Bookcast 98: Reading + Writing the Highly Descriptive

On epi 98 of The BookCast by DL White, we are chatting about reading, writing and storytelling.

There has been some discourse about whether authors include too much inconsequential detail in their writing. As a writer who strives for vivid description, it is important to immerse the reader in the scene without bogging down the narrative. Skillful writing can transport readers through evocative language, while keeping the story moving forward. I talk more about this approach on today's episode.

I also talked a little about Facebook advertising, the BOOK I read this week (just ONE!) and what I am hoping to get into. 

I also shared a writing update:
Same Time Next Week has been updated through Chapter 7. This is a serial that is updated twice a week on my short fiction substack. 
Calculated Risk has 5,000+ words and I am feeling good about it. I am working to develop the slightly antagonistic meet-cute between Imani and Desmond. They both carry wounds from their past that they will help each other overcome through their relationship. Crafting complex, relatable characters is supremely rewarding. 

Lastly, I reviewed upcoming author appearances. Don't forget to share any comments or feedback you have at my website (booksbydlwhite.com/bookcast/98) or my substack (authordlwhite.substack.com).

The Bookcast is written, produced and edited by me. Our theme music and any sound effects are provided by Pixabay. Our break tunes were brought to you by Infrared Krypto. Look him up on Youtube or Spotify. I think he calls his genre lofi jazz. Super nice instrumental with a great tempo. Today’s selection is called Clearview off of his latest album Ultraviolet. You should spin that thang! 

Transcript

DL White [00:00:14]:
Alrighty, friends, neighbors, book lovers. Welcome back to the book cast. I am DL White, an Atlanta based self published author of romantic fiction that centers black love, and this is the book cast, my indie author podcast. Today, we'll talk about this week in reading and writing and I wanna toss around an opinion on book Twitter discourse, like whether the writers are adding too much inconsequential detail. I do, of course, have thoughts on this. So let's talk about what level of detail I use and I think is effective to draw out a scene. In housekeeping, I still don't have any books on sale. Praise.

DL White [00:00:52]:
Everything is status quo. My books are at my regular low affordable price. They're available at books by dlwhite.com/books. A fun thing, though, is that I'm running Facebook ads. I was running 2. I'm I'm now just running 1 and it ends today. I have one ad out for the Pot O' Lake series, and I'm, of course, using scribe count to track revenue as well as ad spend because my Facebook ad account is tied into scribe count. So it's measuring, everything I sell versus everything I am spending on ads.

DL White [00:01:27]:
It's super neat. Everything's all connected. So, it's allowing me to see what I'm making every day versus what I'm spending every day. And for a few days, revenue was way outpacing ad spend. It was looking real nice. Now it sort of seems like they're neck and neck, and to me, that means it's time to wind that ad down and pop up something new. Surprisingly, the numbers on Instagram aren't hitting at all. So I turn that ad off.

DL White [00:01:54]:
No sense in wasting money. And, so I turn that ad off. I'm just sticking to Facebook right now. I don't really like how Amazon ads work. Like, you have to wait for more than 30 days to see if it has any, effect. Like, you can't you can't see stuff real time. So I don't know if the ad is working or if it is just willy nilly spending my money, and I don't like that. And BookBub ads to me are like setting money out in the front yard and setting it on fire.

DL White [00:02:24]:
It is the largest waste of my time and money ever. Another thing that isn't really working for me anymore are paid newsletters like the Fussy Librarian, Ereader News Today. Even my last bookbub just barely earned out. So I'm sticking with Facebook ads for a minute because I'm currently making more than I'm spending. Actually, right now, they're about neck and neck, and I don't wanna, I don't wanna start losing money. So that, the ad that I have running ends tonight, and then I'll take a look at what else I have on out there or what else I wanna try to promote. The ad that's out right now is about the Pottery Lake series. That's like my fall coded series.

DL White [00:03:07]:
I don't want to I don't really wanna promote the Black Diamond series anymore because it's a summer series and past Labor Day. It it just doesn't make any sense. So I might pop up, like, maybe the guy next door, or I might do, the Ruby series, maybe one of my stand alones. I haven't promoted the never list in a minute. I almost never promote, the, a thin line. And then I have my shorts, but they are holiday shorts. And so in September, I just feel like it's a waste of money to promote holiday books in September. So I'm gonna wait on those, but I do have some other books and other series that I could give attention to.

DL White [00:03:54]:
As I mentioned, you know, last week, September is a great time of year for me. I guess I tend to finish books in September. So lots of book anniversaries are coming up. Curl and die on 14th. The guy next door was published September 8, 2019. Beach Thing published, on September 18, 2016. So my books are are turning birthdays in September. I obviously spend summers writing books, and then I release them in the fall.

DL White [00:04:21]:
I had to change that up this year because I wanted the pearl to be out in summer, so I had to start writing that in February. So pick up all the books in all my series at booksbydylwhite.com/books. They're all very good. You won't regret snapping them up. They're very low angst, very few triggers, cozy romances, super cute, realistic black characters that are flirting and kissing and loving. If that's your jam, you will love these books. So it's a gloomy day here in the a. I would not be surprised if it started raining.

DL White [00:04:54]:
A nap is imminent because I woke up at 4 AM. Shout out to perimenopause. I would like to get some reading and writing done, but first, I have to get the podcast out. So let's take a quick break. Enough time to grab a drink, a snack, whatever you need, and settle in for episode 98 of the book cast by d l White. Thank you for coming back. That little break was brought to you by a fellow named Infrared Crypto. Not new to this.

DL White [00:05:50]:
I'm true to this. I do enjoy his jams. Look him up on YouTube or Spotify. I think he goes by the genres, lo fi jazz. Super nice instrumental with great tempo, good for writing or studying or, you know, scoring that movie you're writing. That cut was called Clearview and it's off his latest album, Ultraviolet. You should spin that thing. So let's get started with the book report.

DL White [00:06:19]:
I have read 148 books of my challenge to read 200 books in 2024. I am 7 books ahead of my challenge. I'm losing my lead a little bit. That means I only finished one book this week. Your girl is struggling. We'll talk about it. But first, let's chat about what I read and what I am reading. This week, I read I finished one book, Place in the Sun by Tie, t I y e.

DL White [00:06:43]:
This book was okay. It was not a disappointment, but I have issues I have issues with insta love that doesn't make sense where the characters don't talk about how fast they are falling for each other or they don't recognize that it's just way too fast. These characters knew each other for, like, you know, a week and a day or something like that. They had sex twice and I love you's were flowing, and I was like, come on. Don't do this to us. Like, it just sometimes writers spend so much time getting to the sex and getting through the sex and, like, making their intimacy really intricate and highly detailed, and then don't spend any time at all developing the relationship between the characters. There's more that goes on between 2 bodies than the old in and out. And, like, some of that is why I I struggle a lot with romance because there's a story in there.

DL White [00:07:45]:
There's a conflict in there. Pull it out. Spin that story. And if they're gonna fall in love early, there's definitely something going on inside of them that's like, is this real? Is this fake? Can it be this soon? Can it happen? Like, it's okay to acknowledge that to me. I felt the writing was good. The intimate scenes were good. I just felt like the timeline was sped up to a certain part to, like, get to the I love you, and the the declaration of love didn't make sense to me because they didn't know each other. Just my thoughts.

DL White [00:08:16]:
Just my thoughts. What I'm reading next, I always put in theory in my little rundown because, you know, a lot of things pop up, man. Like, a lot of things pop up. Sometimes I'm just not in the mood. I'm still reading Another Girl Lost. Actually, have not read a single page of this book since I put it down week before last. I want to finish this. I don't necessarily want to read this book, but I want to finish it because I have an audio arc, and I wanna keep getting them.

DL White [00:08:41]:
So I'm gonna power through probably today, try to power through, finish it. Suffice it to say it's not gonna get a high rating, but I'm gonna try not to be unfair about it. I just, like I said last week, Mary Burton's writing writing has changed, and I'm not a big fan. Morning Glory by Laverle Spencer. I picked this up this week because I just was in the mood for a romance. This is an old school romance. It's a historical romance. It's a white romance.

DL White [00:09:06]:
Laverne Spencer and Ronnie Lauren are about the only white romance readers that I will read, and Laverne simply because her writing is old. Like, she's from the eighties nineties. She retired in, like, 98 or something like that. So, Laverne was the first romance author that I ever read, and I fell in love with her books. I've read them all. Some I've read several times. Several of her books have been turned into movies. Really enjoyed this one.

DL White [00:09:35]:
It is about a gentleman who got, I guess, just got out of prison, and he's having a difficult time. And he reads about a widow that is looking for a man to come be her husband, work the farm, fix some stuff, help raise the kids, and he's like, alright. I'm in. Love it. So I am reading that. I'm about halfway through that. It's giving me good vibes. And then All We Were Promised by Ashton Latimore.

DL White [00:10:02]:
I don't know where this came from, but I added it to my Libby whole list and it came up and I said, okay. I guess I'm I guess I'm reading this book because I didn't wanna turn it in. And I was like, nothing's really turning me on, so might as well. It's very good so far. I'm only about 30% in, so this is another one I wanna try to power through this week. I'm gonna have a lot of, not so much downtime, but time where I just could have a book playing in my ear. So hopefully, this week, I will get in some good reading. The books just under books I put down, I put the number is immeasurable because my brain has been so picky this week.

DL White [00:10:40]:
There's just the the books just don't sound good. They just they don't sound good. I mostly read black indie romance, and I just pick up a book and I look at the blurb, and I try to read the sample and blah. I mean, I'm sure that book is fine, but blah. I'm just not interested in anything really. Like, I don't I know there's some books that people are just going gaga over and I don't want to read them. I don't wanna read a poly romance. I don't wanna read the fake dating romance.

DL White [00:11:11]:
I'd like, I don't wanna read, having some issues, but we always pull through. You know what I'm saying? We always pull through. I think I might go back to like, I know there's 2 there's the Donovan and then there's Donovan Dynasty. I know she has one that has a motorcycle rider that looks really good to me. I might try that. I just need something. I I need something that's, like, exciting and something I haven't read before and something where the I don't feel like the author just try to rush through the story to get through the sex and then, like, cut it off at the end, so I'll find something. Moving on to the writing slash publishing update.

DL White [00:11:54]:
Calculated risk has about 5,000 ish words. I got chapters 12. I, I got some made some good ads to those chapters. The way that I write is I kind of just pound out, like, a general theme and then not a general theme, but, like, I just words on the page. I just need words on the page so I can edit the words on the page. And then I go through, and add layers, more description here, more dialogue here, be more visual here. And so I just I honestly I love editing. I love editing, and I love taking a really blah, boring, stunted sentence and changing it into something that's vivid and magical.

DL White [00:12:38]:
So that's what I'm doing right now. And, also, my first two chapters are like my foundation. My first two chapters have to be really, really, really good before I can move on. And, like, my first five chapters are probably the chapters I work the hardest on because those are, like, those are my beginning, and that's where I am gonna cook people. If they can't get through the first five chapters, they're not gonna make it through the rest of the book. So I probably work the hardest on those 5 chapters, and then I make sure that the chapters behind that have to stand up to the same scrutiny that the first five chapters give you. So chapter 3 is gonna be the chapter where my characters meet, and I'm kinda mapping that out in my brain. I see where it goes.

DL White [00:13:26]:
It's it's gonna be a little bit antagonistic, but only because my female character is sort of forced to be in contact with my male character. It's a little bit like Neverless where they're forced to work together, but they're not on opposite ends of a negotiation table. I'm very sensitive to feeling like, did I already write this? Did I already write this story? Am I gonna be repeating myself? Because I don't like that. There's a thing about my hero, Desmond, that I don't wanna spill to the gen pop right now. I want y'all to realize it when you read the book. That's the thing I wanna, that's the thing I wanna draw out. So I'm being very cagey and very vague about him. I can tell you both characters have a wound.

DL White [00:14:10]:
Both characters have a past they really need to overcome, and both characters, I'm aiming for them to find solace in each other and find it possible to trust and love each other again. This is it's not a friend to lover. It's definitely a stranger's to lover. It's not really a work play it's workplace e, workplace ish. I'm finding I like those a lot because you have, like, a built in conflict, but there's not the we can't sleep together conflict that I had in Neverlist, or in a thin line. So it's gonna be different. I'm excited about that. My characters are Imani Thatcher and Desmond Taylor.

DL White [00:14:47]:
Imani is a financial analyst. It's her job to, like, you know, look at companies and analyze how they do business. And here's what's good, and here's what's bad, and here's where you can save money. She's like a she's into the number. She's a finance guru type person. She has a really good job in Atlanta and a boyfriend that's been trying to talk her into picking up sticks and moving to be with him in Raleigh, but some things happen. Mhmm. Some things happen, and you'll find out what things are when you read it.

DL White [00:15:16]:
But she eventually meets Desmond through work. He runs a community center, and, at that center is a program that supports at risk teens. This really pulls on my past working with AmeriCorps, at at that job. If you know, AmeriCorps is a volunteer program where you you volunteer and you earn a stipend. I think the stipend was, like, $600 a month, and, I just spent the summer working with teens who are at risk of not graduating from high school. Really wonderful, wonderful people. I just loved those young men and women. So I spent I think I spent 2 summers working with, AmeriCorps with at risk teens in the Inland Northwest.

DL White [00:16:00]:
Those kids just stole my heart. So I'm really digging into this, and I'm trying to make every word meaningful. Speaking of making every word meaningful, there's been some discourse lately on Twitter and TikTok, and I don't dig much into it. I don't really get too much into discourse by the time I find it, it's over. You know? And then, like, I'm bored. But I'm definitely and I'm definitely leaving names off of this because this conversation here is about me. But the posts were kind of amusing. There was an initial post about writers that stuff their books with unnecessary details.

DL White [00:16:36]:
Like, they don't add to the plot or further the story. They just serve to make the book longer and feel heavier. Like, there's no need for all those words to tell us your character brushed her teeth. So this flew around the Twitters for a minute, and then it made its way to TikTok where discourse gets blown out of proportion and 319 people have to get on camera to talk about why they're, like, so different. And let me tell you. This is just me talking here. I am a person that likes to write a highly descriptive vivid scene. I like to bring it to life.

DL White [00:17:10]:
I want the reader to feel like they're in the room with the character, and that's a thing that I I have picked up from Terry McMillan, and that it tickles me when people tell me that my writing reminds them of Terry because I definitely read her work, and I'm like, I feel like I'm sitting at the table with these characters. I feel like I am in the room with these people, and that's how vivid I want my scene to be. I like to bring it to life. I want the reader to feel like they're in the room with that character. So, yes, sometimes I might spend time describing the room. I spend time describing what they're doing especially if I wanna set a a a routine. And I never used to write that close because I'm already really wordy and I don't need to spend a 100 words on stuff like that, but I started seeing rigors complain about things like, y'all not writing your characters bathing after sex. Y'all not writing your characters peeing after sex.

DL White [00:18:07]:
Y'all not writing your characters using body oil after a shower or a bath. Y'all are not writing your characters wearing a bonnet to bed. Y'all are not writing your characters using a silk pillowcase, and I'm thinking, I thought y'all wanted shorter books. I see so much complaining about books that are over 400 pages long, but also so much complaining about books that don't have a high level of description so readers know that the characters are black with black coded habits and black coded norms. You don't want books over 400 pages, but you also want slang in AAVE. Make up your mind, babes. That book is either gonna be short without all that detail or it's gonna be long with all the details y'all are asking for because you need us to prove these characters are black. I will say when I read a book and the author skates right over description, I am personally bored.

DL White [00:18:58]:
I'm personally there's nothing in my mind, and I am a very visual reader. I'm one of those readers that, like, if you write about an apple, I can taste the apple. That is the kind of reader that I am, and there are a lot of readers that don't see anything. And if you write for readers that don't have, like, a a mental picture, you you gotta advertise that. Like, market your books to people who don't see it like a movie in their mind, but I my my imagination be working over time. Paint the picture. Show the work. Tell the story.

DL White [00:19:35]:
Lay it out. I I feel like a skilled writer creates a vivid scene in which it doesn't feel like you're reading a wall of text. It doesn't feel like you're reading a paragraph of description that drags the manuscript down. It it I liken it to the conversation about if I'm writing in 1st person or a 3rd person or 3rd person omniscient or second person. There's a book called You by Caroline Kepnes. The entire series is written in first person. No. It's written written in second person present tense.

DL White [00:20:07]:
Do I notice that? Not at all. Like, 2nd person present tense is you walk into the bookstore, and you pick up a book, and you really like the book, and you purchase the book, and you enjoy it. After, like, the first sentence, Caroline's writing is so good that I don't notice its second person present tense. Like, that's how good the writing is. If the writing is good enough, you won't notice. If the writing isn't good or the author isn't good at that, it will feel like a drag. It will feel like a huge drag to read that story because that writer isn't very good at it. And so at that point, I feel like the writer needs to, like, dig in their heels and practice writing that until they're good at it.

DL White [00:20:56]:
Go back to fan fiction. Go back to short stories. Write stories to yourself. Write, news newsletter magnets. Write stuff where you can give it away and people can review it and be like, hey. You did really good here. Like, mm-mm, girl. I drag myself through this.

DL White [00:21:11]:
So when I am writing, I like, I want it to be I just I want it to be vivid, and I feel like I write well enough to make vivid writing seem realistic. The greatest compliment to me is someone reading a thin line and saying, girl, I felt like I was on Saint Lucia. I saw the hotel. I heard the I heard the ocean wash up on the sand. I heard those 2 getting it on early in the morning. Like, that to me is a great compliment. When people talk about how vivid a scene is. Another great tool that a skill skilled author uses is a discerning eye.

DL White [00:21:54]:
When you pull yourself back out of the emotion and being so close to the manuscript and you actually look at it and analyze it, does this does this matter? Do these words matter? Is this sentence needed? Is this paragraph needed? Can I cut this down some and still get the desired effect? Are all of my words effective? Do they all point to the image that I want the reader to imagine in their mind? A skilled writer can also use a great beta reader who loves your work but is also honest but tactful and does their best to help does their best to help the author shine. I have a beta that is not afraid to say this doesn't work. I know what you're trying to do here, and it doesn't work. I feel like this could be better. You could say this. You could do this, you could you could move this sentence up earlier, and that way we get kind of a hint, like, someone that really enjoys your work and knows your voice, knows your heart, sees the vision, and wants you wants to help you make it plain. The last tool, I think, is a really good editor who is willing to tell you when you sound like you've been traveling for 40 days 40 nights through the wilderness of describing your character's night routine. I have not worked with editor Kai long, but I know when I get that manuscript back, she's gonna be like, this kind of doesn't work.

DL White [00:23:23]:
This word needs to change. It's not strong enough. This right here, you probably don't need if you've already said it up here. Like, good constructive criticism might hurt in the moment, but it's the best thing going for that book. And a lot of times, I will send things to my betas and my editor and say, I feel like this right here is long. Does it need to be cut down? Do I need all these words? Does the scene have to be this long? Sometimes they're like, yeah. It's a little long. It drags it drags them.

DL White [00:23:54]:
I'm kinda bored. How about, you know, we cut out a couple of these middle paragraphs. Like, they're good, but you don't need them. Or sometimes it's like, no, girl. Leave it. Mm-mm. Leave it right where you put it because it's good. And sometimes you you have to be able to put your trust in the people who aren't you, who don't know the story by heart, who aren't emotionally invested, but they know you, they know your vision, and they know how to polish that story so it shines like a diamond in that Kindle app.

DL White [00:24:31]:
And I'll admit it's a really fine line. It's a delicate balance. It's something you have to practice at. I'll also admit that I would rather air on the sign of being side of being slightly too descriptive over writing a bland paragraph that does nothing for the story, that implants nothing in the mind, that doesn't paint a picture. If you're skipping over huge paragraphs in my book, that's your prerogative, you own it, and far be it for me to tell you how to read my book. But I will say, though, if you're regulars regularly skipping over large amounts of text in a book, put it down. That book or that author isn't for you. Put it down.

DL White [00:25:10]:
Pick up something you like. And I'm really gonna stop listening to readers talking about how long the books are because there's a 750 page book out there with 10,000 reviews on it, and the girls were all screaming and creaming about this book. So hush. Read the damn book or don't. It's gonna be as long as it is. Now then, rant over. Project 10 is my serial story that I have been posting to substack. It's called same time next week.

DL White [00:25:41]:
It was fan fiction and then commercial fiction, and then I pulled it down. It's coming back as a serial. This week, chapters 5, 6, and 7 posted. The story is kind of curing out there. It's make it makes a great serial because I'm not concerned with how fast the story has to come out. The idea is to garner attention and to get to a point where people are waiting to find out what happens next. The story is really just very slowly building, and I don't mind how long it's taking to get going. It's free right now.

DL White [00:26:10]:
So I'll post a link to the blurb and the first few chapters in the show notes. Reading will still be free for a few more chapters, and then subscriptions will begin, especially when we get to the juicy parts. I'm excited to be writing again. So I it this is just reminds me how much joy I get out of writing, being in the act of writing, like, sitting down to open up dabble writer and, like, pound words onto a blank screen is not my favorite thing to do. But once it's down, then I can see the potential, and I can see how to add and enhance and polish and change and build and layer to a story that I wanna read. So I'm excited to bring you along with me. This is like book number 5. We have written together on this podcast, and I really I'm really enjoying it.

DL White [00:27:05]:
Of course, I'll take you all along here at the book cast for the ride. I don't have any new events. I talked last week about the Snellville Book Festival in early November. And then in 2025, I'll be at the Black Romance Book Fest, which is sold out. But keep your eye because, somebody will drop, and they will need to sell their tickets. I almost guarantee it. And then, I just signed on to be at the 10th anniversary of Indie Love, which still has tickets. So snatch them up because Indie Love always sells out.

DL White [00:27:36]:
I will try to get links in the show notes for, both of those events. I believe the Selville Book Festival is free. So, if you live in the area, I hope to see you there. That brings us to the end of today's show. Thank you so much for joining me for today's chat. I welcome any questions, any comments, any feedback you have at books by dlwhite.com/bookcast/98. You can also find this podcast on my Substack. It's author dlwhite.

DL White [00:28:04]:
Substack.com. You can offer comments there as well as any of my socials. I'm author_dlwhite on Twitter and Instagram. I have a TikTok account, but I just don't like posting there. It's a waste of my time, so I just kinda stopped posting over there. Full show notes and links to all the things I talked about if they're relevant, and a transcript for today's show will be on my website website. I can't talk ever. I finally didn't say feedbacks, but now I'm saying website, website, and my subs at.

DL White [00:28:38]:
Thank you so much to my monthly supporters at Buzzsprout. I really appreciate the support. If you also love this podcast or just really like the work I do and wanna show support, who am I to stand in the way of that? Share the podcast with anyone you think would like to hear it. You can support my work with book purchases at payhip.com/booksbydielwhite by spreading the good word with reviews and word-of-mouth. By joining the newsletter or the Substack, links are on my website at booksbydielwhite.com/linkinbio, or by throwing some coins in the hat at bookcast.busprout.com. If you don't wanna subscribe, I do also have a coffee link, a buy me a coffee. I think it's, buy me a coffee dot com slash books by d l white, something like that. I'm on there.

DL White [00:29:22]:
I'm on there. The book cast is written, produced, and edited by me, d l white. Our theme music and any sound effects are provided by pixabay with added tunes from infrared crypto. I will be back next week. Until then, please have a superlative week. We'll chat again soon. Bye bye.