Why the hell are houses so hard to describe?
>"It was a sort of gothic mansion. It had three levels, and the third level was like a pointy tower, with a circle of windows at the top. The second level, there were endless curves with the architecture. It was green, and there was a pointy rail. On the first level there were doors. Then there was a garden on the ground."
How do I write houses srsly, it's almost as hard as writing clothes.
Ever read Gormenghast? A good example of describing gothic places, but the idea comes through.
Eg:
"Over their irregular roofs would fall throughout the seasons, the shadows of time-eaten buttresses, of broken and lofty turrets, and, most enormous of all, the shadow of the Tower of Flints. This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.”
In short, describe its effect and the feel you get from the place, not specifics.
You know you don't need to give readers a perfect image to run off?
Let them project their own image of architecture based on everything else you told them about the area and people
Why do you need to describe what the house looks like?
That's actually great
Yeah, Peake's fantastic. Never heard of him till I stumbled across Gormenghast in a book store, but now he's one of my favourite writers
fuck. this makes me want to quit writing forever.
>the third level was like a pointy tower
>there was a pointy rail
kek
Gave it a search after reading that sounds like I'd enjoy it. Thank you for mentioning it
I never describe buildings, clothes, appearances. I don't enjoy reading descriptive writing and I loathe writing descriptively. So I'd rather give a reader a framework to work with.
If you want to describe the house, you will need to do some research on architectural terms and themes. Learn a bit of the history and of the styles. There are a lot of great albeit obscure terms for specific aspects of the home.
has it right when he encourages you to describe the 'effect and the feel' rather than the particularities.
why not just do it like a real estate agency?
>500 sq ft
>2 bedrooms
>2 1/2 bathrooms
>mid century contemporary
why does a reader need to know anything outside that? you might as well draw a blueprint if you really need them to know the layout.
Might be cool for an American Psycho variant featuring a homocidal estate agent.
Wud read
>It was a sort of gothic mansion
For one, avoid uncertain terms like "Sort of," and "like." Kind of shows right off the bat that even you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Tell us what it IS.
As with everything, too, less is more. You don't have to describe the fucking thing that much, just enough to set the reader's mind in motion that they fill in the blanks.
You're going into way too much detail regarding the house. There's no point in describing a building in that much detail unless it contributes to character, world or theme building in someway.
Let me rewrite your segment:
>Eventually, the darkness borne of overcast clouds began to clear and, as though on cue, so too did the weather. Harry stood agasp at what lay before him: A grand old mansion, painted in jade. Mary's mansion. Harry could only bite his lip at the elegant curves in the architecture and well-kept bushes in the garden. The mansion showed it's age with it's gothic spires, that was true, but it still emitted an aura of incomparable grace. It were as though it was a reflection of Mary herself: a thing with multiple floors of pure perfection and, if the sheer number of windows was any indication, something with transparency that invited further exploration.
Actually that's a great idea
Always glad to spread the Gormenghast love!
really solid advice, thanks
that's terrible.
>Harry could only bite his lip at the elegant curves in the architecture and well-kept bushes in the garden
oh senpai, those elegant curves and well-kept bushes, mmmnh
>"It was a sort of gothic mansion. It had three levels, and the third level was like a pointy tower, with a circle of windows at the top. The second level, there were endless curves with the architecture. It was green, and there was a pointy rail. On the first level there were doors. Then there was a garden on the ground."
You're just being awkward with your description sequence, and your adjective game isn't helping.
>Behind a wrought-iron gate stood a two-story Gothic manor. Its intricate architecture swept into curves and columns, buttresses and arches, all as dark green as the immense garden beneath it. A tower rose through the manor like a spire above the second story, overlooking the gated area with a circle of windows.
>a tower rose through like a spire
?
it is a spire
Great advice. Listen to this guy OP. Just to provide another example of (what I consider to be) a successful description of a house from Faulkner's Sanctuary:
"The house was a gutted ruin rising gaunt and stark out of a grove of unpruned
cedar trees. It was a landmark, known as the Old Frenchman place, built before the Civil
War; a plantation house set in the middle of a tract of land; of cotton fields and gardens
and lawns long since gone back to jungle, which the people of the neighborhood had been
pulling down piecemeal for firewood for fifty years or digging with secret and sporadic
optimism for the gold which the builder was reputed to have buried somewhere about the
place when Grant came through the county on his Vicksburg campaign."
Notice how, as the above user said, it focuses more on the feeling and impression the house gives off rather than minute detail. Also, it relies on historically-charged images like the plantation to put a picture into the reader's head. You don't have to do all the work. Let the reader do some imagining unless there is a specific architectural detail or something that is significant.
oh you're right. I was under the impression they were tall pointy stones.
anyway, you get the idea
Real Estate - Richard Brautigan
I have emotions
that are like newspapers that
read themselves.
I go for days at a time
trapped in the want ads.
I feel as if I am an ad
for the sale of a haunted house:
18 rooms
$37,000
I’m yours
ghosts and all.
>post on Veeky Forums
>people agree with me
I'm living the life
it feels really good doesn't it?
I used to live for money and recognition, now it's all about the (You)s
Money, recognition; an user craves not these things. Only (You)s
are you writing fiction or an engineers report?
>It was a gothic mansion.
That's good enough imo. Find architectural terms to describe the other parts if they are important to the story.
Lovecraft and Ligotti describe towns and houses well I think.
>>>POINTY
Penis envy??
Really, just look at balzac or zola. Zola is one of the best guys at writing 5 page descriptions of houses, rooms in said houses, scenes in said rooms of said houses, etc.
I found the descriptions of structures in loveceaft interesting, still to this day I have the term 'cyclopian' stuck in my head. In the australian context Tim Winton describes buildings and places well. His novel 'Cloud Street' treats the house as a central and almost living character.
True, over elaborate describing of visuals was only a thing before film. Now people don't have the attention for it.
here, have another
you deserve it; I've been feeling abit down lately, and your post gave me an honest laugh
You can describe them with illustrations.
I like Eureka.
Try reading "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Poe?
>Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves. Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen; and there appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect adaptation of parts, and the crumbling condition of the individual stones. In this there was much that reminded me of the specious totality of old wood-work which has rotted for long years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance from the breath of the external air.
>etc., etc.
I'd say that description isn't needed most of the time unless conducive to atmosphere or story. Simplicity will do for the reader most of the time. As a basic example: 'the mansion was tucked within the valley, as if it was a secret.'
You saw the valley and the mansion, didn't you? Where did that come from? I barely needed to say anything and yet you've built up this massive picture. The reader happily, instinctively, does most of the work.