In my third
mystery novel, Not Death, But Love,
several of the key characters gather for dinner at an Italian restaurant in a
small mountain town, and considerable relevant information is exchanged. But
any reader of the book will get more than the relevant information.
I devote a
bit of space to explaining the history of the restaurant; to giving the owner a
few lines of dialogue that flesh out his character; to describing the interior
and furnishings of the place; and to telling readers what music is playing on
the sound system. None of this is at all essential to the story or the solution
of the mystery. But I put it in, regardless, because I believe it helps to
create a real sense of place that, along with other descriptions in the book,
ultimately makes the story seem more real, more genuine.
And I do
this because it’s often the incidental details — the “feel” of the book, if you
will — that linger in my mind long after the story has receded into the mists
of memory.
When the Place Is a Character
In my
second book, Wash Her Guilt Away,
most of the action takes place at Harry’s Riverside Lodge, a remote resort
tucked into the dense forests of Northeastern California. I put a lot of effort
into describing the place and how it felt to the characters as the story moved
along. If I pulled it off, the lodge should have come across as another
character in the book, and several readers have told me they felt they had come
to know the place intimately by the time they finished reading.
I tried to
do something similar for the McHenry ranch in my first book, The McHenry Inheritance. In that aspect
of that book, I think I succeeded less than in the other two, but I tried
nevertheless and believe I conveyed some sense of the place.
This sort
of description used to be de rigueur
for a novelist. In Great Expectations,
Dickens spent more than a page describing the stormy night on which Magwitch
turned up at Pip’s doorstep in London, building a highly charged atmosphere
that made their encounter the more memorable.
The Interstate or the Scenic Route
Quite a few
authors these days don’t bother much with descriptions. It’s possible to read
novels by bestselling authors where the reader doesn’t know what time of year
it is or what the weather’s like because the author never says anything about
it.
James
Patterson and Mary Higgins Clark, for instance, don’t linger much on details
and focus on driving the story forward. They sell exceedingly well, so there’s
clearly an audience that’s fine with that. But there are other authors, such as
Louise Penny and Sue Grafton, who do stop along the way to give some
atmospheric description, and they do all right, too.
I liken the
two approaches to the difference between driving from San Francisco to Seattle
on Interstate 5 or taking Highway 101 up the coast. The first way gets you
there faster, but the second way exposes you to sights and places and people.
It makes the journey a travel experience, rather than a headlong rush to a
destination. Because I believe that reading books should be an experience of
discovery, I’m partial to a little well-done description along the way.
