Incorrectly describing character movements ranks surprisingly high among common writing mistakes.
Within the confines of a story, a character can do only three things: he can think, he can talk, and he can move. Out of the three, the first two lend themselves most gracefully to written literature, since words are their very foundation. Movement, although no less important, is a little trickier.
You might think the most difficult aspect of describing character movements would be the descriptive challenges of showing readers exactly what your characters are doing with their bodies. But, actually, the most difficult part is simply remembering to describe those movements in the first place.
Like vanishing settings, less than thorough character choreography can end up leaving readers with either nothing to imagine or, even worse, strangely nonsensical actions in which characters appear to jump from one side of the room to the other or magically end up with a prop in a previously empty hand.
Are You Really Describing Character Movements?
Writers see their stories in perfect Technicolor, right down to the tiniest detail. We see the gold flecks in our heroine’s green eyes. We see the frayed seam in her kid’s sock. We see the expiration date on the milk she’s pouring in his cereal bowl—even before they both gag at its sour smell.
But here’s the sticky part: our readers don’t see all this stuff.
Yes, their own imaginations can and should fill in the blanks. But they can’t paint on the canvas unless we’re giving them the proper paints and brushes. Readers may not need to know about the gold flecks, or the frayed seam, or the expiration date—but they do need to know whenever you character makes an important move. Take a look:
Allie hoisted Jax into his booster seat. They only had ten minutes to eat before she had to be at her job interview.
Jax slapped both hands against the empty tabletop.
Milk, milk, where was the milk? She opened the fridge and slopped milk into the bowl in front of his seat.
By the door, he grabbed Floofy the cat and giggled.
“Get back in your seat and eat your breakfast, right now!”
He stuck out his pink tongue. “Can’t. Smells bad.”
In the windowsill, the cat stopped licking his paw. Even he seemed to wrinkle his nose. Jax was right: the milk did smell suspicious.
How did that bowl end up at Jax’s place at the table? How did Jax end up over by the door with Floofy? How did Floofy end up on the windowsill?
No doubt, smart readers will be able to fill in the blanks and realize that Allie, Jax, and Floofy all moved somewhere in between paragraphs. But they’re not likely to realize that until after they’ve blinked several times in confusion.
It’s one thing to omit unnecessary or blatantly obvious character movements. It’s another thing entirely to create gaping holes in the realism of your story by leaving out causal choreography. Readers will probably realize Jax didn’t just teleport out of his booster seat and Floofy didn’t fly over to the window—but, you gotta admit, that’s what it looks like at first blush.
Describing Character Movements—for Real
Let’s try that again. And this time, we’re going to describe every movement that matters.
Allie hoisted Jax into his booster seat and set a bowl and spoon in front of him. They only had ten minutes to eat before she had to be at her job interview.
Jax slapped both hands against the tabletop, then wriggled out of his seat and ran across the kitchen to where Floofy the cat slept behind the door.
Milk, milk, where was the milk? Allie opened the fridge, grabbed the milk, and turned to slop it into Jax’s bowl.
He grabbed Floofy and giggled. Floofy twisted free and leapt onto the windowsill.
“Get back in your seat and eat your breakfast, right now!” Allie said.
He stuck out his pink tongue. “Can’t. Smells bad.”
In the windowsill, the cat stopped licking his paw. Even he seemed to wrinkle his nose. Jax was right: the milk did smell suspicious.
And the veil lifts! Suddenly, with just a little attention to the details, the scene makes twice as much sense.
You’ll note that correctly describing character movements doesn’t necessarily mean you have to describe every single detail. Readers probably don’t need to know that in between putting Jax in the booster seat and opening the fridge, Allie swiped hair out of her face, blinked twice, licked her lips, took exactly two steps, and flicked aside the towel slung in the fridge door handle.
Then again, maybe readers do need to know all that stuff! But those decisions are going to come down to artistic license. Your first and most important task is to simply make sure the scene makes sense. A simple workmanlike scene will beat the pants off an artistically confusing one any day of the week.
>>Click here to read more posts in the Most Common Writing Mistakes Series.
Tell me your opinion: Has a critique partner or editor ever suggested you weren’t fully describing character movements?
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You’re right, description of movement is one of the most common mistakes with novel writers. Although writers can screw up in all sorts of areas, this is probably the most notorious since it’s not word based and more visual like in a film. Unfortunately, I think many writers think they can compensate by over describing every little action and using extremely specific vocabulary which often makes things more confusing and tends to turn their stories into tree killers if they don’t have proper editing done.
Yep, for every mistake, there’s also the mistake at the other end of the spectrum. Whenever we correct, we have to make sure we’re not overcorrecting. It’s a delicate balance.
You are so right, KM. It is easy for writers to stray on either side of this line. Too many books OVER do the movement details in the belief that somehow they are lending mood, setting, tone… no, they are adding extraneous and unnecessary clutter. (And this from a fantasy writer who simply adores description and detail… used correctly) And then others leave people popping up here and there as if they possessed their own personal transporter. In one ms I read the main character entered the first chapter seated by the door, and in the final moments of the chapter suddenly appeared in the garden… in a wheelchair. ??? It can be a puzzlement to be sure.
This is a good reminder to also always mention unusual props or appearances up front. Readers will never assume a character is wheelchair-ridden, unless we tell them in the beginning of the scene.
The one thing that bugs me is that my character always has his backpack with him. There he is, pulling something out of his pack and I think, ah, when did I last mention this? I don’t want to beat my readers to death with constant mentions of “and he shrugged his backpack on his shoulder” moments, but sometimes I forget about it because I know it’s there.
Most readers are good at remembering props after they’ve been referenced a few times. As long as your character isn’t in a situation where the backpack wouldn’t be intuitive (e.g., the bathtub), you’re probably safe just having him go ahead and pull his gear out of it.
This is something I often have to work on!! You’d think it’d be so easy to remember to move them about like chess pieces but sometimes it just doesn’t come to mind.
We see scenes play out in infinite detail in our minds as we’re writing. It’s easy to think we’ve included all the necessary details–until an objective source voices confusion.
I haven’t had to be criticised on such a front, however it would utterly be nothing but short of honesty to say describing character movements has been an easy endeavour for me.
Getting the character movement description versus story narration balance right:
For me, one of absolute hardest things to strike.
(Another expert-class post Katie – I’m in awe of you)
The moment we master balance is the moment we master the novel. None of us ever get there. :p
Exactly.
In my own case I’m fortunate – as a text, most of The Representative (a laugh, it’s only 4,500 words!!) is CMD-free: it’s by and large not even a traditional story, rather just a presentation.
Think of it like a portrait of a story, than an actual one itself. (That’s how unprecedentedly unique it is – and why I’d describe myself as the exact antithesis to someone like Charlotte Bronte).
Nodding all the way!
I’ve usually fixed it before anyone else sets eyes on a draft, but there are so many times when I re-read what I thought was a working scene and end up wondering what on earth I was thinking. People moving as if by magic, objects turning up and vanishing at random – guilty of it all!
The trap of reading what you think you’ve written rather than what your words actually say/show is so easy to fall into, glad to hear it isn’t just me.
I know I’m in trouble when I read back through a scene – and even I’m confused by what my characters are up to!
For me, this is one of the hardest parts of writing–I struggle a lot with trying to get everyone where they need to be, without losing the rhythm of the story. Sometimes telling the reader that Jane walked across the room just doesn’t fit there, but the reader REALLY needs to know. Then it’s a matter of perhaps rewriting a paragraph or two that you really like, in order to work Jane’s trans-kitchen journey in in a way that seems organic.
I sometimes write myself “stage directions”–block out where people are going to be standing, what they’re doing with their hands, and where they’re moving throughout the entire scene. This helps me keep track of all my “actors”, and helps me visualize what each and every person is doing in my own mind.
Clever. I’ll often get out of my chair to physically choreograph complicated scenes–but then I still have to remember how it all worked out, piece by piece.
I think a case can be made that with the cat, it being a cat, a character might not notice how it moves from one place to another, it just appears somewhere inexplicably. It could add humour to the piece by leaving the cat’s movements out.
Writer James Alan Gardner says a descriptive passage is the story of a character’s encounter with a person, place or thing. ( http://www.sfnovelists.com/2012/01/23/the-skill-list-project-writing-descriptive-passages/ ) with a beginning, middle and end, and injected with point of view to write not what is happening in the scene, but how your point of view character experiences the encounter with that person, place or thing. Different characters should experience the person / place / thing in different ways.
Of course, description of movement is a subset of the descriptions in your story, and ought to be simpler than entire descriptive passages, but I think there is something worth considering there.
Perhaps if it’s the POV character moving, the description could be more about the POV’s “encounter with himself” so to speak? Injecting the character’s subtle self-judgment about his/her low or high self esteem as they move would be an interesting characterization, if not overdone.
The “personality” of a POV is definitely something to keep in mind. But, ultimately, this issue is about avoiding reader confusion more than anything. “Don’t obfuscate” should always be the author’s first credo.
Yes. That was the number one critique of my first novel: good plot, but put more of the world I’ve imagined on paper. I had even neglected to describe the main characters. I’m conscious of it now and make a point to provide details.
The key to achieving that perfect balance between not enough description and too much is always keeping in mind exactly what details readers will need to properly envision the scene–and then including no more and no less.
Thanks for more great tips! I’ve been rereading A Little Yellow Dog by Walter Mosley and his vivid descriptions of character movement help suck me into the world. Hopefully my novella will be able to capture that.
No better way to learn than by reading how the masters do it!
I’ve had a scene where it was suggested I tell how the girl got from the top bunk to the bottom bunk. I thought, that makes sense, so I added in her hopping down before saying her next line. Then another reader said that it was wasting words to add in how she got down. I didn’t listen to that reader, because the original one made more sense.
When in doubt, listen to your own gut.
You are so right. This is an area that I’m aware of my shortcomings except I have a tendency to not have them move much especially while they are sitting and having dialogue. Those quirky little things people do while talking often get left out.
On the other hand, I have beta read some things where the author felt a need to describe so much movement that it was distracting.
Well, I guess that’s where the balancing act pops back up.
God bless you in your efforts for HIM.
Character movement, like anything aspect of fiction, should only be there if it progresses the story. That said, it *is* often valuable to keep characters moving. Imparting a sense of motion to a scene can help it from feeling static. Movement gives readers’ brains something to envision during dialogue scenes.
Perhaps character movement could “be” the story; it’s only a talented storyteller who can extrapolate an entertaining narrative out of an everyday situation.
…Plus make the common experience into an either fun reading or watching one.
Nora, I was thinking about too much explanation too. A character walks here, a character walks there, too much movement and not enough story. Because I’m so afraid of having gaps in movements, I have the tendency to over-explain what the character is doing. This means reworking and then reworking some more.
This was an especially interesting challenge for me on my last MS because after chapter 3, my character is blind. So things that I normally wouldn’t describe–the number of stairs climbed on a staircase, the number of steps to the bathroom down the hall–became immensely important to her reality as a newly blind individual. It was an odd experience, writing from that perspective without any visual clues, and knowing just how confused she was in a new place, newly blind.
I hope my time spent intentionally overwriting movement in that MS will help me avoid talking head syndrome (which, admittedly, a first draft of a scene I wrote yesterday was really REALLY guilty of).
I always encourage writers to use all five senses in their descriptions. But it’s actually a wonderful exercise to deliberately eschew one of the senses. It automatically makes us hyper-aware of the senses that remain and brings some interesting perspectives to the descriptions.
“Tell me your opinion: Have you ever had a critique partner or editor tell you weren’t fully describing character movements?”
Shouldn’t there be another “you” in there? i.e. “tell you you weren’t fully…”
Hmm, you’re right! The eye is faster than the brain. I’ll get that fixed. Thanks!
🙂 and thanks for the article. It’s like Stephen King says: show, don’t tell.
Exactly. It’s one of the most important dictums in all writing.
My issue was describing every little detail. I’d have these giant descriptions that, even reading back over myself, got really boring. Do you have any advice on the right amount of detail to put in fight scenes? When I shorten a description, there seem to be gaps. When I fill in the gaps, it takes a paragraph to explain a few seconds:(. This article was extremely helpful to me. So are your others. Thank you for your time and knowledge.
You might find these posts helpful: A Surefire Sign You’re Over-Explaining and The Kung Fu Panda Guide to Writing Action Scenes.
I experienced this kind of problem. Exactly how to just tell of something?
That’s why I in part ended up with the narrative format I did.
I peer-reviewed for a writer who always described a character turning doorknobs. Not for dramatic pause, not to note important sensory details, just because he subconsciously thought the reader wouldn’t otherwise understand how the character entered a room.
I struggle with describing movement, too. It’s hard to be perfectly clear without bogging down a paragraph or hitting the reader over the head with the obvious.
Know the scene – that’s the answer I’d give. Writing perhaps out an outline of the scene’s entire action, beginning to end, and then instilling into yourself a real knowledge of the scene’s sense – its mood.
Knowing the scene’s what would help determining the how and when of describing specific movement and actions.
As with so much of fiction, it’s all about balance. And sometimes the only way to know if we’ve struck that balance is by running the scene by objective readers. If they’re confused – or overwhelmed by unnecessary details – we know we need to go back and make some changes.
Crown of midnight is driving me crazy with this, it’s so jaring!
From the book:
“Celaena didn’t need a healer to look at her head. When the magic had taken her over, it had somehow healed everything. All that was left of her wounds now were bloodstains and torn clothing. And exhaustion—utter exhaustion.
“I’m taking a bath,” she told Chaol, who still sat shirtless under the healer’s ministrations.
She needed to wash Archer’s blood off her.
She shucked off her clothing and bathed, scrubbing herself until her skin hurt, washing her hair twice.”
Okay, one minute she’s with the two men then starts thinking about washing the blood off and boom we jump to the bathroom. This happens a lot!
Why does this have such good reviews?! I’m really irate; not just at this issue but the hell of the first book. Both of them have an infinate number of typos, repeated phrases, repeated descriptions, reminding about her being an assassin several times in a chapter and in most chapters, pointless descriptions of clothing, fortelling instead of foreshadowing, killing off the only PoC, horrid head hopping in the same chapters without any warning and lots of other problems. Tell me WHY is this so popular it makes my inner editor side scream!
And, I keep running into books like this it’s making me not want to buy any books anymore as it’s such a risk now. ;-;
Great post (as always)!
My problem was the opposite. In my first manuscript – which is still under the bed and shall no doubt remain there – I described EVERYTHING. I remember a critique partner saying, “A lot is going on but nothing is happening.” I didn’t understand what that meant until much , much later as I wrote more and learned more about the craft. The biggest problem I had at that time, was getting characters from point A to point B. “Transitions” were lost on me. I thought to use them was to cheat. So, again, I filled in every detail. What an exhausting read that turned out to be. Live and learn. A LOT. 🙂
There’s always a balance to be sought. For every mistake, there’s usually an equally weighty mistake at the end of that spectrum. Once we learn that perfect balance, we’ll be master authors!
Hi there, KM,
I only found your site today and I just want to leave a short message here to say thank you for this article.
As both an aspirant writer and a non-native English speaker, some of these expressions come even less naturally. Nevertheless, I make a point of translating my own manuscripts before I submit them for any editing. That’s why this is the most frustrating part of writing certain things: lacking the exact vocabulary to describe with maximum precision.
I’ll definitely be stopping by once in a while, when I have the time to write. Thanks again, and take care!
I do this too. Those examples were great. I went and fixed a few chapters that had this proble. Like how did she get diwn the stairs? And did he port to the other end of the roon? Oops! I’m finding lots of mistakes as I work past the firat few chapters.
I’m doing one last revision (lies l, lies I tell you edits and revisions never seem to end. ) on all of them as the plot has been “tweeked” a bit. So figure might as well look for other mistakes while I’m in there.
The other problem is there’s a stark difference in the writing of the chapters that have been revised and edited several times compared to the older ones.
Hey, K.M. …I lerv you. Thanks.
What do I do about choosing the right word to illustrate a type of movement (“wriggling” out of his seat, for instance)? Is that a good time to use a thesaurus?
You may have noticed I commented in a different post a few minutes ago, on a similar article pertaining to this concept. It’s because it’s the most confusing part of writing to me, by far.
Although there are definitely tricks and techniques you can learn (such as those in this post), growing into an understanding of how to choose the right words is largely a matter of practice. Pay attention to what works in stories you like, then just start trying things out on the page until you find what conveys the meaning you’re seeking.
A little late here but I just gotta say I’ve been really loving your stuff!! This post made me think of the new Spider-man Homecoming movie. Specifically the scene where Peter is interrogating Donald Glover’s character. They end the scene by briefly talking about that sandwich shop that got destroyed and then briefly each of their opinions about two different popular sandwich shops. I personally thought this little back and forth was hilarious and made me feel like there were more to NY in the movie than just the main characters and main conflict, like it was a real place. Now I wonder how I can achieve this level of ‘realness’ through characters doing things or saying things, even though they may not be directly related to the main plot. Or if attempting this would even work in a novel? I’m guessing it’s always a balance of creating a fun world vs keeping the reader’s interest?
Glad you’re enjoying the blog! And, yes, always a balance. Much of the banter like that in your example is used to develop character–which always makes it pertinent.
Yes. This was a common critique I received in Creative Writing Workshops for my MFA. This why I did a search for help on this topic. Thank you so much! This really made a difference.
I would love to be getting this type of feedback. Instead, my problem is that I over choreograph the movements.
This is a really helpful piece. Thanks for writing it. I’m working on the third book in a series told in a first person present POV and am so sick of saying someone stood up to leave or walked quickly up the driveway or whatever, so I started skimping on movement descriptions, but like you said, it feels like something’s missing. So this reaffirms my original instinct to include them. One trick for avoiding this kind of description is to insert breaks (asterisks or whatever) and jump the scene ahead a bit, but those can be overdone. Anyway, good post!