If you’re anything like me, description is one of the last things on your mind when you’re writing. You want the characters to feel real and the dialogue to pop, and before you know it, you’ve completely forgotten to describe anything in the scene, leaving your story with this terrible diagnosis: white room syndrome.
But don’t fret. There is a cure.
There is a way to fill in your story with an atmosphere your readers will love. A way to describe where your characters are and what they look like without your readers getting bored. And a way to do it without drowning your readers in flowery descriptions and purple prose.
What Is White Room Syndrome?
If you haven’t heard the term white room syndrome in writing, it refers to writing that lacks description (usually in the setting but it can also apply to other things). This type of writing doesn’t set the scene or ground readers in the scene’s location.
It’s called white room syndrome because when you read writing like this, it feels like the characters are just talking heads in an empty room, resulting in a story that’s hollow and flat.
How to Identify White Room Syndrome in Your Own Writing
If you’re wondering if this is how your story reads, there are a few ways to spot this in your own writing. It can be hard to notice because you know what it looks like in your head, but that doesn’t always come across on the page.
Put Yourself in the Reader’s Shoes
When you sit down to read your story, imagine you’ve never read it before. In fact, pretend that it’s someone else’s story.
Easier said than done, right? But this is something you can practice and become better at. You’ll be surprised at all the things you notice while doing this exercise. It is a great way to find out if your story is balanced with description.
Take Time Away
Sometimes we as writers get so wrapped up in our projects that we lose the ability to spot their problems, including the common problem of white room syndrome.
When this happens, the best thing we can do is take a break. Set the story aside for a while and work on something else or refill your creative well by reading or getting outside. How long the break is depends on the situation. Sometimes you only need a few hours or a couple of days. If you’ve recently finished a draft of a book, you’ll probably need a few weeks or a month.
When you come back to the story, you’ll have fresh eyes, and you’ll be able to spot the elusive issues that were driving you up a wall before.
Go Crazy with Highlighters
That’s right. Highlighters.
You’re either going to feel like a crazed college student cramming for an exam or a preschooler during arts and crafts time.
Assign each highlighter a different aspect of storytelling: dialogue, action, internal dialogue, description, etc. Then (after you print your story, which I highly recommend) go through your manuscript highlighting the sections that are devoted to each of these aspects with their respective color.
You’ll be able to see the balance of all these aspects on the page (you can also do this on a computer if you wish, but I can’t promise how much fun it’ll be). Not only will this exercise tell you if you have enough description, but it will also tell you if you have too much or not enough of the other elements of storytelling.
Get Outside Feedback
If you try all of the above and you’re still unsure if your story suffers from white room syndrome, you’ll want to get feedback from someone else. Having someone else read your story is incredibly valuable. Their outside perspective allows them to see things that you simply can’t.
You can ask them if they were able to picture the setting and the characters and if they felt grounded in the world. While some people prefer more description than others, their answers will help you gauge how your story is faring.
How to Avoid or Fix White Room Syndrome
Take your writing from this:
To this:
Once you’ve identified white room syndrome in your writing, how do you fix it? What should you describe and how much time should you spend on descriptions?
Here are a few tips that will help you answer these questions.
Root Description in Your Characters
How much you describe and what you describe should depend on your POV character, especially if you’re writing in first person or a close third person limited.
Different people notice different things. If your main character is a carpenter, they’ll likely spend more time describing furnishings or the woodwork in a space. If your main character’s an artist, they’ll pay attention to the art, if there’s any around, and they might spend more time noticing the details of a setting, as if they were painting a picture of it.
Similarly, if your character is experiencing the setting for the first time, they’ll likely pay more attention to it than if they had been to that place a hundred times.
Use the Five Senses
Sometimes we have a tendency to focus only on the visual aspects of a place. Don’t forget the other senses.
Taste can be a bit tricky unless the scene involves food, but the other senses are all fair game.
What sounds are in the space and how does the space carry those sounds? Do they echo or fade away in the wind? Is there a persistent sound like water dripping or something that only happens occasionally like sirens?
What does the place smell like and do these smells remind your character of anything? Is there food cooking? Or does someone walk by, their perfume drifting in their wake? Was cleaner recently used, giving the space that chemical scent? Has no one touched the place in months, making the room smell dusty and old?
Touch can also be a bit trickier, but it can still tell you a lot about a setting. Have your character move through the setting to experience this one. Does the grass crunch under their feet or do their shoes sink into the turf? What does the fabric of an old couch feel like when your character sits on it? When your character picks up their drink, do they feel the condensation on it?
As you can see, there’s a lot more to description than sight. Practice bringing the other senses into your writing for vivid descriptions.
Ask Yourself Questions About the Setting
I’ve already demonstrated this a bit in the previous section, but it’s worth pointing out. One great way to make a setting feel real is to ask yourself about it.
Along with questions related to the five senses, you can also treat your setting a bit like a character. What’s its history? What kind of people visit the place and what do they do while there? How does it change over time?
Determine the Aesthetic with a Pinterest Board
There’s nothing like a Pinterest board or a mood board to make you want to describe everything.
I make Pinterest boards for all of my books, and they often have different sections devoted to different characters and settings. When I’m having trouble imagining a specific place or thing that I’m trying to describe, I turn to these boards, and it always helps me put my thoughts into words.
It will also help you keep your descriptions consistent and create a steady atmosphere and tone for your story.
Use Small Reminders After You Set the Scene
Sometimes we do great with describing a setting at the beginning of a scene or when the character first sees it, but then forget about the description after that. Your characters should be interacting with the setting, which means that it isn’t something you describe once and call it good.
To avoid this, you can use small reminders of the setting throughout each scene. Does your character light a candle? Describe what it smells like and how it changes the lighting. Does your character walk over to a window? Describe what they see through it. Does it begin to rain? Describe how that changes the place.
I hope these tips help you identify white room syndrome in your writing and craft compelling descriptions to conquer it. Happy writing!
2 responses to “How to Conquer White Room Syndrome and Craft Compelling Descriptions”
I’ve read so many books where I can’t picture the room they’re in, and when that happens I always put them in a room I’ve seen before. Like a house I used to live in, or something I saw in a movie once – and tbh it kinda ruins the believability of the story cause I’ve filled in the gaps myself and they’re too familiar. That being said I love this article, so many great ways to describe a place. Love you LEXI, keep it up!!
P.S. how did you make this website so cool?
Yeah that’s the problem with not having enough description.
Tbh most of it is just the theme I chose for the website haha, but I do like designing things so that probably helps. Thanks for reading the article, Em! Love you!