Later we'll look at how description fits into the context of a longer piece of writing, but for the first few lectures we’re going to focus on it in isolation - in this particular lecture how use of detail can lift the level of your description. So forget any fears of purple prose or unbalanced writing - right now we’re going to describe
everything.
Take this desk I’m sitting at right now. It’s old - I’ve had it over half my life- and cheap, and kind of messy. Can you see the problem with that description? It tells you what you need to know - and if the desk was simply a background feature in a wider description of my room I might get away with it. But let’s say my desk is a key feature of this piece of writing. Old, cheap and messy describes it accurately, but it describes thousands of other desks with equal accuracy. And what’s more, I’m committing one of the cardinal sins of writing. What’s that adage again - “Show not tell”?
It’s not quite that simple; there is a place for telling in writing as well as showing, but description is rarely it. How about, instead of simply
telling you that my desk is messy, I talk about its population of abandoned, lidless biros, the overflowing stack of papers at one end, the colourful ink stains and the scraps of tape stuck to its surface? If instead of
telling you it’s old and cheap, I explain the scuffs on its edges, the place where the wood finish is beginning to come away and reveal the plywood beneath?
I bet you can see my desk now. And I bet you can infer more about me and my desk than just the facts I told you at the start. Let's look at some other examples. In the Warriors universe, a cat with tangled, greying fur can be assumed to be an elder who has, perhaps due to infirmity, stopped looking after themself. A straight path with a hard surface implies Twoleg origin. Of course, if these deductions are important to your story, you probably want to confirm them by telling later on. But by showing the details first, you're giving your readers the tools to come up with the big picture themselves, rather than simply giving them the bare facts - and all this makes your descriptions that much more pictorial and immersive.
The second point I want to make is also something of an adage - “Use all the senses!” I don’t know - or want to know - what my desk tastes like, but how about I mention the faint odour of coffee (I’ve got an old mug lingering somewhere under those papers), the plasticky feel of the fake wood, and the unsatisfying hollow sound it makes when I drum my fingers on it? More useful show-not-tell-y details, and this time they’re not just visual ones, which means you feel more immersed in this description; like you’re in the room with me (hi, there!), rather than just looking at a photo. And immersion is vital to good writing - you want your readers to experience everything your characters do, rather than watching them from the other end of a camera lens.
Sensory description is also vital when writing from the viewpoint of a character who is blind, such as Jayfeather in Warriors. Again, this helps us to experience the world in the same way as he does, relying on senses that for most of us take an auxiliary role.
My final piece of advice - and this is where it becomes clear why I used my desk as an example - is to base your descriptions in real life. You may well have come across a desk like mine; if so, you probably recognised some of the details I dropped during this lecture. What does that add? Authenticity. And authenticity is necessary if you want to maintain the sense of immersion. Even if you’re describing an object that none of your readers will have used or seen - a wizard’s staff, a paratypical translocative device - some details should remain rooted in your experience. Metals feel cool to the touch, unless they’ve been heated, in which case they’re painfully hot. Blood tastes and smells like iron, and vise versa.
To help attain that authenticity, it’s a good idea to take note of everyday details, or to do a little research. Noticing the colours or textures of the trees in your local park can pay dividends when writing a tree climbing scene in a warriors fic. Or if you want to set your work in a particular exotic location, do a quick google search so you can describe the style of the buildings or mention specific plants that grow there. If you do it well, you might be able to teach your readers a little something along the way.
You’ve learnt a lot about my desk from this lecture, for example.
Assignment - Describe in detail a) an object or set of objects you have in front of you, and
an object of your own invention that doesn’t exist in our world. Go wild! Try to show as many details as possible, describe using multiple senses, and to add authentic details.
Save for lecture 2
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an object of your own invention that doesn’t exist in our world. Go wild! Try to show as many details as possible, describe using multiple senses, and to add authentic details. 
