Chapter 7 - How to Describe Things

As I start to write this chapter's introduction, I'm looking out a window dirty with splatters of past rain showers and bird droppings. The leaves on the tree outside, furthest from the warmth of the building, have turned red throughout. Soon, I think, those leaves fall, worming their way to the ground to rot and I wonder what makes for good descriptive prose?

In Writer's Mind © 1995, Richard Cohen writes that good descriptive text creates an image in the reader's mind and it presents solely the details that are necessary to create that image. He argues not to use a lot of adjectives, but to describe things in a straightforward fashion with a careful choice of words for effect and mood. The writer should ask herself, Does this description add to the thing being described? Does it detract from it or distract the reader?

Cohen suggests writing descriptive text as "factual reporting." Hemingway, Conrad, Lawrence, Tolstoy, and Stephen Crane all excel at this. They also tend to put one idea conveyed by factual description in each sentence; they don't run a lot of ideas into once sentence, muddying the waters of description.

Since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I propose to quote an especially vivid selection of descriptive writing from each of the books on the bookshelf for this chapter, and then imitate that writing to describe something on my own.

The books for this chapter on description are:

• Sportsman's Notebook, Ivan Turgenev
• Letters on Cezanne, Rainier Maria Rilke
• Tristes Tropiques, Claude Levi-Strauss
• Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
• Modern Painters, John Ruskin

Clockers, by Richard Price

Here are two bad dudes talking about what they're not talking about (In case one's wearing a wire? In case one has to testify in court? Because it's gentlemanly not talk about crime directly?):

   "Got to be got," Victor said again, lightly pounding his fist. [...]
   "I know somebody who'd do it, too," Victor said softly as he returned to his inkings. [...]
   "What you say?" Strike stared at Victor in the mirror.
   "I said I know somebody who'd do it, too." He fixed Strike's eye with a fat, sober look.
   "Who?" Strike heard the hopefulness in his question.
   "My man." As if that explained it all, Victor's eyes dropped to his writing again."
   "My man who?"
   "This guy."
   "You know him?
   Victor fixed him with that cold, sober stare in the mirror again. "I said he was my man, didn't I?" [123]

A bad cop tries to get Strike to cut him in on drug sales:

   "But I got me a problem." Andre smoothed the top of Strike's head. [...]
   "Uh-huh."
   "I need me a sponsor."
   "Uh-huh." Strike kept his voice low, Andre beginning to scare him a little more now.
   "I need me a benefactor."
   "I hear you."
   "You hear me?" Andre strolled behind Strike again. "That's good, 'cause I could lock you up. Shit, I could even mess you up first, say you tried to fight me, you know what I'm sayin'? [...]" [287]

Some more "cop talk", updated from what appeared in, for instance, The Maltese Falcon, this time between Rocco and Strike. Rocco is trying to figure out of Strike is lying for his brother:

   "So when was the last time you spoke to your brother?"
   Strike sighed. "Saturday."
   "OK." Rocco nodded as if he knew it all along. But the answer threw him for a loop: he'd thought Friday was the last time, at the bar before the killing. "OK, where?"
   "In the projects."
   "What you talk about?"
   "Nothin'."
   "Nothing?"
   "That's about aw-all we usually talk about. We're not that close."
    [...]
   "Because I didn't want nothing to do with that. I figured if I told you that, then you'd be bringing me down for a statement. Next thing I know I'm helping to ha-hang him, you know?"
   Rocco found it hard to tell if the kid was lying: he was avoiding eye contact on everything, but his demeanor was distant, preoccupied, as if his troubles were all over the place. [533]

The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett

Here, Sam Spade keeps the police out of his department. For the 'strong silent type' who doesn't display a lot of emotion, he's sure nimble switching between strong emotions:

   Spade stood in the doorway and said: "You can't come in." His tone was very slightly apologetic. […]
   "What the hell, Sam?" [Tom] protested and put a big hand playfully on Spade's chest.
   "Spade leaned against the pushing hand, grinning wolfishly, and asked: "Going to strong-arm me, Tom?"
   Tom grumbled, "Aw, for God's sake," and took his hand away.
   Dundy clicked his teeth together and said through them: "Let us in."
   Spade's lip twitched over his eyetooth. He said: "You're not coming in. What do you want to do about it? Try to get in? Or do your talking here? Or go to hell?"
   Tom groaned. Dundy, still speaking through is teeth, said: "It'd pay you to play along with us a little, Spade. You've got away with this and you've got away with that, but you can't keep it up forever."
   "Stop me when you can," Spade replied arrogantly. [73]

For me, this next selection represents when the action really begins. Suddenly, Spade is on the phone and moving fast. I suspected his calm demeanor hid an acutely active and perceptive mind, but seeing him move with such speed shocked me and made me wonder about how much of the intruque Spade had figured out at this point and I hadn't (also, notice how he changes his name to suite whom he's calling and how he uses "o" for zero):

"Kearney one four o one, please. . . . Where is the Paloma, in from Hongkong yesterday morning, docked?" He repeated the question. "Thanks." He held the receiver-hook down with his thumb for a moment, released it, and said: "Davenport two o two o, please. . . . Detective bureau, please. . . . Is Sergeant Polhaus there? . . . Thanks. . . . Hello, Tom, this is Sam Spade. . . . Yes, I tried to get you yesterday afternoon. . . . Sure, suppose you go to lunch with me. . . . Right." He kept the receiver to his ear while his thumb worked the hook again. "Davenport o one seven o, please. . . . Hello, this is Samuel Spade. My secretary got a phone-message yesterday that Mr. Bryan wanted to see me. Will you ask him what time's the most convenient for him? […]" [143-144]

Here is Spade at his most masterful. He doesn't know all the answers to the intrigue he's involved with, but he needs to know what happened. He's playing it cool, and pulling it off: he's pushing for answers, without the criminals catching on, and getting them:

"[…]   Why did he shoot Thursby? And why and where and how did he shoot Jacobi?"
   Gutman smiled indulgently, shaking his head and purring: "Now come, sir, you can't expect that. We've given you the money and Wilmer. That is our part of the agreement."
   "I do expect it," Spade said. He held his lighter to his cigarette. "A fall-guy is what I asked for, and he's not a fall-guy unless he's a cinch to take the fall. Well, to chinch that I've got to know what's what. […]"
   Gutman leaned forward and wagged a fat finger at the pistols on the table beside Spade's legs. "There's ample evidence of his guilt, sir. […]"
   "Maybe," Spade agreed, "but the thing's more complicated than that and I've got to know what happened so I can be sure the parts that won't fit in are covered up."
   Cairo's eyes were round and hot. "Apparently you've forgotten that you assured us it would be a very simple affair," Cairo said. He turned his excited dark face to Gutman. "I advised you not to do this. I don't think--"
   "It doesn't make a damned bit of difference what either of you think," Spade said bluntly. "It's too late for that now. Why did he kill Thursby?" [199-200]