Describing Buildings

[Dog]

I always run into trouble describing buildings and physical structures when I write. Could someone suggest works with some good, vivid descriptions, or perhaps examples of your own? I suppose it's mainly a lack of architectural vocabulary, but then again, it's not like I'd want to force my readers to have to know architectural words before being able to understand what I'm talking about.

Anyone else have this problem?

[Zygo Orbitale]

You're trying to create an image, so consider your audience, are they architects? For the most part, probably not. So, you'll need to take real world objects of which your audience is likely to be familiar and use it to convey whatever it is you're describing. Same for everything.

Just real simple: The top of the roof stretched up into the sky like an anemic pyramid.

Just focus on what you want the audience to focus on, you don't have to describe everything, people know what a house, or a building looks like, but what's special about it, what's worth noting? Describe those features in evocative real world images, people will fill in for themselves the basic non interesting constants.

[Zay]

Could someone suggest works with some good, vivid descriptions,



The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo or The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.

[RosettaStoned]

You're trying to create an image, so consider your audience, are they architects? For the most part, probably not. So, you'll need to take real world objects of which your audience is likely to be familiar and use it to convey whatever it is you're describing. Same for everything.

Just real simple: The top of the roof stretched up into the sky like an anemic pyramid.

Just focus on what you want the audience to focus on, you don't have to describe everything, people know what a house, or a building looks like, but what's special about it, what's worth noting? Describe those features in evocative real world images, people will fill in for themselves the basic non interesting constants.

Great explanation here Zygo. I have nothing more to add, except for listen to what this guy is saying, and it'll help you out a lot.

[psycho_8b]

You're trying to create an image, so consider your audience, are they architects? For the most part, probably not. So, you'll need to take real world objects of which your audience is likely to be familiar and use it to convey whatever it is you're describing. Same for everything.

Just real simple: The top of the roof stretched up into the sky like an anemic pyramid.

Just focus on what you want the audience to focus on, you don't have to describe everything, people know what a house, or a building looks like, but what's special about it, what's worth noting? Describe those features in evocative real world images, people will fill in for themselves the basic non interesting constants.

Excellently put.
Don't go into amazing amounts of detail about every corner of the structure. I hate it when you're sitting and reading two pages about every nook and cranny of a building down to the dust underneath the floorbaords.

Likeness is a friend with this. "Skeletal remnants of a once grand structure" could work if you're writing something post-apocalyptic or thriller-type thing. Something that is easy to visualise and captures the feeling and essence of the piece.