April 4, 2014

D Is For Descriptive Verbiage

One of my strong suits in my writing/blogging is my descriptive verbiage. The way I can describe a setting, a scene, a person or even an object is something to truly behold. With a simple turn of a word or a phrase, I can basically put you inside the character, make you be one with the character, method acting and all that. Why I can make you taste the salty ocean breeze, savor the moonlight as it dances across your backyard on a starry night, and get your body a-quivering all over as you smell the aroma of a hot sweaty exotic dancer as he/she performs a scintillating lap dance.

Or, I can simply say that I was writing a paragraph of full bodied whimsy to tease your palate and drive you to the height of distraction.

Or, I can honestly and truthfully say that I was piling it on so deep that you need hip waders to walk through it.

In all seriousness, just like everything else with my writing, it took me a very long time to get to this particular level of descriptive writing. Way early on, I pretty much did my descriptive verbiage the same way I did everything else: over the top and redundant to the point of nausea. Blogging helped me tremendously in both tightening and loosening up my descriptive verbiage. In other words, when the situation called for tightening my descriptive verbiage, I did so. When the situation called for me to loosen it, I did it with gusto. Most importantly though, my fellow readers gave me insight and critique to what I had written, so that when the time came for me to nail the scene properly, I had the skill set to do it.

One final thought: over the years, I have gone off on memorable descriptive tangents that have often left my readers both scratching their collective heads and quoting various tidbits that they've read. For a good sample of what I can do, I leave you a link to my number one post that has drawn the attention of spammers for the better part of three years, simply called All Points Bulletin. It features a small piece of flash that the publisher for my debut novel was gracious enough to accept as a reprint for their blog for Valentine's Day 2013.

(c) 2014 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.

9 comments:

  1. When I need a dictionary to understand descriptive verbiage, I am lost haha

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  2. I love a good description that gets to the point, yet makes you savor each image. It was hard for to get my descriptions right as well. I'm still learning.

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  3. Bearman: You and me both bruddah. :D

    Melissa: Thanks for stopping by.

    I'm still trying to figure out the proper nuances to my descriptive writing, but I'm liking what I've done so far.

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  4. I like the new background on the old blog.

    I like good descriptive writing - maybe because it's the opposite of what I write (usually nonfiction, minimalist.)

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  5. M: Thanks. After reading about how Blogger will slowly phase out the classic templates about a month ago or so, I figure it was a good time as any to change it up.

    I love descriptive writing as well, although I wish at times that some writers wouldn't go so far overboard with it.

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  6. You had to put a lot of thought into this "D" word.

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  7. G.A.: A boatload and then some. :D

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  8. I've enjoyed reading your alphabet posts, G.

    Good description - it's incredibly important. But when it's overdone and I find myself by-passing the flowery prose to get to the meat and potatoes then I have a problem with it. :)

    Oh, I remember chat rooms. Haven't been in one in eons. They were full of interesting people to say the least. :)

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  9. Talon: Thanks.

    I think the biggest culprits in flowery prose are the ones who write literary fiction. Trying to read a few of those stories is like overdosing on sugar.

    I haven't been to the chat rooms going on 3 years. Occasionally I get an e-mail from the website itself, but I usually unsubscribe from those as fast as I can.

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These days, the written word is to die for, so please leave a comment that shows me and everyone else the real you. All kinds of verbiage will be cheerfully accepted in the spirit it was written.