User blog comment:Tdiandrockmusic2/Workshop: Descriptition and Characterization Tips/@comment-1874924-20100605024613

Personally, I would have cast most of the rules above as “be wary of” or “use sparingly”, rather than as outright prohibitions. I recall an adage that originally referred to personality traits, but which also applies nicely to writing:

'''Most weaknesses are an excess of strength. Eliminate the excess, and you eliminate the weakness.'''

Thus, timidity (bad) is an excess of caution (good). Indecisiveness (bad) is an excess of circumspection (good). Foolhardiness (bad) is an excess of bravery (good).

In writing, purple prose (usually bad) is an excess of descriptive color (usually good), and beige prose (usually bad) is an excess of conciseness (usually good). A Mary Sue (usually bad) is an excess of traditional heroic qualities (usually good).

Onward, to my thoughts on the specific rules TDIRM outlined in his “keynote address”:

For literary devices such as metaphor, foreshadowing and so on, a light touch is key. A story can actually use these devices quite extensively without ill effect, if it is done adroitly; but if done clumsily, heavy use of these devices can ruin the story as TDIRM noted.

The first chapter of my own short story, Legacy, is full of foreshadowing. I made three separate references to Heather’s pregnancy, and noted that she had recently been thinking about her time on the island, although these details don’t become important until the story’s dramatic climax at the end of chapter 4. I also dropped hints (19 instead of 20 in the “Peanut Gallery of Failure”, the flowers on the lodge table) to foreshadow the revelation that somebody didn’t survive the competition.

Poetic metaphor has its place in a story, and I use it liberally in my own writing. (So far, I’ve had no complaints, so I must be doing it competently.) The problem is that it’s easy to go overboard with them. In writing, as in so many other things, moderation is the key.

I don’t use similes all that much, but I make extensive use of metaphors. I tend to favor metaphors in two situations: as euphemisms (which means, “more polite ways of describing something”) and as supplements to—not substitutes for—a more straightforward description. I use supplemental metaphors to enhance emotional impact or because I don’t like to repeat descriptive terms too much, but I often use euphemistic metaphors for no other reason than because it amuses me to do so. TDI-G&S, for example, has a number of these “in-joke” metaphors. I mentioned one example from TDDDDI in my own Writer’s Workshop. The hide-and-seek episode has another: instead of saying, “Bridgette alarmed a family of skunks and got sprayed”, I wrote, “Bridgette alarmed a family of skunks and paid the customary penalty.”

Personally, I don’t have a problem with using “orbs” for “eyes”—it’s a standard poetic metaphor—but it’s a metaphor that works better as a supplement than as a substitute. To use TDIRM’s example, instead of saying, “Duncan gazed into Courtney’s ebon orbs”, try “Duncan gazed into Courtney’s eyes, feeling as though he could lose himself forever in those beckoning orbs.” (Assuming, of course, that this is supposed to be a love scene and not a staredown.) “Ebon orbs” doesn’t really work in this example, because Courtney’s eyes aren’t mostly black. And, yes, TDIRM, “ebon” is the correct adjective form unless you’re talking about something that’s made of ebony (a type of wood known for its distinctive black color).

On purple prose: excessive detail (e.g. of what people are wearing) doesn’t in itself qualify as “purple prose”. That’s merely “getting bogged down in detail”, which can be just as lethal to reader interest. Purple prose is a combination of excessive descriptive detail and overuse or misuse of flowery synonyms or metaphors. In extreme cases, purple prose can make description seem like the be-all and end-all of the story.

A note on describing characters’ clothing: while you wouldn’t want to give detailed descriptions of everyone’s outfits in every chapter (unless you’re doing a TDI-meets-Project Runway story, perhaps), I could see doing so for a single character is she’s supposed to be a fashion plate. If TDI had a bigger budget, we might have seen this with Heather and/or Lindsay.

On beige prose: I think the biggest reason this wiki has so much beige prose is that we have a lot of kids who are just learning how to write fiction. As the adage has it, you have to learn to walk before you can learn to run. In fanfic writing (here, anyway), beige prose tends to go hand in glove with inadequate story development, and the results tend to read more like outlines or highlight reels than finished stories.

On Mary Sue and her subspecies: such people do exist in real life, and most of us have probably known such people, but that doesn’t make them any more interesting to read about.

That said, I can think of a few situations where a Mary Sue might work: first, MS would be more likely to work as a supporting character, rather than the protagonist.

Second, a Mary Sue who can seemingly do anything is confronted with a situation that is plainly beyond her capabilities. The stakes are such that she attempts the task, expecting that she can find a way to succeed, inevitably fails, and sheds the MS cloak as a result.

Third, when someone appears to have everything, people tend to make certain assumptions about how happy that person is. Thus, a character who seems to be a Mary Sue might turn out to be more troubled than the reader first suspects. The Edward Arlington Robinson poem, "Richard Cory” is a famous example of this.

It also bears mention that the charge of a character being a Mary Sue is often made indiscriminately. In IHeart’s story, The Life of Princessa, there was a bit of a debate on the talk page as to whether the title character is a Mary Sue. My take was that she’s not. Indeed, I see a hint of Richard Cory in Princessa.