Surrender to Imagery

Imagery is descriptive language that not only engages the readers’ senses, but also evokes an emotional response. One of the most famous examples of imagery in poetry is probably the first line of Carl Sandburg’s “Fog” – The fog comes / on little cat feet.

I was pulled into a novel written by Sonya Hartnett this weekend and found myself alternately bobbing and sinking in an ocean of imagery. Some of the language literally caught my breath like the topmost hill of a roller coaster. Some of Ms. Hartnett’s images made me struggle to breathe. The story, Surrender, written in 2005 and awarded the Michael L. Prinz honor, has creeped into my head and seems to want to stay there, curled around the bulges and beating veins of my brain. Lurking like a snake. It is hiding among my own bits of story and snippets of words as if waiting for the right moment to make itself known in a new way.

The story is demanding and horrifying, inescapable and worthy of being shoved into a back corner of a high shelf when you are finished, just in case you feel the story calling to you another day. You will remember it. You will want to revisit the language, the story, and the images so brilliantly used by this writer. Most of all, it is human, this story. Full of contradictions, mysteries, and the honesty of lies told to oneself to keep the peace.

Here are some of the phrases, sentences and images that are echoing in my ears and keeping rhythm with the beating of my heart –

Page 15 – If my visitor walked away now he would seem like a daydream, like touching a tiger’s face in the dark.

Page 40 – His yellow smile – all of him is yellow – patrols the room like a lighthouse beam, falling on my sandy-beach aunt, on jagged-rocky-outcrop me, on the foaming blankets of the sea…

Page 159 – In this room, night is not black but gray. The door is gray, the walls are gray, the air itself is gray. Yet light skates goldenly round the door handle as it spins.

Page 165 – The sky above our heads dashed white with cockatoos.

Page 180 – The morning heat bulged and swore, trapped in the confines of the forest, a bully pinned furious to the ground.

Sort of exhausting, this story. Deep and treacherous and so beautiful. I was going to send it to a friend, but I think I’ll slide it onto the top shelf of my bookcase instead. I’ll keep it until another day when the images call to me again.

Nephilim and Warlocks and Demons -- Oh my!

Today, over a semi-warm burrito in the cafeteria at work, I finished racing through Cassandra Clare’s newest book, Clockwork Angel: The Infernal Devices Book One.


The first thing you should know is the cafeteria at work is NOTHING like the caf we remember from high school. First of all, it smells better. Secondly, everyone tends to keep their voices down. Strangely, there is still a table of the brainiac boys playing some mysterious game with glass marbles and references to wizards. But then, I work for a software company. Probably all the boys in this cafeteria once sat at the geek table as teenagers. I digress...

You should also know – in the interest of full disclosure – that despite a luke-warm attraction to all things fantasy, I fell in love Clare’s first trilogy (The Mortal Instruments) about this world of angel boys and werewolves, gay warlocks and first-love-that-has-incest-potential. I know, I know. Sounds weird. Maybe a little creepy? (At least the incest part does, and it made me go eeeewww more than once. But can I just say – WORTH IT!) So I was waiting with bated breath for this prequel to arrive on bookstore shelves.

What could I learn as a writer from this Clockwork Angel and Cassandra Clare? There are two things I’d recommend you look for in Clare’s book:

1. Pacing. She knows how to set up a fast paced scene/chapter/novel. Her action leaves you breathless as you race along with the Showdowhunters through the streets of Victorian London, charge fearlessly into battle with bloodthirsty automatons, and hide in the shadows of a witches’ dungeon.

I’d love to give you an example or two – but I don’t think I could do it justice with small clips or quotes. Let’s just say there are scenes that involve one of the heroes cutting a coach harness off of a horse so he can leap on bareback and ride to the rescue. There are battles with Downworlders leading into scenes of treachery, followed by harrowing chases…and on it goes.

And here’s a trick – Clare also knows just when to slow it down. You ease into scenes that are quiet and still in this book, too. A certain scene in a certain attic comes to mind… You’ll just have to check it out yourself to see if you agree.

2. Imagery and description. Clare uses juicy words at just the right time to describe the horror and mystery of her world. An example from page 23 of the US hardback edition:

“The Change shattered like glass. With a cry Tessa fell to her knees, the torn little bow falling from her hand. It was her hand again – Emma had gone, like a cast-off skin.”

Another example from later in the book (character names removed to prevent unwanted spoilage):

“…XXXX saw the whole scene frozen, as if it were a painting – the open door, the clockwork automaton, the one with the stripped bare hands, still in the same worn gray jacket. And still, dear God, with XXXX’s blood on its hands, dried red-black on the dull gray flesh and the strips of copper showing through where the skin had been scraped or pulled away…”

Lovely, isn’t it? Made the hair on the back of my neck stand at attention as I munched on that mediocre burrito. And again – eeeewwwww!

So think about imagery, description and pacing in your own story. Is it fast enough? Can you juice it up a little with the word choice? Will your readers shrink from the villain and feel the thrill of the chase in the pit of their stomachs as they read?

And for heaven's sake -- read A LOT to find out how other writers do it. Where have you found examples for imagery and pacing? I’d love to hear what you have found.