Dear Weeping Editor: Sight

Dear Weeping Editor,
I have seen your articles on sound, smell, touch, and taste but I haven’t seen you talk about the sense of sight.
Can you give me some colorful ideas?
Signed,
Looking for a Vision

Dear Looking,

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to look into this (did you catch that?) and to see what I can do (did it again!) to add a splash of color commentary (I’m just showing off now) on the topic of the sense of sight.

Readers want to experience all seven senses along with your characters. What your characters see, smell, taste, hear, touch, and any variances in their proprioception sense or vestibular sense should transport the reader into the character’s experience. Good writers include these sensory details in ways that actively envelop the reader, not in ways that pull the reader out of the story.

1. POV

Generally speaking, the first thing to remember is to always stay in your character’s specific point of view. Describe what greets his or her eyes and only that. If you are not in that character’s POV, then that character cannot see anything outside of his or her line of sight. Your hero cannot see the speeding taxi three miles away any more than your heroine can see the inside of the hero’s double-wide trailer ten miles away. Stick with point of view.

2. Sight is Active

Secondly, remember that the senses are—and sensory perception is—active, not passive. It is the case that you look and you see. It is not the case that you are looking and you are seeing. You are not being and existing. Sight has vision. Sight is active.

Avoid using any of the so-called “to be” verbs when describing the sense of sight. To review, the “to be” verbs are: is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been.

Say your heroine walks into a drab room that she has never seen before, and in the room exists, oh, a red couch for instance.

Example:

Incorrect:

The couch was red. It was about two feet away from the gray wall.

Correct:

She saw a red couch situated perhaps two feet from the gray wall.

You can see how flat the first example reads. There is no action. Nothing drives those words. You can also see how avoiding the “to be” verbs in the second example instantly makes for a more engaging read. You will have much better results if you use some form of the following words.

blink, cast, envision, examine, eyed, eyeballed, gander, gape, gawk, gaze, gazed, glance, glanced, glare, glimpse, goggle, leer, look, look over, looked, looking, ogle, overlook, oversee, peek, peep, peer, peruse, regard, rubberneck, saw, scan, see, seeing, side-glance, sideways glance, sight, squint, stare, study, survey, took in, view

3. Speak English!

The third thing to say is if you are US Citizen writing for the US Market, then use US English. It is spelled gray, not grey just as it is spelled color, not colour. The gray/grey thing is a common bad habit. I blame all the Regency you all read in your younger years. Bottom line, pick a language and stick to it.

Example:

Incorrect:

She saw a red couch situated perhaps two feet from the grey wall.

Correct:

She saw a red couch situated perhaps two feet from the gray wall.

4. Color

The fourth thing to say about the sense of sight, and since we are already on this topic, is that color can be very important. Obviously, the human eye can only see the visible spectrum and healthy humans can discern somewhere north of 16 million unique colors in that spectrum. If your characters are spiritual beings, keep in mind that it is unlikely that they are limited to the visible spectrum and likely see MORE even than that.

Were I to list all 16 million colors, this would be a rather lengthier article than it already is. So let’s start with the basics. There are three primary colors: Red, Blue, and Yellow. We also take in variable saturations/combinations of these three primary colors so secondary colors like Orange, Green, and Violet (Purple) come into play. These colorful six along with hues and densities of the famous three Black, Gray, and White in whatever saturation, really make up the nine go-to colors in our crayon box.

As a result of researching for this article, I discovered that there is actual debate about whether “Indigo” should continue to be referred to as one of the 7 colors in the visible spectrum since most people think of indigo as either dark blue or light purple.

When choosing colors for various important settings or props in the story, remember that color often subconsciously influences human behavior.

Now that you are so informed, it might affect the color of your hero’s pickup truck, your heroine’s kitchen, or the villain’s sinister pet.

SIDEBAR: You also might want to start re-thinking that Zoom background. Just saying.

5. Describe the Colors

A plain red couch and a plain gray wall can be kind of boring. Jazz it up with some words to describe the color.

Example:

She saw a chintzy red couch situated perhaps two feet from the cold gray wall.

Here is a short list to help you get started:

• ablaze – bright and full of light or color
• a riot of [color] – a lot of different bright colors together
• bleached – made very pale by chemicals or strong sunlight
• bleak – gloomy; somber
• blotchy – discolored, patchy
• bold – very bright, clear, or strong in color and therefore easy to notice
• brash – big, bright, or colorful in a way that is not attractive
• bright – strong but not dark
• brilliant – vivid, intense
• chintzy – too colorful and in poor taste
• clean – light and fresh
• cold – colors such as white, blue, and grey that make you think of things that are cold
• color-coded – marked with different colors to make it easy to see different features or uses
• colorful – has bright colors or a lot of different colors
• cool – cool colors, such as white and blue, give an idea of cold instead of heat. Colours with blue or green in them are called cool colors
• dappled – covered with or forming areas of lighter and darker color or light and shadow
• dark – strong and not pale in color
• deep – dark and strong
• delicate – pleasant and not too strong
• discolored – changed in color and no longer looks new, clean, or healthy
• dusty – used for describing a color that is not bright because it has some grey in it
• electric – bright, metallic
• fast – colors that are fast will not become paler when clothes are washed
• festive – bright and colorful in a way that makes you think of a celebration
• fiery – very bright in color, especially bright red, orange, or yellow
• flamboyant – brightly colored or decorated
• flaming – brightly colored red, orange, or yellow
• fluorescent – very bright and seems to reflect light
• fresh – clean colors
• glistening – sparkling or shining like glitter
• glittering – shining; sparkling
• glowing – glowing colors are bright and look warm
• harmonious – harmonious colors or parts combine well with each other
• harsh – very bright
• iridescent – showing changing colors in different types of light
• jazzy – bright, colorful, and attractive
• loud – very bright in a way that does not show good taste
• matching – with the same color, pattern, or design
• medium – neither light nor dark in color
• mellow – soft and warm in color
• metallic – reminiscent of metal like steel, gold, silver, copper, bronze
• multicolored – consisting of several different colors
• opalescent – seems always to be changing color slightly
• pastel – having a pale soft color
• prismatic – multicolored, brilliant, bright
• psychedelic – brightly colored and have big unusual patterns
• pure – a pure color is very clear and beautiful
• restrained – not too bright in color, or not decorated too much
• rich – strong in a pleasant way
• sepia – sepia photographs are old and are a red-brown color
• showy – brightly colored and attractive
• soft – pale, gentle and pleasant to look at
• somber – dark in color, especially grey or black
• splashy – brightly colored
• tinged – something that is tinged with a color, feeling, or quality contains a small amount of it
• tinted – containing a small amount of a particular color
• two-tone – two-tone shoes or clothes have two colors
• unrestrained – see flamboyant
• vibrant – bright and colorful
• violent – very bright and almost painful to look at
• vivid – a vivid color is strong and bright
• warm – warm colors have red, orange, or yellow in them.
• watery – pale

But sometimes you may want to describe something as colorless or plain or only tinged with some color. Try this list for inspiration:

• colorless – dull or lacking in color
• dotted – a series of small spots or marks
• faded – less bright
• flecked – having a spot or small patch of color
• light – lacking brightness or saturation
• monochromatic – having one color
• monotone – all one color
• muted – subdued or softened colors
• neutral – having very little color
• opaque – incapable of allowing light to pass through
• pale – something light in color or washed out
• primary – basic color
• rustic – plain; simple
• tinged – a small amount of color
• tinted – slightly colored
• translucent – allowing light to pass through
• transparent – clear; see-through
• watery – containing too much water; diluted

6. Branch Out From ROY G. BIV

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, it can make your story more interesting to sometimes step away from the common primaries and secondaries that ROY G. BIV (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet) taught us when we first learned the rainbow colors listed in order back in middle school.

Example:

She saw a chintzy crimson couch situated perhaps two feet from the cold dark slate gray wall.

In this example, the reader is “shown” these colors not “told” about the state of being of the colors. It paints perhaps an ominous picture in the reader’s mind. In the reader’s imagination, he or she can visualize these two colors.

Color can set the tone of the scene, or the mood of the character. Color influences our decisions. The largest truck stop in Texas lost hundreds of dollars a month in pilfered white towels. They started using pink towels, and suddenly no one stole towels anymore.

I know it can often be challenging to find the words to describe exactly what color you envision. Don’t worry. I have taken the work out of that for you.

My dear friend, below you will find a color chart with more than six hundred and thirty color names right beside color swatches you can actually see and choose from. If you have a color in mind, hopefully these creative color names will help you properly word that sentence.

Take a look (Ha!). I hope you see (Haha!) that this answers your question.