Shut your eyes; think back to your childhood. Can you remember the house of a friend or a relative that had a different smell from your house? Let your mind wander over it; let the place come to you.

 

When you are ready, write down as much as you can remember of the different smells, for example, food, perfume, clothes, tobacco, people, pets, etc. But pay particular attention to all the concrete detail, all the ‘things’. Look your notes over and, using them, write a page recreating this place. Do not worry about creating character or telling a story, let this emerge through the things and place you describe. Concentrate on using smell but get something in from all the other senses too.

Jurgen Wolff, author of Your Writing Coach

'When using description, pick out specific, interesting details'

Revealing character through description The most obvious way to reveal characters is by describing what they look like: handsome or plain, wrinkled or smooth face, color of hair, height, slim or average or fat, what kind of clothing they wear, and so forth. Beginning writers overuse this technique, and often blurt out everything the first…
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'When using description, pick out specific, interesting details'

Fiona Mozley, author of Elmet

Mary-Anne Harrington, publisher at Tinder Press

'It’s all about what you do with the small moments'

There’s a trick to bringing your writing to life, to making it leap off the page, and lodge itself in your reader’s imagination and memory, and it’s all about what you do with the small moments, with the telling details. Description will always play a crucial role in fiction, but there is a sparseness about…
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'It’s all about what you do with the small moments'

Lisa McInerney, author of The Glorious Heresies and The Blood Miracles

‘Read widely and without prejudice and have fun with it’

How do you develop your writing style? There’s no short cut, I’m afraid. A writer’s style develops through two (lifelong!) habits: reading and writing. The more you read, the more scope you see for experimenting, and therefore finding the best voice with which to tell your story. It doesn’t have to be prescribed ‘literature’, either;…
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‘Read widely and without prejudice and have fun with it’

Chris Sykes, author of Complete Creative Writing Course

'Showing happens now, before our eyes, in real time'

  What telling is good for: taking less time than showing filling in detail quickly giving background information about a character or situation moving through time – you can cross time and place in an instant linking scenes that show.   What showing is good for: revealing characters and the interplay between characters creating empathy,…
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'Showing happens now, before our eyes, in real time'

Neil Spring, author of The Watchers

'Train yourself to become more observant on a day-to-day basis’

How can a writer improve their descriptive writing? Don’t be boring. When I'm writing descriptive scenes, I try reminding myself of this, over and over. Don’t be boring. Keep it short, keep it relevant and don’t be boring. Include details that are pertinent to the plot, the mood, a character's thoughts, or to the atmosphere,…
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'Train yourself to become more observant on a day-to-day basis’

Jurgen Wolff, author of Your Creative Writing Masterclass

'There's the story and there's how you tell the story'

Developing your style There's the story and there's how you tell the story. The latter is your style. Some writers forget that the purpose of style is to enhance the experience for the reader, not to call attention to the cleverness of the author. While style should be a by-product of what you want to…
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'There's the story and there's how you tell the story'

Lucy Luck, agent at C+W