Describing Windows in Fantasy and Historical Fiction (Architectural Phrase List)
I’ve got a bias because I studied architecture in college, but I think structural details are crucial for immersing readers of HF&F. Give the reader a splash of concrete detail (a window style, for example) and let his imagination fill in the rest with your aesthetic from there.
[None of the quotes below belong to me. They are intended to be used as references for influence and not to be copied directly]
LANCET WINDOWS
[image error][image error]MULLIONED WINDOWS
Closeup of two mullioned windows (bifore) of the Palazzo d’Accursio, Town hall in downtown of Bologna (XIII century), Piazza Maggiore, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, Europe[image error]TRIPLE MULLIONED WINDOWS

BAY WINDOWS
[image error][image error]ORIEL WINDOWS
A form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, brackets, or similar, an oriel window is most commonly found projecting from an upper floor but is also sometimes used on the ground floor.


LATTICED WINDOWS
[image error]
WINDOW PEDIMENTS

DORMER WINDOWS
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FAN WINDOW / FANLIGHT
Victorian Fan-shaped cast iron window of the Buxton Midland Railway.[image error]ARROWSLITS / LOOPHOLES
[image error]GRILLE / GRIDIRONS
[image error]CHEAPER WINDOWS
Horn panes
Tacking sailcloth over windows
“The oiled animal skin stretched taut in the window frame allowed sunlight, such as it was, to filter through its golden aura”
Faint yellow square of a window covered with oiled cloth
And burlap tacked over the windows to keep the sunrise out
“Tower was merely a dank square shaft of empty air illuminated at intervals by holes punched through the thickness of the walls
“Langdon passed an opening in the wall – a wide slit through which he briefly glimpsed the city lights.
“A breach in the wall that served duty as a window”
Slots high in the walls through which moonlight could sift
OTHER WINDOWS
Stained-glass windows
“pointed-arched windows”
Double-hung (window consisting of two sliding vertical sashes)
Six-pane grid
“The windows on the first floor were tall, narrow, and rounded at the tops”
MISC
Slats (a thin, narrow piece of wood, plastic, metal, that overlap or fit into each other as in a fence or window | “Candlelight showed around the door, through the cracks and between the slats.” | “Sunlight speared through the missing slats”)
Windows made up of dozens of small panes of yellow glass, which turned the light to gold
Shuttered window
Ill-fitting shutters
“One of the shutters was half-open, sagging from a single hinge”
Window hung open
Windows set in redwood
“The first-floor windows festooned with flower boxes”
Windowbox
“the windows themselves were darkened, everyone, by the roses and ivy growing up on the walls.”
“Letting in such light as the thick and dirty glass could offer”
Blue stained-glass windows be set into the hall to make it look as if it had been built underwater
The darkened eyes of shops and cafes
Nine windows lined the west-facing wall
“The window ledge / Window seat (“window seat overlooking the entry court”)
“commanded a view”
“Window framing the smog-shrouded city beyond”
“Stood in the light of a paned glass window from which one could view the shipmasts and harbor activity just beyond”
“Window looked directly along the cart track”
“In true Roman style, even on the side of the vacant block its outside walls were windowless.”
Narrow windows
“stone-trimmed window”
arched windows
Door that looked as though it had been made for a larger doorway and cut down to fi
None of the windows were the same size


