How descriptive is your literary fiction?

From what I've heard (and I'm not stating this as a fact, just what I've read) in literary fiction, it isn't so much that they are looking for a descriptive of voice but more of a distinct voice. So, from what I take from that, the writing doesn't have to be descriptive or even poetic but distinct. In that it stands out from other writer's voices.

I try to only describe things that are relevant to the character/mood of the story. If something feels like the story could continue without it, I take it out. I used to think more description was better ala Dickens...then I found out he was just doing that because he was paid by the word and wanted to make more money.

As someone who struggles to paint a picture, I've been advised to use description to further characterization. For instance, an alcoholic may view a baseball stadium as a big, socially acceptable place to get plastered whereas a young child might view it as some sort of bizarre cult meeting place. The way your characters see different things gives the reader some idea about who they are.

I write my first draft in a fell swoop and then go back and add some description or work out where I can word something better. I'm very bad at not describing but 1 or 2 details of a character when the show up and just ommitting setting almost entirely sometimes. I've been better about it in my once-through before moving to a new chapter.

I agree that it determining the amount of description needed in a piece of writing is partly a problem of finding the right balance to keep it readable and partly a matter of style. As inoue77 and lacygnette said, just having more description isn't the point: what you choose to describe and how is what makes all the difference.

Something I see often in writing is dialogue or even whole scenes that read more like a script than a novel. I think writers often forget that, in making the mental movie for a reader, you need to be everything: not just the screenwriter, but also the set designer, the costume designer, and most importantly the actors. I've found it really helps me to look at a dialogue the way an actor would look at a script. If I were playing this character, how would I move? What would I be looking at? If you consider what gestures and postures would be the most relevant to an actor, then you can get a better sense of how to flesh out your dialogue.

But I have the opposite problem: I could sit down and write out every small physical detail of every moment of the story and be happy as a clam. I don't know if it's because I'm a more physical person, but I really need to inhabit not just the minds of my characters, but their bodies as well. I have to go back in my edits and take out much of my description about what my POV character was smelling at the time, whether the temperature of the room was warm or chilly, how the seams of their shirt were a little too tight and pinched under the arms...

lacygnette said:

*In case someone asks - "A Constellation of Vital Phenomena" (set in Chechnya) and "All the Light We Cannot See" (stylistically amazing.)

Click to expand...

Oh, wasn't it though? Now I'll have to hunt down Constellation...

I've been told in a few critiques that my imagery is "vivid." But it's mostly what isn't being described in detail, the ambiguities and suggestions, that are important. Hopefully, readers then do the interpreting to make the story their own. And if a reader doesn't, the story is still a vividly written piece about such and so forth. Now, whether it works or not . . . .

InBloom said:

As someone who struggles to paint a picture, I've been advised to use description to further characterization. For instance, an alcoholic may view a baseball stadium as a big, socially acceptable place to get plastered whereas a young child might view it as some sort of bizarre cult meeting place. The way your characters see different things gives the reader some idea about who they are.

Click to expand...

Good post, well expressed. POV is enormously important in the matter of narrative description.

caw

CJMockingbird said:

I write my first draft in a fell swoop and then go back and add some description or work out where I can word something better. I'm very bad at not describing but 1 or 2 details of a character when the show up and just ommitting setting almost entirely sometimes.

Click to expand...

Exactly what I do - just get the story down and establish the character, then go back and add in the things that are needed to round out and develop character through description. If I try to write all that out in the first draft, I'll forget the main path I want to take. I find that technique especially helpful when I finish a first draft, then let it sit for awhile. Rereading it brings out all kinds of shortcomings and I'll flesh things out in the next rewrite.