ut,
if the writer cannot discover it, the literally inaccurate figure may be
better than flat writing. The general aim in describing persons is to
give maximum concreteness to the whole story, and seeming definition
will sometimes serve as well as actual definition.

The necessity that the persons of a story be described in relation to
it, as they are placed in the physical setting, requires the writer to
realize and regard the mechanical limitations of the story. If it is
told in the first person, and the narrating character perceives another
in the distance, a description of such other must confine itself to
matters apparent at a distance, until the persons approach one another
more nearly. The same necessity obtains where the story is told in the
third person, from the viewpoint of a character who perceives another at
a distance. Likewise, a character cannot be made to see through a house
or a mountain, or into the next room. A good deal has been written on
this matter, but from the wrong angle. The writer should not seek to
master any abstract rule, rather should he strive to visualize his
story as he writes it from the viewpoint from which he has chosen to
tell it. If he thus gets into his story--so to speak--in describing he
will unconsciously respect the mechanical limitations of the tale.
Moreover, his attention will be free for the severe task of expression,
undistracted by any eye to precepts. The way to write a story is to
picture it in imagination and then follow it with the pen. That is why
the unpracticed writer of high imaginative powers so often writes with a
strict if unconscious regard for the laws of technique.

Another matter as to the description of persons is worth noting. The
normal human being has more than the sense of sight; he can also hear,
feel, and smell; and verbal appeals to these other senses may be
effective. The timbre of a character's voice or sound of his step, the
feel of his hand when shaken, an odor about him or her, as of liquor,
tobacco, or perfume, may be stated in describing the person. Such a
descriptive touch will often prove most useful, the more so because it
gives another dimension to the person, so to speak. A very
characteristic and impressive thing about Uriah Heep is his handshake,
as Copperfield felt it. The matter will be taken up again in discussing
the technique of describing setting, where it necessarily bulks
larger.[K]

DESCRIPTION OF SETTING

The fictio