The Building Blocks of Description -- Place (continued)

After I posted my last Write Stuff blog, my friend shemelts commented:

 

Firewater..I think you should add a picture and challenge all of us to look at it and do a descriptive writing associated with it, just to see all the different viewpoints. I am enjoying this series. As a reader, I definitely want a description of the surroundings, it adds depth to the story. Nice post.

 

I responded that I was "technologically challenged" (I am), but although I didn't have any personal photos to post, I found several on-line after typing in "pictures of rooms."  Usually, when I'm writing fiction, I describe rooms from my imagination or, in some cases, from memory.  I don't usually work from a photograph.  However, I thought shemelts suggestion was a good one, and it inspired me.

During this post, I'm going to write about decisions and thought processes that I rarely verbalize when I'm recording a description.  For the above picture, my viewpoint character will be a cynical man who has never seen the room, which belongs to an estranged friend.  The character is visiting the man for a reason, perhaps to get information, but he's a private investigator with good powers of observation.  The point is to filter the setting through the lens of the viewpoint character.  My created descriptive passage follows.


One of the older kids in Porter's tow-headed brood met me at the door.  How many children did he have now?  Five, six?  Who can keep up?  This one had good manners that he must have inherited from his mother, and he led me to what he called his father's den while he went to tell Porter I had arrived.

It was a cozy space with a lot of wood and impressive built-in bookcases.  The books all looked as if they had been chosen for the beauty of their uncreased spines rather than the content between their covers.  Porter had never struck me as a well-read man.  The leather couch looked comfortable, though, and I sat there with my feet on the glass-topped coffee table while I waited.  Polished oak gleamed in the light from the single brass floorlamp, giving the room an impression of warmth and comfort and home that I envied. There were no ashtrays, however, a fact that wasn't immediately apparent to my right hand, which continued to reach involuntarily for my pack of Camels.


With a fairly broad brush, I've described this room through the eyes of my wholly fictional character (okay, maybe not "wholly."  There is a touch of myself there).  While there's not much going on in this passage, it is not a static description either.  The viewpoint character takes a seat on the couch, puts his feet on the coffee table, reaches for his cigarettes.  He also offers us his opinions about the room and, by association, the absent Porter.  He calls the space "cozy."  The bookcases are "impressive."  He thinks the books are a decoration only.  But, he envies the impression of warmth and comfort and home, which gives us a glimpse into the viewpoint character as well. 

Using my "building blocks" conceit, this description might be diagrammed as follows:

[Furn] + [Walls] + [Facts/Reaction] + [Furn] + [Light] + [Facts/React]

wood + bookcases+opinion about books+couch/coffee table+floorlamp+impressions of room

I admit that I rarely diagram a descriptive passage.  I usually let my mind choose from my cafeteria menu of descriptive blocks, after deciding what the viewpoint character might notice.  After writing the passage, I may alter it if I feel I've missed the mark.  These days, I tend to overwrite the initial description and then prune away the unnecessary excess.

Incidentally, you may have noticed that I didn't include the building block [Senses] in my diagram, although I'd like to believe there is also a tactile sense of warmth in the description.

My challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to write your version of this same room.

I don't want to stifle anyone's creativity, but how would this room have been described by:

• an eight-year-old child who's been told to stay out of the room?
• a wife who is about to confront her husband with knowledge of an affair?
• a burglar searching for a hidden safe?