround you.
Anna Edwards
Books mentioned:
Cusk, R. (2018). Kudos. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Gustave Flaubert (2020). A Simple Heart. New Directions Publishing.
Haddon, M. (2009). The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Anchor Canada.
Ingalls, R. (2017). Mrs. Caliban. New York: New Directions.
Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash