Attention to Detail

[TsumiHokiro]

Here's a reference you won't expect - Roger Schank. Big in AI for a while (not sure what he is doing now). Anyway, he thought readers had expectations based on experience. His big book was Scripts, Plans, Goals and Understanding. His big example was a restaurant. As readers, there was much we didn't need to be told, because we knew there were tables and waiters, and food would come on plates. He said we had all developed scripts for such things. So in a typical restaurant we would just make assumptions. What did we need? Exceptions. Maybe the waiters were foreign or angry or old. Maybe the food arrived in bowls. You get the idea.

For those of you writing science fiction, you might have to describe lots of stuff. Those of us describing the normal world have it easier - but we also need to make it interesting. Somehow.

It is not only sci-fi that needs details, however. Any fantasy needs details. Because you are dealing with that which does not exist. Sci-fi is also called speculative fantasy for a reason, after all. No matter how good an author is, they cannot tell for certain that whichever theories they have written upon and are taken to be the truth are going to turn out to be the most utterly of the bulls tomorrow. Sometimes, quite literally tomorrow.

 

[HungrySheep]

I used to put a lot of details and embellishment, but after reading a ton of published books I noticed that the novels with the most reader retention and fanbase very rarely included lengthy descriptions and even then, it was never verbose. I think a large amount of detail might sound pretty to us—the writers—but the general audience doesn't really care for it or they'll skip through it to get to the "good" parts.

 

[Rhaps]

I kinda treats my writing like a dnd game, as I started as a DM first. Not too much details that would cost time, but not too little so it would lose context. Just somewhere in the middle.

Of course, I used pictures in my dnd sessions to save time, not something I do in my novel. I give brief description of the environment, so the readers have an understanding of where the characters are.

I don't want to waste everyone's time, thats the mindset I'm at when hosting. It has a lot of effect on me, being so ingrained in my operation from years of DM experience. I don't know how to slow down, I just keep pressing on the gas peddle.