Being descriptive or being too talky

[srebak]

Like the title says, how do you tell the difference between being descriptive with your writing; "painting a picture with words" as Brian Jacques once said, and just being too talky and expository: giving more descriptions than actually telling a story?

 

[A. E. Lowan]

We had a thread about an article that discussing something similar to this a few weeks ago.

http://mythicscribes.com/forums/writing-questions/10678-writing-descriptions-without-being-boring.html

What I said was this -

Personally, I'd never write a descriptive scene where nothing happens, but that's a personal stylistic choice. The reason? They drive me insane! I once read a book, which I will not name because I do not like to disparage other authors, which used such extensive, intensive, and ultimately plot-pointless detail that I now refer to all such extraneous descriptive detail as "grass." Somehow the author in question seemed to have gotten so caught up in wanting to show off her research and attention to detail that she went overboard and ended up with pages and pages and pages (I'm Irish but I'm not exaggerating here) of descriptions of prehistoric prairie grass. Not just in one section, but again and again. It's this sort of thing that advice like this tries to help a writer avoid.

Now, some writers like extensive detail like that - like I said, it's a matter of taste and style. But as a writer and a reader, I need a reason to know what the berries taste like, and what every village elder's name is, and the texture of the bark on each tree in the woods. Advice like this can help to keep us focused on the details that are important, such as cooking is not only a vital aspect of that character, but the flavor of that berry will come into play later in the book - and not just "Look at this neat-o world I made!"

It's so hard on us as writers, especially when we have these huge, developed worlds, to realize that when it comes time to write we can only show off our worlds through the keyhole of our stories. Some writers forget this and get carried away - and that's how you end up with descriptive scenes where nothing happens. That's how you end up with "grass."

 

[MVV]

I'm personally sort of an extremist in this matter. I like to use short sentences and each one should be valid either for the story or for the atmosphere. Instead of describing, I just partly sketch for the reader to fill the rest. I'm not saying this should be a universal approach but I enjoy this both in writing and reading.

It doesn't mean my writing is action driven, though. On contrary, my stories themselves tend to be slow and dreamlike. Yet, I want every sentence to give a meaningful picture. In a minimalist way.

 

[WeilderOfTheMonkeyBlade]

I like description, but through the character's eyes- I've got a couple, younger, military based characters, they notice military things, so in those chapters they might see a city as a big, stinking mass, lots of people, but then notice everything to do with armour.
Another one, a retired General turned author, notices more poetic things, culture, stuff like that.

But I do like description, I like to see that the author has put time into making the world a believable, breathing place, not some shoddy cop out using the typical fantasy Viking land, fantasy empire land, fantasy medieval England and so on. But I feel it needs to be done well, slipped in like a cheeky bribe, not a war hammer getting thrown in your face.

 

[wordwalker]

I think this is a matter of personal writing style, and making full use of whatever you do.

You decide you like having X much detail along the way, and you learn to stick to that. If you start taking six lines to introduce a scene's room, ask yourself if you'd really like to do that for every scene; if you do, it's your style. And then you learn how to use those six-ish lines to set the stage fully rather than spend half of it on one painting on the wall, or else to use that painting to set the mood-- and how to balance the rest of your writing knowing you'll have given it that much more atmosphere and weight but less space for plot twists and the rest.

It's all about finding where you're comfortable, and learning how to balance around it.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I find that different scenes require different amounts of description. For example, when my character is being led to the gallows, he takes notice of the man right in front of him. He also scans the rooftops, for his friends. He also has a brief look at the priestess praying over the soon to be departed. The things I left out are: any sort of detail about the people watching, other than it's a crowd. The weather; when the scene opened, I mentioned a blustery wind and an overcast sky, that's it. Any kind of detail of the soldiers, other than that they were there.

I think it's important to think about what a character would notice. This guy was being led to a place where he was going to die. He looked for his friends, checked for exits, and pretty much was stuck in his own head, dreading the end.

That being said, in a scene where my other character is sneaking into party, to rub elbows with the rich and famous, she takes much closer notice of people. What they're wearing, who's drunk, where people are standing and when people do move, where and with whom they're going. It too, is a short scene, but it has a completely different feel because the character has different goals and what she notices relate to those goals.

If a writer gets into the practice of introducing every character the same way, with a brief description of hair and eye color and what they're wearing, it falls flat very quickly for me as a reader. I barely mention those kinds of things, favoring the things I notice most about people... whether they're attractive, have an unpleasant smell or look, behave in an odd or awkward manner, or multitude of other things. The thing is... we almost never notice someone's eye color, or even what they're wearing, unless it says something about them, like a railroad engineer's cap or something.

The most over-described things, IMO, are weather and trees. Also, rooms. In these cases, a couple details go a long way and the only things that should be focused on are things that are immediately important to the character, whether because they interact with it or because it causes some emotional response or whatever.

 

[Motley]

I like description, but through the character's eyes

I agree with what WeilderoftheMonkeyBlade said. What would the character notice? Surely not everything as they go about their life. I tend to put in a few eye or ear or nose-catching details and leave the rest as backdrop.