What are some of the trappings of a great story to you? One sure sign to me is meaningful description in the story setting or just a scene. That doesn’t mean long, but, again, meaningful to the story. Descriptions that can come from the every day or those special ones that are forever branded in our memory.
Take the passage below. It’s from Amor Towles’ A Gentleman In Moscow, published in 2016. Early on in the book, the main character Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov recalls with fond memories, what life was like celebrating holidays with siblings, extended family, and friends.
“But whether they ventured to the one, the other, or somewhere else entirely, there would be a feast, a fire, and open arms. There would be bright dresses, and flushed skin, and sentimental uncles making misty-eyed toasts as children spied from the stairs. And music? There would be songs that emptied your glass and called you to your feet. Songs that led you to leap and alight in a manner that belied your age. Songs that made you reel and spin until you lost your bearings not only between the parlor and the salon, but between heaven and earth.”
What makes this deeper is the fact that the Count realizes this is all gone and won’t return. He’s been recently sentenced by the Russian revolutionaries to live out his life for decades as a “former person” in the attic of a hotel where he’s previously lived the last four years.
Description that’s economical, yet rich in atmosphere is an aim as I develop my own fledgling skill. When I read it from others, it absolutely sets the stage for the people in my mind’s theater and puts wheels on the story…letting the players play their role!
My Storm Farm 