We just repainted two green rooms apricot and my mood lifted immediately. I feel entirely differently on entering these rooms now. And I wonder why I don't use color more in my writing. If I describe a woman as having an apricot bedroom, you'd think about her differently than if I said her bedroom was red or even blue. But other then the occasional description of a car or dress color, it's absent from my writing.What about yours?
In my case, perhaps it's because in short stories we have little time for such descriptions. Colors, sounds, textures are left out.
As readers we make our way to adult novels through picture books where color is very important. When does the need for color in our stories leave us? Is there a point when we can paint the canvass ourself? Do any writers use color more effectively than others? Blood red aside.
12 comments:
James Lee Burke is the master, in my opinion, of painting word pictures with color. I never think too much about color in my own writing, but this has reminded me to consider it in my palette.
My other ommission is sound. Other than the occasional gunshot or music, I never talk about that much either.
I just read the new Lee Child/Jack Reacher book and there are some great passages describing sound and the absence of sound. Sometimes writing about sound is like dancing about architecture---it just doesn't translate. By describing the sound, many times you are losing the flavor because so many sounds take much longer to describe than to make. You almost want to fall back on the Batman-TV style of POW! BAM! OOOF!
I probably do not sue color enough, but I'm gig on scents though I do think color can make a huge difference. Not sure about a characters bedroom walls shaping my opinion but if they had a mirror tacked to the ceiling that would sure make me see them differently..
You made a good point about short story writers. I've been writing more short stories and find I'm not doing as much description as I did in my novels. I'm going to take another look at that, though. A little description can go a long way, though.
Linda
Well, in the unlikely event my novel ever gets into print, you'll get your fill of mirrors, Travis.
Good point about sound, r2. I wonder if smell isn't the hardest. I often wonder if we even smell things the same way. Or if we are more tuned into certain smells than other.
When I get to a certain word count, Linda, I often take out those sensory passages to pare it. They seem more dispensable.
I wonder if crime writers tend not write color because the world they're revealing is more dark than colorful. You certainly can't have your PI tailing a suspect in a hot pink Caddy or wearing a lime green leisure suit, though it might be a fun premise.
David Goodis is very fond of associating his characters with colours. It opens up all sorts of possibilities. For instance, there's a terrific scene in Night Squad where Goodis's protagonist is having great difficulty deciding whether he should wear his yellow tie or his green one. Because of the colour association that led to that point -- one woman associated with yellow and the other with green -- the ties are symbols for the two women in his life, so that scene is about much more than which tie's going to match his suit best.
I've got a Goddis waiting...Hey, Al, if you come back here, how about doing a forgotten book? I'll post it here. The 27th is almost blank. Doesn't have to be anything too long.
Sandra- definitely a muted palette and more scenes at night too.
To be honest, I usually feel that dialogue is much more important than physical description. Not in the "Oh, look at that red convertible, next to the blue Toyota" way, but in the sense of relating the characters, what matters to them, and what's going on. So lack of color doesn't bother me.
I agree that dialog most effectively moves the plot along but I wonder if I pay too little attention to sensory detail.
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