So far, we’ve been talking about how to convey the most pertinent information about space and movement in the most efficient manner, figuring out what’s absolutely necessary.

But there are certainly instances where you need—usually for the sake of what’s coming in your novel—to go into what seems like excessive detail in establishing the setting for a scene.

Example: THE RELUCTANT WIDOW

Here is another useful example from Georgette Heyer. This is from her novel in which a young woman who thinks she is going to take up a post as a governess is accidentally assumed to be the lady Lord Carlyon has advertised for to marry to his dissolute nephew—who is on his deathbed.

At this point near the beginning of the book, she’s still under the misapprehension that she’s at a dour matron’s house to start her duties with a recalcitrant 10-year-old boy.

The hall in which she found herself was a large, irregularly shaped room, with a superb oaken stairway at one end of it, and at the other a huge stone fireplace, big enough for the roasting of an ox, thought Miss Rochdale, and with a chimney which might be depended on to gush forth smoke any time some unwise person kindled a fire on the flags beneath it. The plaster ceiling, blackened between the oak beams, showed how correct was Miss Rochdale’s prosaic reflection. The stairs and the floor of the hall were alike uncarpeted, and lacked polish; long brocade curtains which had once been handsome but were now faded and in places worn threadbare, were drawn across the windows; a heavy gateleg table in the centre of the room bore, besides a film of dust, a riding-whip, a glove, a crumpled newspaper, a tarnished brass bowl possibly intended to hold flowers, but just now full of odds and ends, two pewter mugs, and a snuff-jar; a rusted suit of armour stood near the bottom of the staircase; there was a carved chest against one wall, with a welter of coats cast on the top of it; several chairs, one with a broken cane seat, and the others upholstered in rubbed leather, were scattered about; and on the walls were a number of pictures in heavy gilded frames, three moth-eaten foxes’ masks, two pairs of antlers, and a number of ancient horse-pistols and fowling-pieces.

Heyer, Georgette. The Reluctant Widow (Regency Romances Book 7) (p. 5). Sourcebooks. Kindle Edition.

Notice especially her effective use of lists to give a sense of the room. It happens that several of the enumerated items have a role to play in the story later on.

She continues in this vein at the moment Eleanor meets the male protagonist:

She found herself in a library. It was quite as untidy as the hall, but a quantity of candles in tarnished wall-brackets threw a warm light over it, and a log fire burned in the grate at the far end of it. Before this fire, one hand resting on the mantelpiece, one booted foot on the fender, stood a gentleman in buckskin breeches and a mulberry coat, staring down at the leaping flames. As the door closed behind Miss Rochdale, he looked up, and across at her, in a measuring way that might have disconcerted one less accustomed to being weighed up like so much merchandize offered for sale.

Heyer, Georgette. The Reluctant Widow (Regency Romances Book 7) (p. 6). Sourcebooks. Kindle Edition.

Even though she’s in the same place, its atmosphere—based on the details Heyer chooses to give us—is very different. (For romance fans, this is their meet cute…)

Example: FLOWERS FROM THE STORM

In one of the most powerful moments in this superb historical romance by Laura Kinsale, quaker Maddy (protagonist) has been hired as a nurse in a progressive mental institution, and she is accompanying her uncle (whose establishment it is) to see the different patients. Kinsale takes her time laying the scene of the different degrees of dementia etc., making us wait for what we suspect must be coming. The Duke of Jervaulx, who is a brilliant mathematician and worked with Maddy’s blind father, collapsed in a duel, and everyone has been led to believe he died. But he didn’t. In fact, he had a stroke—which no one at that time knew to diagnose, especially in one so young.

This is the moment Maddy first sees him, about to be shaved by an attendant, chained and in a barred room, confined to a mental institution because his lack of control over his limbs and speech has made everyone assume he is deranged:

He turned around suddenly, the motion caught halfway with a sharp steel clangor, his dark hair falling wildly over his forehead, the deep blue eyes intense, frozen cobalt rage: a caged and bound pirate, a brute at bay.

Maddy lost her voice.

He stared at her, silent. No flicker of recognition. Nothing.

“Thou!” Maddy whispered.

He lowered his face a little, looking at her from beneath his eyelashes. Wariness, anger, a deep and powerful passion—they were all in his face, in his stance, in the concentrated and uneven exhalation with his jaw shut hard and his unbound hand flexing open wide and closed, over and over again.

“Dost thou—not remember?” she asked hesitantly. “I’m Maddy Timms. Archimedea Timms.”

Kinsale, Laura. Flowers from the Storm (p. 49). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

This somewhat static scene, with only small movements and expressions: He lowers his face; he breathes unevenly; he flexes and extends his unbound hand over and over again—all this sets us up for the next very dramatic actions.

He gave her that cynical, one-sided smile. Standing straight, he reached out his chained hand, as if to lift hers and bow.

Maddy automatically took it.

He bent over—and suddenly jerked her up toward him, whirling her into his chest, his chained hand at her throat, his other arm crushing her back into his chest.

“The razor!” her cousin shouted. “Good God—Larkin!”

The attendant spun around, holding the water he’d just taken from the maid at the door. He dropped the pail, cascading liquid over the woven rug, and lunged toward them. But Jervaulx made a bloodchilling sound, a guttural snarl, as he held the razor blade at Maddy’s jaw.

Larkin stopped short. Maddy could see Jervaulx’s thumb against the blade from the corner of her eye, see Larkin and Cousin Edward and the maid at the door, all in a suspended moment. Jervaulx held her, his arm pressing into her waist, ruthless, his breathing a hiss through his teeth at her ear.

“Don’t struggle,” Cousin Edward said evenly. “Don’t do anything.”

Maddy had no idea of struggle. It hurt, the way he held her; she could feel herself no match for the strength of his grip. He was tense, a hard, hot, shifting wall against her back, his wrist digging into her as he forced her with him as far as the chain reached and hooked his foot around the shaving table.

He drew it toward them, maneuvering carefully, pausing when it threatened to topple and then nudging it closer again. Cousin Edward began talking in a soothing voice, but Jervaulx ignored it. He took the razor from Maddy’s throat; in one wide swing he sent the copper shaving bowl clattering to the floor with his fist. The chain babbled along the edge of the table as he dragged the razor blade in a straight slash up the center of the varnished top, creating a pale incision.

He held Maddy tightly. She felt his muscles move and work as he inverted his wrist and crossed the first line with another. When Larkin took a step toward them, the blade came up instantly to her throat.

She listened to the harsh breath at her ear, felt the heat of it on her skin and the pump of her own heart and his. “Let him,” Cousin Edward murmured. “Let him finish.”

Jervaulx waited, holding the razor just touching her skin. Cousin Edward nodded toward him.

“You may go on, Master Christian.”

After a moment, Jervaulx’s fist curled harder on the razor handle, and he placed the end of the blade at the intersection of the cross. With an effort that Maddy felt all through his body, he drew an even, sinuous S-curve along the axis of the line.

He dropped the razor. It made a loud clump as it hit the table. He put his hand behind her head, forcing her to look down at the carved figure.

His arm loosened. He let her go. Maddy stood still, gazing at the table.

She turned. The intensity of expectation in his face, the concentration…he depended on her to understand; he wasn’t looking at anyone else. She didn’t know the figure. But she knew it was mathematical.

Kinsale, Laura. Flowers from the Storm (pp. 53-54). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Jervaulx’s movements are so skillfully portrayed here. Kinsale gives us the tableau: The doctor and the barber frozen in place in a room that is small enough for Maddy to easily move forward when Jervaulx puts out his hand. Jervaulx in his chains, unable to fully turn or move very far, lashing out for a reason we don’t know until the very end. His awkward painstaking movements, described in great detail, create so much tension and suspense.

And his motivation is crystal clear: he’s trying to communicate to someone he knows will understand (Maddy acted as her father’s amanuensis for all his mathematical writings) that his mind is still sharp, no matter the appearance otherwise.

The change that occurs is that Maddy realizes he’s not insane, his intellect is intact, and this gives Jervaulx hope for some better outcome.

Remember this about examples

The examples I’m using in this course are finished products, likely the result of many revisions and painstaking rewriting (except, of course, my own rough drafts)—by the author, and with the input of agents and editors. I do not expect your exercises to rise to this masterful level!

Exercise

Find or create a scene where you need to over-describe in order to make the place vivid and give the movements of the characters drama or intensity.