This is really interesting. You always have such great thoughts in your posts.
I used to be pretty convinced that I didn't like writing that spent a lot of time on description, because in a lot of cases (at least of books I'd read at that point), very descriptive writing becomes overdescriptive and is downright atrocious. I've realised I was wrong on this point recently. What really did it for me, I think, was reading East of Eden, which iirc has a whole chapter near the beginning just describing the valley. Now, I'm not sure where this book fits on the scale of time spent on description, but I do know that that's the sort of thing that I would have expected to put me off, and instead I couldn't put the book down.*
So. I've been rethinking this, obviously, and what I'm thinking is that it's not so much about the amount of description as it is about the precision of the description. By this, I mean using the right words and the right amount of words to show whatever it is you're trying to show, in the way you're trying to show it. I'm not sure how you would measure this, exactly, since it seems very much an instinctive thing, and very individual to the particular author's voice. Its easier to tell when it isn't done well, because both overblown description and overly sparse description can throw you out of the story and prevent you from feeling it properly. I think it takes a certain amount of control to stick consistantly to the same voice in your writing, and it's when you lose that that you start slipping up on this.
These thoughts are still pretty preliminary, but your post got me trying to put them into words, and here it is.
*This is off-topic, but I thought I'd mention that I actually discovered this book through your essay about Sirius and Regulus and East of Eden, and I'm very glad I did. So thank you for that, even if I was just a lurker when I read it. Also, I hope you don't mind that I'm friending you.
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Date: 2006-12-14 05:05 am (UTC)I used to be pretty convinced that I didn't like writing that spent a lot of time on description, because in a lot of cases (at least of books I'd read at that point), very descriptive writing becomes overdescriptive and is downright atrocious. I've realised I was wrong on this point recently. What really did it for me, I think, was reading East of Eden, which iirc has a whole chapter near the beginning just describing the valley. Now, I'm not sure where this book fits on the scale of time spent on description, but I do know that that's the sort of thing that I would have expected to put me off, and instead I couldn't put the book down.*
So. I've been rethinking this, obviously, and what I'm thinking is that it's not so much about the amount of description as it is about the precision of the description. By this, I mean using the right words and the right amount of words to show whatever it is you're trying to show, in the way you're trying to show it. I'm not sure how you would measure this, exactly, since it seems very much an instinctive thing, and very individual to the particular author's voice. Its easier to tell when it isn't done well, because both overblown description and overly sparse description can throw you out of the story and prevent you from feeling it properly. I think it takes a certain amount of control to stick consistantly to the same voice in your writing, and it's when you lose that that you start slipping up on this.
These thoughts are still pretty preliminary, but your post got me trying to put them into words, and here it is.
*This is off-topic, but I thought I'd mention that I actually discovered this book through your essay about Sirius and Regulus and East of Eden, and I'm very glad I did. So thank you for that, even if I was just a lurker when I read it. Also, I hope you don't mind that I'm friending you.