How do I improve "beige" text?
I have a tendency to write text that's on the "beige" side. I think it's the engineer in me that tends to write text that's very straightforward and strictly factual. To a certain degree, that's good, but I feel like my writing can use more "color" sometimes to make it more interesting.
What are some good ways to provide "texture" to such writing?
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Some of the current answers are part of the problem that you have: they provide a cognitive approach.
When your writing lacks "color" it lacks emotion. You cannot analyse other texts and consciously construct your own writing based on the results of that analysis to contain emotion. You cannot follow certain rules to create emotion. The result would be fake emotions.
Colorful, that is, emotional writing comes from the authors feeling something about what they write about. Colorful writers remember how they felt in similar situations or simply imagine how they would feel in place of the protagonist.
Writing is like speaking in this respect. If someone tells something that he does not care about, his voice will be flat and emotionless. If someone tells something that excited him, that is, something that made him angry, afraid, or happy, then his voice – and his choice of words – will reflect those emotions and his narration will become colorful.
So what you need to do is
feel.
You write that it is "the engineer in you" that causes you to write beige text. I think it is not your professional training that influences your writing but rather that you have chosen your profession to fit your personality. Maybe you belong to that half of the population that does not emote so strongly.
If that is so, then attempting to write more colorful may turn out to become impossible to achieve for you, because you simply don't work that way. You believe that you must write colorful prose, but you really don't have to. There are good and successful writers, like for example Stanisław Lem, who have built a career on writing intellectual, even-minded fiction.
So instead of trying to write more colorful – which just might not be for you (but I don't know and you might have to try to find out) – you could instead
make that "engineer" perception your trademark and evolve it.
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Further to Mark Baker's excellent answer: If you want your writing to be more colorful, practice observing and recording colorful things.
I don't necessary mean literal color, although that's not a bad thing either, but to take regular, scheduled time to observe people, actions, sensations, scenery, feelings, sounds, smells, et cetera and then write them down with as much detail as you can.
Basic examples to get you started:
- Walk barefoot in your yard for a good 15 to 30 minutes. Write down all the sensations. Note how your gait, posture, and stride change. Do different kinds of grass feel different? Can you tell if the ground is dry? Is the grass under a tree a lot cooler than that in the sun?
- Describe lunch. Not just "a ham and cheese sandwich," but discuss what kind of ham, the fragrance, the color, the type of cheese, the condiments, the fixings, the bread. Notice the height of it. Is it pre-packaged cold cuts on Wonder Bread or a Boar's Head Dagwood special? Is the tomato winter-pale or heirloom?
- Find a bakery. Sit in the corner for half an hour and describe the sounds. Not the amazing smells, but the noises: the coffee machine, the servers yelling, people ordering, the jingle of the bells over the door.
- Record a sunset. You don't have to be poetic if that's not your thing, but you can describe how the colors shift as the sun goes lower in the sky, how clouds are afffected, how the rays of the light slant, how the air is cooling.
- Find a perfume counter and test different fragrances. Do they smell the same on your wrist as your elbow? Do different fragrances work well together? Does perfume oil last longer than an alcohol-based spray? Do you find that aquatics appeal to you but patchouli makes you gag?
- I don't suggest you injure yourself, but if you do get banged up, pay attention and try to remember how it felt so you can write it down later.
The idea is to become accustomed to seeing beyond the practical recitation of facts to noting details. The detals are what will add "color," or interest, to your writing.
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Try going over your work paragraph by paragraph. It is you who sensed that it is "beige," indicating that you see a flaw there. Try some tricks: changing word order, finding more exciting verbs to replace dull familiar ones, and here's one to pay particular attention to: verbs!
Eliminate passive verbs (is, are, have been etc) and replace them with active ones (clamber, limp, saunter, strangle, etc). Use more verbs and fewer adjectives. Look at your subject in an analytical way and think about the most fascinating aspects of it. What interests you about it? Focus first on that. Also place prominent and fascinating things before dull details. If the details are fascinating then promote those over the fuller main point.
Also use suspense, even in everyday dull activity. Don't put all your cards on the table. Describe everything but one thing and then pop it on the reader later. I could make erasing chalk on a blackboard keep you on edge. (But that would be fiction. I don't know what type of writing you do.)
Not least, work harder. Rewrite until the thing makes you feel some electric charge from having written it. Try different ways. Even expository text can keep the reader engaged. Use more practical examples than mere telling of what to do. Stories and narratives however short always trump straight "go here and do this and you're done."
Hope this helps!
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Don't focus on vocabulary. It is very hard to change your vocabulary and the only real and natural way to do it is by extensive reading. Any attempt to artificially liven up your prose with exotic vocabulary is only going to sound forced.
Rather, focus on what you write about. The real texture of writing comes from what is written about, not from how it is written. Great fiction is, above all else, finely observed. It opens your eyes because the author had their eyes open. Observation, not diction, is the key to lively writing.
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