Writing How Important is Description in your Writing?

[OokamiKasumi]

THIS Important:

Remember, your Readers can and will imagine anything at all,
unless you write Specifically what you envisioned.​

 

[K_Jira]

I tried to put enough without overwhelming things. If it's an important item or person, then i'll put in more details that's relevant. It's important not to leave significant details, but it's also important not to dump irrelevant details. It's a hard balance to strike honestly.

 

[MarekSusicky]

Sure, but as someone with aphantasia for me any description is useless junk. So description heavy books are... pointless It has an advantage, because for movies based on books I don't mind, because i haven't imagined anything? As writer I know I have to add them, but it's hard to gauge the amount. So I try to add "good enough"?

 

[NotaNuffian]

THIS Important:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KR25vZJEKeo?feature=share

(YouTube Short.)

Remember, your Readers can and will imagine anything at all,
unless you write Specifically what you envisioned.​

You can make the short into a watchable vid link by turning the /shorts/ in the link into /embed/

​

 

[Eldoria]

important descriptions to build the atmosphere of the story

 

[empalgepuk]

Very important. But I refuse to make a bunch of twenty-lines long paragraphs out of em. I'd usually sprinkle the descriptions in smaller paragraphs or in dialogue. I'd avoid infodumping everything at once if I can help it.

 

[OokamiKasumi]

You can make the short into a watchable vid link by turning the /shorts/ in the link into /

​

Ooooooooo! let me try that!
-- It worked! Thank you!

 

[EchoHellion]

I treat my description like it's seasoning. Not too much, and not too few. Just sprinkle it here and there. If it's really important, that gets priority too.

 

[Deleted member 206441]

You can make the short into a watchable vid link by turning the /shorts/ in the link into /embed/

Some good fucking food knowledge.

 

[LeilaniOtter]

My writing teacher long ago once told me, "paint a picture but not a masterpiece". Descriptions should allow the reader to grab enough of an image inside their heads that they can read onward without too much confusion. Too little, and you force the reader's mind to lose focus trying to get your images mentally; too much, and the reader won't have a chance to use their imagination.

So, just remember that little tip. Read your work and visualize.

 

[Gray_Mann]

Anyone saying "only a little" or "not at all" are people whose opinions I would immediately discredit.

Description is one of the most important aspects of writing at all. If you don't like writing description, don't write.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

About half as important as I feel it should be, but I keep forgetting to do the descriptions in favor of stuff that's more fun to write (and harder to make mistakes on).

I try to detail anything where it is important that the reader and I see the exact same thing, but leave most stuff to the reader's imagination, with a few keywords for prompts.

 

[RightThereInTheTitle]

My general feeling is that every paragraph in a story should "pay rent", i.e. contain something interesting, important, or delightful enough to justify the space it takes up in the story.

I personally love dialogue so much that I have a bad habit of ignoring the physical descriptions of characters and their surroundings. Which is a shame, because when I do force myself to take the time to describe the room that characters are standing in or walking through, or add little bits of physicality to the space, I usually find it elevates the scene.

As an example, I had this short paragraph in my story (in which a superheroine walks into a teammate's recording studio while she's livestreaming on Twitch):

Luna yanks open the door to Phoenix's recording studio and strides in without knocking. Phoenix turns mid-sentence, but continues speaking.

Perfectly serviceable, but it highlights my bad habit of jumping over physical descriptions in order to get to the dialogue. After my most recent editing pass, I added a few details:

Luna yanks open the door to Phoenix's recording studio without knocking. She strides in, stepping over the crocheted flaming bird plush into the corner of the room, standing off-camera amidst the tangled cables and half-opened boxes of test merch.

Phoenix turns mid-sentence, nearly knocking over her 'Too Hot To Handle' copper coffee mug, but continues speaking.

I'm genuinely annoyed by how much more I like the second version, with the extra description included. Deep down, part of me desperately wants to believe I should just skip past that stuff to get to "the good stuff".

That said, I still do skip over description unless I can come up with some way to make it "pop". If it's not interesting to read, then I probably don't need to include it. Still, if I spend enough time playing around with different ideas, I can usually come up with something that both sets the scene and justifies the space it takes up in the story.

 

[melchi]

If I had a penny for every author that doesn't know the hair and eye color of their own main character...

 

[LiteraryWho]

THIS Important:

Remember, your Readers can and will imagine anything at all,
unless you write Specifically what you envisioned.​

Also a good lesson for writing programs.

 

[Gray_Mann]

If I had a penny for every author that doesn't know the hair and eye color of their own main character...

That's damn near heresy to me. If I ask them this, and they couldn't even answer me without hesitation, I'd drop the story.

 

[DireBadger]

That's damn near heresy to me. If I ask them this, and they couldn't even answer me without hesitation, I'd drop the story.

Bah, it's an irrelevant detail unless it become relevant. I write stories were the readers can self-insert, so ak the readers what their hair and eye color are. It's only relevant if the story makes it relevant.
I think what the teacher did was hilarious, and good for a class of tiny children, but I don't write books for morons. I don't really care if my adult reader Is stupid enough to think "I drew my sword' means that they grasped a pencil firmly and sketched out a sword on their pad of paper.

Is it arrogant? sure, but IQ 50 readers don't read my stuff anyway.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I think what the teacher did was hilarious, and good for a class of tiny children, but I don't write books for morons. I don't really care if my adult reader Is stupid enough to think "I drew my sword' means that they grasped a pencil firmly and sketched out a sword on their pad of paper.

I've had characters in stories for whom that was literally true (well, one drew a gun... at a sword fight... but still... and yea, I think I was seven when I created him... but I did have a character in a game who could turn drawings into reality, so would draw his sword with a multicolored pen when he needed it...)

 

[DireBadger]

I've had characters in stories for whom that was literally true (well, one drew a gun... at a sword fight... but still... and yea, I think I was seven when I created him... but I did have a character in a game who could turn drawings into reality, so would draw his sword with a multicolored pen when he needed it...)

totally different case. I love stories where 'artists' gain magical powers to make their creations real :)

 

[melchi]

Bah, it's an irrelevant detail unless it become relevant. I write stories were the readers can self-insert, so ak the readers what their hair and eye color are. It's only relevant if the story makes it relevant.
I think what the teacher did was hilarious, and good for a class of tiny children, but I don't write books for morons. I don't really care if my adult reader Is stupid enough to think "I drew my sword' means that they grasped a pencil firmly and sketched out a sword on their pad of paper.

Is it arrogant? sure, but IQ 50 readers don't read my stuff anyway.

It depends on the audience. Like in a story about a forbidden romance the details about which person is picked are more important if than in an action story.