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Home  Browse All Articles Fiction Picture Perfect... Imagery in Fiction
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Picture Perfect... Imagery in Fiction |
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Written by Jenese Morris
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Tuesday, 21 November 2006 |
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Let words be your magic. Imagery is key in creating an unforgettable novel.
The beauty about watching a movie is that the audio visual components allow you to participate on so many different levels. You can interpret sadness or happiness, anticipate danger through expressions. Sometimes you can even predict upcoming scenes through skilful cinematography. But that’s the business of movie making.
When writing a novel however, your thoughts have to work much in the same way. Without the additional magic of auditory props – music, sound effects etc., words are your magic. Let your dialogue compliment imagery and vice versa.
Let’s take a novel that I am currently reading which shall remain nameless. I have been reading it for months now which, I might add, is unlike me. I can finish a 600 page book in maximum 3 days. This book is 638 pages long (I am just at page 96). It is based in Russia and besides struggling over 6 to 8 syllable Russian names; I still don’t feel as if “I’m in Russia”. The author spends so much time going back to the title of the book that after each paragraph I want to scream, “Ok…I get it…I get it!!!”
When I pick up a book like this, as a reader I want the words to transport me. I want to visualize the venues and get emotional with the characters. The author could use actual events or locations to effectively dramatize a situation, develop a plot and this is good because the whole point of a great fiction is to convince the readers that it is real.
So far in this novel, I have dialogue and some clearly defined characters. I can tell the good guys from the bad. But imagery is lacking. The pictures are not being painted clearly for me to curl up all night until its finished. The painful part about this is, I won’t stop until I finish the book. I always think that no matter how I labour over a novel, there is always something to learn so I have to finish it.
When you are writing, just think about a great movie that you keep watching over and over again or a great novel that you have read. Focus on the imagery and see how important setting up the visual backdrop for a scene lets it come alive.
Say I am writing a novel about a Jamaican who is returning home after living abroad for over 40 years, what are some of the important facts I need to take into consideration especially when I am dealing with imagery?
- I have to paint a picture of interest of the main character. From the beginning, I would want to start building curiousity:
“Even before Bryan disembarked, a feeling of excitement and fear paralyzed his slender frame. He had waited for this moment and now that it had arrived, he had never been more confused in his life. Bryan had left Jamaica illegally at the age of 16 and never looked back, but the death of his estranged mother had created the kind of shame that clings to the soul and the only way to feel clean again was to face his demons…”
- I have to create a believable visual through the eyes of this character. What was it like 40 years ago, in contrast to the present landscape?
“He looked around slowly and nothing was familiar. Uneven dirt roads running for miles had been replaced by toll roads and highways. Now a community of one room unpainted board houses and shacks, no electricity or running water, seemed like a bad recurrent dream he had a hard time erasing. What he saw only added to his guilt of desertion. As he continued to digest the beautiful architecture of the two story brick houses that lined the landscape of his home town in rural Linstead, Bryan couldn’t help but to wonder grudgingly “how could they afford all this….?”
- I would have to remember that the book could be marketed to readers who have never been to the island, so I mix fact with fiction.
“Jamaica, the third largest island in the Caribbean and the largest English speaking, was one of the most beautiful destinations in the world. With only a population of 2.7 million people spread across 4, 244 sq miles, it seemed larger than life to many tourists. Yet Bryan Chambers had spent his entire adult existence trying to forget that it even existed….”
These are pretty simple examples, but you get the idea. Let words create the right images so that your readers are transported through their ability to visualize and your skill to lay the picture perfect foundation.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 20 November 2006 )
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