How to Describe People: A Writing Lesson from Janet Malcolm (Use This Prompt)

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This month I want to talk about one of my favorite authors, Janet Malcolm, and the writing skill I’ve learned from her.

The prolific New Yorker writer passed away in 2021, at the age of 86. She’s best known for her book The Journalist and the Murderer, which begins with the famous line, “Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.”

As someone who has read four of her books and dozens of her essays, I think one of her best skills is one we rarely think about in writing: How to describe other people.

^My collection of Janet Malcolm books.

I first read a Janet Malcolm book during a nonfiction class at NYU, called Lives in Brief. In that class, we read biography, journalism, and other pieces that centered on writing about others.

Throughout the class, but especially when looking at Malcolm, I was astounded by her original descriptions that breathed so much life into her subject with so few words.

Let me give you some examples from Malcolm’s writing.

“There is a certain fragility about her, an atmosphere of someone who needs protection.”

“Jellinek is a sturdy, vigorous man of eighty-four, with a full, handsome face and the air of someone who knows that his suit is well cut.”

“She had once been pointed out to me on the street: thin and pretty, with an atmosphere of awkward intensity and passion about her, gesticulating, surrounded by interesting-looking boys.”

Her original descriptions give you such a great picture of someone in a sentence or two.

You’re The Average of The 5 People You Spend The Most Time Reading

While reading Malcolm I found that I began to describe people in unique ways subconsciously.

Whereas before I might have said, “They’re fun, but chaotic.” Instead, I would say, “They’re the type of person who you can make last-minute plans with any night of the week.”

There’s a common saying that you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. I find that the influencing impact of writers rings even stronger. Sure, you may talk with your friend a lot, but an author is in your brain with.

I caught wind of what my subconscious was up to, and decided to make this a conscious practice, and create a writing prompt out of this.

Writing Prompt: Write Descriptions of People in The Style of Janet Malcolm.

To get the creative juices flowing, here are a few examples I came up with.

“When you read her words you could picture that she was somebody who deeply studied everyone she talked to, as if you could feel a calm, but intense air she gave off in every room. This air haunted her pages.” (Yes, this is a description of Janet Malcolm.)

“He had the stage presence of someone whose popularity was an inherent trait. You’d expect everybody from his high school to have a nice thing to say about him.”

“He looked like someone you wouldn’t want to strike up a conversation with unless you had a very good reason to.”

Your turn.

Give this one a shot. Or, at the least, when you catch yourself describing people, aim for something more original, with more images and fewer adjectives. I find that it will make you a sharper thinker in addition to giving you a new writing skill.

If you write any you like send it my way.

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