Improving Your Storytelling – Describing Locations

In my last posting (click here) I stated that one of the things you should be doing to improve your storytelling ability is to open up a book and read. While that is important and it allows you to experience others methods of description you have to also do it yourself.

Which is why my next suggestion is for you to sit down and write! That’s correct, I said you need to write. It doesn’t matter if it’s with pen and paper or with your favorite word processor you just need to spend some time doing it.

I can already hear you, “but I can’t write,” or maybe, “what on earth am I’m suppose to write?” There are many things you could do here but I’m going to suggest for your first ‘assignment’ that you describe a location.

Pick a place, it can be real or imaginary, someplace you’ve been, wished you could go to or you could take a scene out of your favorite movie. Once you’ve picked your location describe it. Take your time and we’re not interested in the grammar or spelling just the desciption. While you’re writing try not to use the same descriptive word twice as part of this exercise is to expand and stretch yourself.

For example instead of, “there’s mist among the trees,” you could write something like, “strands of mist clung to the trees wrapping them like a scarf against the morning chill.”

The first is simply tells, the second describes and hopefully is easier to picture.

Feel free to post your favorite snipets – the more we share the better we all become.