screw fear. | THE 100

being descriptive.

DESCRIPTIVENESS. (idk is that a word? i think it is...)
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"ugh. i knew i should have taken my horse." - octavia blake
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another basic writing tip, is being super descriptive. this tip is a little longer, so i wanted to do a chapter on it. even though it's long, it's fairly straight forward and super easy. actually, it's kinda fun.

so, i'll start out with an super basic example, and then i'll make it more and more descriptive. let's use bellamy as our guinea pig because i feel like i haven't picked on him enough.

☞ Bellamy looked away from her, his eyes looking into the fire.

okay, first of all, this is an okay sentence. i mean, if i was reading a fanfic and it had this sentence in it i wouldn't like exit it out and be pissed all day...but it could be better. so first of all, let's get rid of using the word "look" twice:

☞ Bellamy looked away from her, his eyes gazing into the fire.

already better right? but we could do more. let's describe "her" a little bit:

☞ Bellamy looked away from the angry girl, his eyes gazing into the fire.

now we get a little bit of a better taste of what's going on. the girl's mad (probably at him bc we all know bellabae), he's awks about it, so he turns away and looks at the fire. but let's add more. maybe we should describe his eyes:

☞ Bellamy looked away from the angry girl, his midnight coloured eyes gazing into the fire.

oooh saucy, already a lot better. but what else could we do??? how about we describe this fire. what's it like? let's find out:

☞ Bellamy looked away from the angry girl, his midnight coloured eyes gazing into the crackling fire.

okay, so now it's a crackling fire. i don't want to go too overboard. sometimes when you just describe one thing for 78 pages it will just annoy your readers. but i think the last thing we could do is describe how he "looked":

☞ Bellamy turned his face away from the angry girl, his midnight coloured eyes gazing into the crackling fire.

so now, go read the first sentence again, then read the last one. which one sounds better? i mean, not to brag but i'm pretty sure it's the last one. it's not overly dramatic or extremely long and boring, but it just gives your writing more feeling and will keep your readers more engaged because they can more easily picture the scene you're laying out before them.

*NOTE: another MAJOR tip to have is to have a window open to a thesaurus on your laptop, or a physical thesaurus near you at ALL TIMES!!!!!!!!!!!

i know i've mentioned this in a previous chapter, but my favourite author is markus zusak. in the back of one of his books there is a Q&A about his writing, and i found this quote from him that really helps me when i'm trying to write, especially descriptions:

- Q: your use of figurative language seems natural and effortless. is this something you have to work to develop, or is it innately part of your writing style?

- A: "i like the idea that every page in every book can have a gem on it. it's probably what i love most about writing - that words can be used in a way that's like a child playing in a sandpit, rearranging things, swapping them around. they're the best moments in a day of writing - when an image appears that you didn't know would be there when you started..."

so, sometimes what i do when i write, is i write super basically, but then i go back over what i've just written with fresh eyes and swap out boring words, add little extra descriptions, etc. like marcus zusak said, i try to add a gem to each page. i don't always succeed, but it's the thought that counts.

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DESCRIBING THE BODY

when you write, there are a LOT of things you're going to want to describe. faces, clothing, hair, scenery, eyes, animals, rooms, etc.

i'm going to do a quick list of ideas of ways you could describe certain BODY PARTS, specifically in your 'the 100' fanfic.

HAIR:

- unless your OC is bald or a unicorn, lets just say that by the second chapter at least, your character probably isn't going to have the nicest hair. i mean yeah, maybe they wash it in the radio-active sea snake filled river, or maybe they've used their free time to create some sort of brush, but most likely their hair isn't going to be the prettiest. just something to keep in mind while writing.

- here's a list of words to describe different hair colours, instead of always just saying "blonde", "brown", "red", etc.

✻ black hair: ebony, jet black, charcoal, raven, slate, pitch black, ash

✻ brown hair: chestnut, chocolate, caramel, golden brown, bronze, amber, fawn, hazel

✻ blonde: honey, bleached, sun-kissed, platinum, golden, fair-haired

✻ red: ginger, copper, rust, cherry, strawberry blonde, crimson, cardinal, maroon

EYES:

eyes eyes eyes eyes. they are CRUCIAL. but only if you describe them well. your characters' eyes are 'the windows to their soul'. and there's so many ways to describe them than just by the regular colours. i'll do the same sort of thing i did for hair.

✻ brown: chocolate, amber, russet, golden, muddy

✻ blue: ice, ocean, arctic, indigo, sapphire, baby blue

✻ green: jade, forest, emerald, fresh, olive, woodsy

✻ black: midnight, jet black, cold, dark

✻ grey: charcoal, smoke, ash, silver, sharp, cloudy

those are just a few examples of each, again, there are so many others, i just don't have the time or energy to write them ALL down. feel free to use any of these but also make sure to come up with some of your own.

but describing just the COLOUR of someone's eyes, isn't always enough. for example someone's eyes could be described as:

☹ soulless, void, dead, sad, empty, hardened, lifeless, etc

OR...

☺ wild, alive, caring, soft, jubilant, sparkling, glimmering, etc

BODY LANGUAGE:

when writing a fanfic, especially for 'the 100', you're going to be writing lots of scenes with lots of emotions. you can express how your characters feel a lot through their body instead of JUST using their direct emotions.

for example, you could say:

When Finn realized Clarke was gone, he was sad.

or, instead of just saying 'he was sad' you can swap out his direct emotions with describing his body language:

When Finn realized Clarke was gone, his shoulders slumped in defeat.

get it? it's pretty simple. i'll do one more just for fun.

Raven stepped gingerly out of her pod, and her boot touched the ground for the first time in her life. She was happy. She was free.

OR replace 'she was happy' with:

Raven stepped gingerly out of her pod, and her boot touched the ground for the first time in her life. She flung her arms out to the sides, craned her chin up to the sky, and allowed a twisted smile grow on her broken lips. She was free.

Okay, i think you get the picture.

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anyways, i hope this will help you while writing descriptions for your fanfic. as always, if you have any comments, extra tips, or questions feel free to either message me or leave a comment. xoxoxoxoxoxoxo