Fictional description
Patrick Forsyth finds fiction can inspire travel writing
Ilike giving and receiving books at Christmas time, not least because I find they are something even I can wrap reasonably neatly. One book I received and have been reading recently is by a favourite author, the award-winning American mystery writer Timothy Hallinan. Curiously little known in the United Kingdom, he writes well and always delivers a page-turning experience. He is also unusually descriptive for a writer of what are essentially thrillers.
For example, he has a character give a glass-endangering scream of outrage, he describes a room as being as charmless as a subway station and a woman as having eye makeup that would have to be removed with a jackhammer. A brief smile is described as something that turned on and off like a light. One of the reasons I like his writing is that such descriptions enliven his plots. And the reason it adds in this way is, it occurs to me as I focus again on travel writing, is that it is unexpected, both in nature and in frequency.
There are many occasions when travel writing must be descriptive, and preferably more descriptive than simply adding an adjective to something observed. A stunning sunset is surely not enough. Observation comes first, you need to decide what it is you want to describe, then comes judgement – just how lovely or awful is something? That done, you need to find the words, and this may involve techniques such as exaggeration. Describing a sunset as a sight so sublime it changed my life may be too over the top and succeed only in being rejected as unbelievable or silly. Exaggeration that is clearly exaggeration may work, however. No one will think a sunset is literally like the blinding glow from a moon rocket’s exhaust, but it was assuredly a pretty exceptional one.
Another example: travel writer Stanley Stewart describing a rodeo in the Sunday Times: …horses and cowboys are kind of alike. Horses stand around a lot, flicking their tails, breaking wind, doing nothing in particular. Cowboys are like that. They lean on fences, looking at horses. Sometimes they spit, sometimes they don’t. The description continues, ending by describing cowboys as lean laconic figures with lopsided grins. The whole piece is surely enlivened by unexpectedly starting by suggesting that horses and cowboys are alike.
The precise line you take with description is important, and if what you write contains an unexpected element or even some wild exaggeration then it is more likely to paint a picture that scores points as it were.
I really do think studying fiction can help improve descriptive writing and travel writing is no exception.