The right amount of description

morngnstar said:

The trick is to know your scene so vividly you can picture it, but only show just as much detail as is warranted.

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Like this?

morngnstar said:

a purple unicorn nearly the size of a live pony

I've already established by context that this is a toy.

Now, I know the unicorn's horn is white. And I really think its gleaming white horn contrasting with its purple fur is one of its most attractive features. But I don't mention it. Because if I did, the description would be overloaded with color terms.The reader would get bogged down in the details, and it becomes more like watching me paint a unicorn by numbers than seeing a unicorn

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Well, tastes and styles vary, but I can't say I agree with your idea that it would be overloaded with color terms or would read like a paint-by-number description. Or at least, not unless you write it that way. The expanded description you just gave evoked the image of the unicorn (for me, at least) much more clearly (and more interestingly) than the original one did. Also, when you write that it's nearly the size of a live pony, I don't know what to imagine, because ponies can vary in size from very small to one inch shorter than the official size of a (small) horse. So I'm thinking that even if it's close to the size of smaller pony (say, a Shetland), that's one large stuffed unicorn. (I did make the assumption that it's a plush toy. But that could have turned out to be wrong, since you didn't say.)

You can have a brief description that still includes enough of the right details to bring to life the thing you're describing. So you can surely mention a plush, purple unicorn with a gleaming white horn (or gleaming plastic, for that matter. You'd never need to say it was white.) "Nearly the size of a small pony" would be an improvement, but you could also say it's as big as a Great Dane. If the toy is nothing more than a prop, to be mentioned in passing and never brought up again, then yes, less detail is warranted. But what detail there is should be specific and interesting. That's the essence of showing in any description, IMO, whether or not the description is longer and full of details (presumably because it's important in some way, not just for the sake of it) or sparse and quick. What you want to avoid, if you're "showing," is bland and generic.

Couple other tips on making descriptions, especially longer ones, more like showing and less like telling: lighting and movement. Few things are more effective at bringing a description to life than mentioning how the light falls. And including something that moves, even it's just leaves shivering in the wind, helps a long description not feel static.

Anyway, I don't mean to pick; I think you have the right idea about making the reader a partner in drawing the imaginary terrain of the story. Laundry-list and (as you phrased it) paint-by-number descriptions can be deadly dull. So, you know, don't write them that way. They can be made interesting.

Sorry, but to me at least, morngnstar, that's not a clear description.

Yes, we need to imagine what we wish to describe, but the only 'trick' in conveying that image to a reader is to provide such detail or comparisons as create a clear image in the reader's mind.

Context may be relevant but there's no context here, 'Nearly' is vague, ponies come in all sizes, and I've no idea why a 'live' pony is mentioned as opposed to a 'dead' one.

morngnstar said:

But I think the rule still applies, know more than you say. In that case, imagine the scene in greater detail. So, for example, if you're going to spend a lot of your story in a house, know where they keep the laundry detergent.

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I agree with that first statement. That last bit, though, not so much. Unless you were being a little facetious to make your point.

More important, I think, to know your characters inside and out, than to know where they keep their laundry suds.

If you have to really overthink it like this, it's probably too much description. It should come natural and shouldn't be overdone.

See it in terms of the story you are about to tell. Then describe it. If you think that what you've written is too long, then it probably is.

This also links to voice and tone in your novel, as well as the mindset of the character who is seeing what you are describing.

To me, one key to description is using it to develop character. The trick is to focus on the details that character would notice first. For example, I always notice the presence or absence of bookcases; my gf's brother always notices game consoles. If you can do that even with one or two details you can help develop the character as you describe the scene.

morngnstar said:

So, for example, if you're going to spend a lot of your story in a house, know where they keep the laundry detergent.

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The day I have my characters doing something as mundane as laundry is the day I need to stop writing.

Unless, of course, the purpose of doing the laundry is to wash the blood stains from clothes following a particularly grisly murder, in which case, a character sitting around obsessing about laundry detergent might be quite apt.

I always struggle with this. I find description pretty boring and so it's something I have to actually focus on. I have a difficult time making it interesting without it coming off as too wordy.

The Urban Spaceman said:

Unless, of course, the purpose of doing the laundry is to wash the blood stains from clothes following a particularly grisly murder, in which case, a character sitting around obsessing about laundry detergent might be quite apt.

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This is an solid point that is mentioned in an earlier post. When deciding how much detail, description, and sensory recognition to use, you must first decide whether it's important for your story. Spending a page of description on a throwaway setting or object or activity is a cheat to the reader. The time and detail you spend should clue the reader into what is important in your story. Of course, there are no hard rules when writing your story.

morngnstar said:

a purple unicorn nearly the size of a live miniature pony

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(I'm editing right now. Couldn't resist. )

morngnstar said:

If you didn't think about your character doing laundry, you'd never have known those doors were there. You'd just have had someone thrown against a wall.

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The way it works for me is when the fight breaks out and he gets thrown around, that's when those flimsy laundry-closet doors that I never knew were there show up. But much of what I write--and nearly all the descriptive details--comes to me in the heat of writing, not through any prior planning.

morngnstar said:

The point is not that the reader will ever see the laundry detergent. The point is that thinking about the existence of laundry detergent will give your setting realistic details. Maybe a fight will break out, and someone will get thrown against the flimsy folding doors of the laundry closet. If you didn't think about your character doing laundry, you'd never have known those doors were there. You'd just have had someone thrown against a wall.

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This is immensely dependent on narrative POV, for one thing. And where do you stop with such stuff? Does the reader need to know that the character went to the gym the day before, and got his gym clothes dirty, and now needs to wash them? Does the reader need to know that the gym clothes were purchased at an athletic store the week before, using a credit card? Does the reader need to know what kind of credit card it was, or what the character's credit score is? Does the reader need to know that the credit score is low because the character defaulted on a car payment a few months back? Does the reader need to know what kind of car it was? . . . . .

caw

BethS said:

The way it works for me is when the fight breaks out and he gets thrown around, that's when those flimsy laundry-closet doors that I never knew were there show up.

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That's how it works for me, too. I don't have to CAD a whole room in order to know what's happening in it, or what may happen in it. Unless the kitchen is one from the distant past or distant future (in which case, utensils, products and furniture were and may be wildly different to present-day kitchens) I can work on the assumption that everything within my own kitchen would be within somebody else's (though, maybe not so many people have frozen dead mice in their freezers). If my character needs to rebound off something, I'll make a snap decision about whether it's going to be a cupboard, a freezer door, a washing machine, whatever.

It might be good advice for somebody just taking their first steps as a writer to consider scene and setting carefully in order to visualise what may happen, but simply put, my brain doesn't have enough space to process the ennui: it's too busy with character, dialogue, POV, voice, tense, plots and sub-plots, continuity and the everything else that goes into writing stories. Sure, visualisation of the scene is part of that, but 99.9% of the time, it's not something I consciously have to do. Like breathing, it just happens. I can focus on it, or change it by slowing it or speeding it up, but it's always there, in the background.

Good point, morngnstar, that we should leave as much detail as possible to our reader's imagination.

Other writers have also made it. Popular sci-fi and fantasy author Lois McMaster Bujold did so in an article called The Unsung Collaborator, in her book Dreamweaver's Dilemma, which you can get through Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0915368536/?tag=absowrit-20

She points out that reading isn't a passive activity, though it looks that way from the outside. It's very active and creative. Our words are like the script to a movie and the readers the crew who provide the sets and costumes and properties and actors which bring the story to vivid life. The details come from their own memories and so seem real to them. If we provide too much detail that will hamper their imagination.

Unfortunately if we provide too little we will starve their imagination. It's a delicate balancing act. It's complicated by the fact that no two readers are the same. Too much for one is too little for another, and vice versa. Indeed, the same reader is different from day to day, year to year. The book once so wonderful no longer is, or is surprising wonderful when it was dull to our younger self.

The quality as well as the quantity of the details we give are a problem, too. Some readers are visual, some are aural, some more moved by scent. Some focus on people, others on actions. We can't satisfy EVERYONE. We can only do our best and hope that ENOUGH people agree with our best guesses to make our works worth the effort we put into them.

One tactic we can use is to supply more than one kind of sensory detail when we show a scene. One or three visual details, one or more aural or olfactory details. Some internal sensory impressions, of hunger or thirst or vertigo or whatever. An emotional response to an event, perhaps. Or a mental one. All the time trying not to overload our readers with too much detail.

Or maybe we don't try to show something at all, just tell it and let the reader supply ALL the details.

That can work, at least for the first draft, for those who feel comfortable with the minimalist approach. Then we can go back through on rewrite and carefully add whatever details we think (or hope!) are most likely to stimulate rather than dull our reader's imagination.

Is it any wonder that so many write but few succeed even a little bit at the pro writer life?

There seems to be an awful lot of over-thinking going on here.

May not be the way everyone works but it works for me, too.

BethS said:

The way it works for me is when the fight breaks out and he gets thrown around, that's when those flimsy laundry-closet doors that I never knew were there show up. But much of what I write--and nearly all the descriptive details--comes to me in the heat of writing, not through any prior planning.

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Bufty said:

There seems to be an awful lot of over-thinking going on here.

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+1

I describe what the story needs, how it's needed. I figure it out by paying attention to what goes on in the stories I like and admire the most.

Bufty said:

There seems to be an awful lot of over-thinking going on here.

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Maybe for you. But this forum contains a lot of people, with many different needs and viewpoints. For some of us discussions like this are useful, even when they get into very detailed and downright picky discussions.

As a reader, when I'm given a detail in a story, it sets up an expectation, either explicit or subliminal. If that expectation isn't ultimately satisfied, my reading enjoyment is diminished. Descriptions can be used by writers to accomplish a variety of things, ranging from providing direct information to establishing mood and atmosphere. But, for me, they should not be randomly duct-taped onto the story.

And I concur fully with Bujold's article, as quoted by Laer Carroll. Reading is most definitely an interactive experience, and writers do well to keep this concept in mind. Over-description, much like over-explanation, is an opiate to a reader's engagement in that experience.

caw