Hatrack River Writers Workshop: An Opinon Question (gasp!)

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Posted by GEFLA (Member # 6268) on :

A general opinion question:

Do you think that it is better to give the reader a vast amount of detail, or leave it to their imagination? Especially with regards to settings and the appearance of characters.

Gefla

Posted by Alye (Member # 5017) on :

That depends on the type of story you are writing. Is it about the world and the vast differences in it compared to our everyday life? Or, is it about the people and events, could the story happen in my basement or on a desert island?

I find that a combination of both makes for an interesting read myself.

Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :

Definitely can't just pick one or the other. I tend to lean toward the "leave it to their imagination" side, but leaving it to the reader's imagination can definitely be overdone (Hemingway), and lots of detail definitely has its place. There's this guy named J.R.R. Tolkien who created some very well-loved books (not necessarily loved by me, but a lot of people really love them) that are bursting at the gills with detailed descriptions.

So, it depends on the story and your personal style, I suppose. Just play with both methods and try to figure out what you enjoy more.

Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :

That's tough to answer without more context. Generally, I like a balance and *generally* I tend to the more minimalist level of description (both in reading and writing) but there are times when you just can't imagine what's going on without a lot of detail and there are even times when you don't want to have to imagine that part of what's going on. Hmmm...let me rephrase. Books require imagination to read. The book fills in some of the picture and the reader has to imagine the rest. You (the author) must decide which parts to let the reader fill in.

Posted by annepin (Member # 5952) on :

Yeah, it depends. I think a milieu story might need more description.

What I try to do when describing a character is to pick out the most salient features first. Too often, people think the eyes and the hair are the most important. But these are too general to me-I'd rather hear about the way a character's nose crinkles or his nostrils flair than the fact that his eyes are blue and his hair is brown or whatever. So I try to answer, what features best characterize this person, or what is most noticeable/ unique about them? Same question with setting descriptions. I try to let the descriptions come out through the character's actions.

Recently, though, I've been really going for minimalist descriptions. But you have to guide the reader, and one of the worst things is when you have an image of a person or place, and something you reads contradicts it, and you have to rethink your whole image of this person/ place. So, salient details first.

Posted by JeanneT (Member # 5709) on :

Well, I suspect it's what the author is comfortable with. I have enjoyed books that were both ways.

I have always been rather a minimalist, my writing a bit on the "terse" side. Mind you, I've sold like that, but lately I've been trying to put at least a little more description in and reach a balanced and kind of in-between point. I'm not sure that either is right or wrong. It's a style thing.

Right now as an exercise, I'm writing a short story where I try to put in as much description as humanly possible. MAN, is that hard for me! *laughs*

Posted by lehollis (Member # 2883) on :

One factor I look at is how it will affect the story. How much does the reader need?

Generally, I'd rather offer one or two interesting and evoking details and let the reader's mind fill in the details.

Posted by arriki (Member # 3079) on :

Hmm...for me -- it's a matter of how much SPECIFIC information can a reader handle? Sometimes there is just too much even of the best kinds of detail. It's like the writer is standing with a gun to my head saying "You're going to see it MY way or else!" So much detail leaves my contribution as reader cut out of the story.

There is a difference -- to me -- between describing a character, landscape, situation and evoking it in the reader's mind.

For me -- using specific details rather than general ones is one of the most critical parts of desciption. General details don't evoke clear images nearly as well as specific ones.

You could say -- he went cautiously into the scrapheap. Metal balanced on metal teetered over his head. The place stank.

Or, he walked along a narrow path putting one foot down in front of the other. At times he had to bend his body into contortionist shapes to avoid projecting shards of cerro-steel, some possibly radioactive. His shirt was ripped before he reached the first turn in the path and he had all manner of small cuts on both arms. The stink of dead bodies increased as he entered the site of the most recent wrecks.

Yeah, I didn't give a lot of general detail in the first example, but did the second, despite having a lot of detail, bring the place to light? You could go on for quite a while detailing his path through the metal wrecks, but the reader can only sit still for a little of even this sort of specific information before he starts looking for story stuff to start happening again. At least I find that true when I'm reading.

It's not that general details have no place in writing. When the location/character/situation is already familiar to the reader, go ahead. Point out a couple or three salient details and get on with what's happening.

Posted by HuntGod (Member # 2259) on :

It varies, it can definately be used as a tool for setting tone.

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Childs have a series of books (Relic, Reliquary and 3-4 more after) that revolve around a very fussy and proper FBI agent named Pendergast. In scenes dealing with Pendergast or his brother Diogenes they are very meticulate in pointing out small details, types of furniture, food, clothing quality etc. This bolsters the feeling of propriety and reinforces several aspects of the personalities of the characters. When they are centering on other characters the tone changes slightly and the focus of detail shifts, for Detective D'Agosta, they are put far less emphasis on these things and reveal the world in a more mundane manner.

In a more general setting, I like a few key details and then I fill in the rest, this can also be used to exploit a readers pre-conceived notions.

I myself tend to be guilty of over detailing and have been working hard to cut that back a bit.

Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :

I believe details are either necessary or else a waste of time.

That's a bit extreme, but it gets the point across.

I have found two disadvantages to excess detail.
1. It's boring. It isn't like a photograph or a movie where your breath can be taken away by a beautiful snapshot with infinite detail. No, it's words that are read and processed into thought and it takes time. It slows down the pace of your story and often doesn't mean half as much to the reader as it does to you--because a lot of the time it just doesn't come through well, (the reader will still not see what you see even after 1000 words, henc ethe expression)

2. It isn't how the reader wants to imagine it. Sometimes it's enriching or even necessary to explain that our hero has black hair and is six feet tall. But until you say that, any given reader who happens to be four feet tall and blond might be able to imagine the character as someone much more like themselves. Detail can distract from that illusion, which is an important illusion, I think. I want my readers to connect with my characters in every way they possibly can, even if it means being a bit more vague and leaving more to their imagination. I think that is, generally, what readers like.

But then again, I thought Tolkein was overly elaborate and boring. So I guess you just have to play to the style that you like.

[This message has been edited by Zero (edited September 05, 2007).]

Posted by rstegman (Member # 3233) on :

Generally, the amount of detail necessary has gone down over time. At one time, entire chapters of discription was popular before getting to the story.

The recommendation I heard back in the late 80s was to have calm periods in the story between the action, to give the reader a moment to rest before the next action takes place.
My understanding of the recommendation was to have just enough discription during the action period to let the reader know what is going on. Then, during the calm periods, one provides more detailed discription to set the world in place, and to fill in background information.

Also, the type of information makes a difference. In my Waxy story, the reader does not have to know how the portal works other than it is run by the mainframe computer. I don't discribe what it feels like to "transmit" between worlds. It is not neccessary. I just show how it works.

In most of my serious writing, I have a tendancy not to give enough discription. I write the action and keep going. My writing partner tends to slow the pace down, tell more about what is happening and what is around the action. It dramatically improves the piece.
The real question is how much discription is necessary to make the story live for the reader.

Posted by The G-Bus Man (Member # 6019) on :

I'm probably the worst guy to answer this question. I tend to be very selective in my detail (or at least I've been told) so I have too much detail where I don't need it and not enough where I do

Posted by Elan (Member # 2442) on :

Allow me to quote myself from a post I made last year:

quote:
I had the pleasure of attending a Toastmasters speech given by a fellow named Randy Harvey who won Toastmasters International's prestigious "World Championship of Public Speaking." The day I heard Randy speak he told his audience how he WROTE the award winning grand prize speech. I listened avidly because everything he said about award-winning speeches applies to writing.
The specifics that stick with me were how important it is to leave some space for the listener (in your case, the reader) to customize the imagery. Randy's award-winning speech was called "Fat Dad", and was about himself and his father during Randy's years as a teenager. He talked about his favorite old car... a Volkswagon. He never said a COLOR. He didn't want to shut down the listener's involvement with the story, to push them away because they start disengaging. ("Oh, your car was yellow? That's not like mine. I had green.") We all had old cars we loved, and he wanted us to feel the love of the old car, not get tripped up on whether our imagery fit his or not. He spoke about his dad wrapping him in a hug, and feeling his dad's old flannel shirt against his skin. But he never specified the color, because while his dad may have worn a red flannel shirt, maybe your dad wore a blue one. The color is unimportant... the texture and feel of comfort of being in your father's arms is all the description that really mattered to making an emotional connection with his story.
He let us build our own mental imagery and populate it with the things near and dearest to our OWN hearts. In short, he gave the audience enough space to allow them to co-create the speech with him.
I learned a lot about describing a scene from him. No one wants to read a laundry list of attributes. Instead, they want to connect emotionally and in a tactile way with the action.
It's not that I never describe appearance at all. But I no longer feel forced to make the reader see something through my eyes. Instead I try to leave a little space for them to paint the imagery themselves.