When describing a character or place in a short piece of writing for children, it’s a good idea to choose one feature to describe.
You don’t have the space to go into lengthy descriptions. Rather choose one very descriptive detail to highlight, and rely on strong verbs and good dialogue to build up your character.
Learn to Write Books for Children
Children who are relatively new readers don’t have much reading stamina. It’s important not to clog up the page with excess details and descriptions that slow down the progress of the plot.
In books for young readers, the illustrations will carry some of the details, allowing the writer to cut back on description and concentrate on plot and characterisation.
Write Books that Readers Want to Read
Your job, as the writer, is to set your reader’s imagination alight with just enough detail, and then to step back so the reader can complete the process of imagining the thing you are describing.
Providing the reader with too much detail can clutter up the reader’s mind, and stop their imagination from getting to work.
Choosing just one detail to highlight can set the reader’s imagination alight, and do the job far better than five or six details. Make sure that the detail chosen is the strongest, and that it most clearly captures the image and feeling you want to develop around the character or place.
Creative Writing: Cutting Descriptions Back
Here are some examples of wordy descriptions pared down to the single strongest detail.
Example 1:
The man had a head shaped like an egg. His nose was enormous, like a tree stump, and his small mouth sneered, showing yellow, cracked teeth like a plastic domino set. His eyes were black and beady, and his round body was forced into a suit several times too small for him.
The man had an egg shaped head, and an enormous tree stump of a nose.
Example 2:
Feeling homesick Kit climbed to the top of the jungle gym and looked down. Children scampered around the playground. A group of Year Two boys were bending over something in the sandpit. Miss English and Miss Smith were sitting together on the bench in the sunshine. Over the fence he could see the main road, the church spire and, in the distance the block of flats where his granny lived.
Kit climbed to the top of the jungle gym. In the distance, he could see the block of flats where his granny lived.
In this case the writer has chosen the one detail that is important to the story, as Kit, who is longing to go home, finds his granny’s flat. The detail chosen pushes the story forward, by emphasising his emotional state, and his inner conflict about being homesick.
Learning what to cut from your writing is an important part of learning to write. For more lessons on cutting back your writing read: Learn to Cut Unnecessary Words. You’ll find exercises and answer sheets to practice the skills you’ve learned, in Learning to Trim Unnecessary Words.
Helen Brain - I am a writer and writing teacher, living in Cape Town, South Africa. I published my first book in 1997, and now have over thirty books ...
