Message Board Topic 7/7

[Comsie]

Sorry if I've been slacking there for a little bit! Hehehe, the last two or three weeks have been dedicated mostly to plans I've had for the whole summer. But I'm ready to get back on task here.

 

Today's topic is about details in the stories you read. Sometimes you can truly find yourself engagd by the details brought to you by an author. They bring color and a certain vivid reality to what you're reading. But there are also times when the details can go on for too long. Where an author might bore their audience, or stretch a scene out so far that it's no longer effective. Where is the middle ground in all this? What is your personal view on 'too much, too little, just right' when it comes to the stories you read?

 

If authors cut back on it, will you miss the details that fully fill out the scene? Or should an author pull away slightly, and let the reader's imagination fill in the blanks on their own? What do you guys think?

[AFriendlyFace]

Hmmm,

 

Interesting question!

 

For me, as a reader, it depends on the details in question. I love expanded versions of thoughts, characterization, back stories and histories, and thorough dialogue.

 

On the other hand I very board very quickly with more than the minimum of detail about scenery and setting. "He walked into a room and sat down on the couch" is about all I want to hear. I'm not particularly interested in hearing what the room or couch looked like. I have more patience for physical descriptions of characters, but once I've heard the description once I don't like it excessively repeated. Too much description here gets boring for me as well, but as I said I have infinitely more patience for it than description of scenery.

 

I get bored with too much technical details as well. "He was driving a blue '97 Ford pick up" is all I want to hear. I don't care to hear about the history of Ford or the model, and I'm certainly not interested in reading about how the truck actually works. If it is very central to the plot I don't mind, but it's still going to be something I read because it's important and not something I'm likely to enjoy.

 

So for me, in general it's difficult to over-do characterization, personalities, histories, and dialogues, and it's difficult to under-do descriptions of scenery and setting, and technical info.

 

I suspect this is largely about my own personal tastes and nothing more.

 

-Kevin

[Graeme]

Kevin's right -- it's a personal taste issue.

 

What some people consider to be too much description, others will consider to be not enough.

 

I think there should be enough description to make the situation 'real', without detracting from the story itself. It doesn't take a lot to lift things out of the ordinary, but it shouldn't be laboured. The example I read in a creative writing book was a character got into a taxi. The taxi driver, peering through beer-bottle glasses, pulled out into the traffic. That little bit of description made the taxi-driver more than a cardboard cut-out, but it didn't take a lot. Having the taxi driver explain about his history while driving the character to his/her destination would be over-kill -- unless that driver made a re-appearance a few times, it's useless information that's just padding.

 

If the description breaks the flow of the story, then it had better be important. As much as possible, the descriptions should just appear 'naturally', as part of the flow, to the extent that the reader should be almost unaware that it's there. There will always be exceptions to this -- such as setting a scene for future events -- but description is a tool, not an end in its own right. It needs to be used judicially or it'll smother the story.

[kitten]

The example I read in a creative writing book was a character got into a taxi. The taxi driver, peering through beer-bottle glasses, pulled out into the traffic. That little bit of description made the taxi-driver more than a cardboard cut-out, but it didn't take a lot.

 

Actually, if beer-bottle glasses are what I think they are, that's very clever, because it not only tells you about the taxi driver but also tells you a lot about the character who got into the taxi. Only someone who is COMPLETELY INSANE would get into a taxi with a driver wearing beer-bottle glasses!

 

Kit

[Graeme]

Actually, if beer-bottle glasses are what I think they are, that's very clever, because it not only tells you about the taxi driver but also tells you a lot about the character who got into the taxi. Only someone who is COMPLETELY INSANE would get into a taxi with a driver wearing beer-bottle glasses!

 

Kit

If I remember correctly (and I could be wrong), the taxi was in New York City -- enough said....

[steph]

If the description breaks the flow of the story, then it had better be important. As much as possible, the descriptions should just appear 'naturally', as part of the flow, to the extent that the reader should be almost unaware that it's there. There will always be exceptions to this -- such as setting a scene for future events -- but description is a tool, not an end in its own right. It needs to be used judicially or it'll smother the story.

Personally, I hate the jolt when coming back from a description break. ESPECIALLY when in dialogue someone responds to the other person after, like, 3 paragraphs of backstory. Like Graeme said, if it's part of the flow, then it doesn't bother me as much. Although, chapters that are top-heavy in descriptions are difficult for me to start reading.

[JamesSavik]

Description is supposed to be like painting a picture but in fiction writing, photo-realism is unnecessary. A vital component is the readers imagination which will fill in the blanks better than you ever could.

[Comsie]

I think about this often when I'm writing and when I'm reading other people's writing as well. How much detail is 'just right'? If you give too much, you not only bog everthing down with pointless descriptions, but you slow the story down and rob the readers of the opportunity to create their own mental pictures of what's going on. BUT...if you don't give <i>enough</i>, then the story becomes 'jumpy', and it sounds like you're rushing to get from one big scene to another. Without those little details, I don't think stories are nearly as engaging, because the readers don't get the chance to really develop a three dimensional image of your characters and storyline.

 

I think it's a tricky balance that every writer just finds with practice. For example, when I first wrote "A Class By Himself", I was happy with the way that the first five or six chapters turned out. But when I went back to 'Remix' them later...I found a LOT of places where I could go much deeper into the characters and the world around them. Not 'boring' little extras, but huge missing pieces of dialogue and emotional involvement that I just didn't catch the first time around. When I re-edited them all, they ended up being almost DOUBLE the length of the original. (If you read "Class" on the site, and then "Class:Remixed", there's a big difference) So I think it just takes practice and trial and error to find your own particular comfort level with details in general. And I'm still growing, so I'm still trying to find ways not to be too 'talkative' and wander away from the moment...but allowing things to develop slowly and naturally, so the story reads fluidly, and readers can really absorb every detail as though it was really happening.