How can we improve descriptive writing? Part 3
Pan and Zoom
A common technique in descriptive writing is panning and zooming. Look out for it, especially at the start of a piece of writing. What happens is that the writer, like a film camera, pans across the scene noticing detail after detail, until zooming in, to focus on one particular detail. It doesn’t have to be visual detail. Here’s an example where the writer surveys the soundscape of the scene.
Pan and Zoom example:
- Amid the cacophony of traders haggling, babies crying, pigs squealing, roosters crowing, and butchers’ machetes thumping, I heard the terrified screams of an infant black mangabey monkey tied atop the a bundle of charred flesh that probably included its mother.
From ‘Zaire’, National Geographic magazine
In this example notice that the present participles (~ing words) all present sounds. Notice too that they make the scene dynamic; it’s a scene of on-going movement. The main focus of the sentence, the screams of the monkey, comes at the end – with lots of pre- and post- modification (see the first post in this series). And finally notice the emotive language – infant and mother. In other words, there’s a lot for the examiner to reward in just this one sentence.
We can practise this by recalling the sounds of a familiar scene – or a place we are in now. And begin by copying the structure of the example, learn that and vary it. (Amid the cacophony/hubbub/silence . . .)
Notice where the panning ends and the zooming begins in the following examples
. . . and notice how the detail that is zoomed in on contrasts with the what has gone before, as if the panning camera has been arrested in its movement by something different. Pattern and contrast are essential to writing.
- Amid the whispered symphony of domestic appliances, the whirring of the washing machine, sloshing of the dish-washer, hissing of the steam iron, hum of the refrigerator I heard the desperate pleading in Philippine of the aproned maid muttering into her mobile to a husband thousands of miles away.
- Amid the silence of nibs gliding over paper, fans whirring, pages turning, lips mouthing words, you might hear – perhaps once every century – the booming of a massy tome dropping onto the time-worn surface of an oak table, its ancient graffiti varnished over, from the gnarled hand of an aged reader that has finally lost the strength to live.
Now practise your own. You could:
- try panning across what you see, or hear waiting at an airport check-in;
- try panning across what you see or hear in a place of worship;
- try panning across the flavours of meal and zooming in on one of them;
- try the smells of a zoo or a perfume counter or bakers (think of the people, as well as the animals, perfumes, baked products).
Tip: before you begin writing, write a list of all the present participles, the ~ing words, you want to use: it will help you write and provide you with a more precise and interesting vocabulary in your writing.