I’ve been writing for over a decade now (definitely put in
my 10,000 hours!). And I’ve picked up a few tricks along the way. Have you
heard of “too lee do”? It’s one of my
favorites, and I found it in the first writing book I ever read, Fiction is Folks by Robert Newton Peck.
Such a great book!
One of Peck’s greatest gifts to me as a newbie was his
chapter on description. When describing a scene, he says, write only what you
can see through a toilet paper role. (So, what’s too lee do? Remember when you were a kid and you’d stick those
cardboard tubes to your mouth and trumpet “Too
lee do!”)
How It Plays Out
Imagine reading this in a 1940s novel: “A woman walks into a
living room and sits on the yellow sofa.”
It’s completely boring, isn’t it? Blah!
A too lee do
description would look more like this. “The woman’s tightly wound victory rolls
bobbed as she tripped over her business-black high heel and flopped onto the
old davenport. Her bright red fingernails gripped the yellow checkerboard armrest
to keep from tumbling immodestly backward.”
Do you see?
v
Victory roll—reminds us we’re in the World War
II era
v
Bobbed—shows the action
v
Business-black high heel—she’s a career woman
v
Bright red fingernails—she cares about her
grooming
v
Yellow checkerboard armrest—we can clearly
visualize the red fingernails against the armrest
Not only does too lee
do accomplish these nifty helps, using tight descriptions thrusts readers
into the story. It gives them concrete images to identify with.
Sometimes the little tips add the most polish to our
writing. Enjoy too lee do! I know I
do. And next week, tune in for another trick I’ve learned.
How do you make your descriptions pop? I’d love to hear.
Happy writing and God bless,
Ocieanna
photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26891884@N03/3030017373/">glocalproject</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photo pin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">cc</a>
