by Cindy Sproles @CindyDevoted

We all want the words, “Your historical fiction was unforgettable.” Nothing is sweeter than having a reader tell you why they loved your work. It may be unforgettable characters, an enthralling story, or a description. Readers come to historical fiction to be transported to an era they may be unfamiliar with or one they love. When writers pen unforgettable fiction, then readers are spellbound. Writers have produced their most stellar work.

Nothing drives a reader deeper into the fictional world than colorful, detailed descriptions. Whether it be a character’s description, their situation, or the surroundings of their era, delving into these descriptions requires careful thought. Once you land on the key, you will soon see how vivid description enhances your story.

There is a difference in writing the description of a café by the ocean while providing scents of the sea, a soft breeze, or the sun’s warmth, and it’s all in how you approach the senses. Writers tend to be good at describing the story’s surroundings, but the vivid picture that sticks in the reader’s mind is missing because we tend to write at a surface level.

The best way to approach this deep description that moves the reader is to begin by engaging all the senses in the scene. If you are at a seaside café, give the reader a whiff of salt air. Allow them to see and feel the movement of a soft breeze from the ocean as it whips your character’s hair across their face or even into their mouth. Don’t just tell them a breeze blew. Let them experience the feel and smell, the consequences, or advancement of the breeze. Provide a touch of seafood and let them lick the butter from a crab leg off their fingers. Let them experience a hint of sand blown onto their table. Show them how a flag flips on the café porch or how the waiter has to catch an off-balance tray because the breeze moved its center of gravity. Allow your reader to hear the background music and enjoy the sweetness of a desert. Touching the senses triggers the imagination and opens the mind to vivid pictures of their surroundings. This attention to description places the reader inside the café, looking over the character’s shoulder.

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It’s easy to overwrite in these instances, but carefully choosing the times and importance of the scene will help you filter these descriptions to the perfect place in the story. Every scene doesn’t need a plethora of description, but setting a colorful scene can quickly transport your reader directly into the time, setting, mood, and emotion of what you are writing, allowing them to experience the story rather than simply reading it. Our readers long for experience, and when we captivate them with not only the scenery, but the feel of the moment—the emotion, they are drawn in so tight they never want to leave.

Close your eyes and imagine your surroundings, then write down what you see. Have you only captured the surface of the surroundings, or have you looked beyond that to a deeper description? Consider a screened-in porch with a wooden table, white wicker furniture, soft yellow cushions, and a braided rug on the floor. That is what you see on the surface, but look deeper. Force yourself to squint and look deeper. Rub your fingers over the wicker chair. Perhaps the ratan catches and pricks your skin. Look at the tufts on the cushion, and what do you see? Perhaps fragments of dirt around the button or a softness when you brush the fabric’s nap in one direction. Does the brush leave marks and imprints on the cushion? Look at the wooden floor and the markings on the planks. Perhaps there are scars from pulling furniture or chipped paint from years of use. The point is to look deeper. It’s those finer details that draw the reader into the moment.

Learn to sit quietly and place yourself in the exact place and time you want your reader to be, then draw out the intricate details that touch each sense and send chills down your reader’s spine. That is what deep description can do. It’s not the amount of description you use. It’s the depth. It’s how you ping the senses.

Setting the mood and tweaking each sense in the scene will take your historical fictional world to a whole new level. Now close your eyes, and imagine. Write the description that will transport your reader into the moment they long for.

Cindy K. Sproles is an author, speaker, and conference teacher. Having served for a number of years as a managing editor for Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas and Ironstream Media, Cindy now works as a mentor, coach, and freelance editor. She is the co-founder of Writing Right Author Mentoring Services with Lori Marett and the director of the Asheville Christian Writers Conference. Cindy is also the co-founder of Christian Devotions Ministries and www.christiandevotions.us, as well as www.inspireafire.com. Her devotions are in newspapers and magazines nationwide, and her novels have become award-winning, best-selling works. She is a popular speaker at conferences and a natural encourager. Cindy is a mountain girl, born and raised in the Appalachian mountains, where she and her husband still reside. She has raised four sons and now resorts to raising chickens where the pecking order is easier to manage. You can visit Cindy at www.cindysproles.com or www.wramsforwriters.com.