Is it true that some authors spend time describing a character eating breakfast or the texture of toast?

[NotaNuffian]

As an author, you gotta know when to let it flow and when to focus.

I dislike some works because the authors would incessantly describe every fine detail of the person's clothes and gait... for the next fifteen chapters.

Then I dislike authors who would just brush over everything, including key events like a fight scene.

For example:

MC zooms pass enemies. They dead.

No.

 

[Golden_Hyde]

So, for a moment I thought maybe you were a sex-repulsed asexual (https://lgbtqia.wiki/wiki/Sex-Repulsed) but that wouldn't explain your reaction to filial bonds.

That one, um, might be something you want to talk with a counselor or therapist about.

Eh, leave that person be.

Anyways, not really going to describe the kind of food my characters ate. Sometimes I just mention the name, primarily to serve a moment in the story, like romantic dinner or breakfast that was made by a character's significant other.

 

[DireBadger]

There are literally a hundred reasons to do that to enhance a story. Just off the top of my head:

1. use it as an excuse to bring the reader closer to the character's mindset. (breakfast helps me build up my energy, especially when I drink Power-drink.)
2. Use it to flesh out the world (do these people crouch in a tunnel over bowls of gruel?)
3. social growth (would you care about the protagonist's little sister if her getting kidnapped was the only exposure?)
4. character building. (interacting to show how weak or strong family bonds might be)
5. Culture building (our breakfast was cockatrice eggs and minotaur milk)
6. story introduction (I explained while we were eating how they grade the superhero test)

and probably hundreds more.

Nope, too much fluff is a problem. Lets take tolkien for example, most people have never read his books. Some bought them after watching the movie and were incapable of reading it. This generation of "new readers" does not have the patience to read too much fluff.

I despair for Gen Z. My generation read the books. Not reading them was used as a method to tell if someone was smart enough to waste time talking to.

Go back to playing gems on the cell phones that us Gen Xers and millennials were stupid enough to invent, not realizing that easy-to-use calculators would ruin your ability to add 2+3. It's all our fault.

 

[ThirdRateNovelist]

Well, if you're going in-depth with the building of your story, then yes it is going to be important. It could be true that some details may not be needed but I'm interested in parts where the author describe what the characters envision in their surrounding.

Just the part where they eat something or see can basically describe what are their values, belief, and goal. (if the author write it, of course)

 

[3guanoff]

Guilty as charged. I did it both here and back in the day. The one here is tagged as "Slice of Life". Describing food and everyday situations such as breakfast is a significant part of the genre.

The other time was in a very... avant-garde (?) short story I wrote for a short-lived science-fiction magazine. Turning something trivial and mundane such as breakfast into a surreal adventure seemed very creative to me at the time. After all, starting with something that people experience regularly and know intimately can potentially make the plot feel more surprising and immersive.
Of course, that is if the plotline is not too cliche. I should have read Samuel Beckett before writing that one.

 

[Bishop_Quarter]

What you eat and how you eat it describe you. It is good to give background context without making it an information dump.

Like for example, eating an egg.
Let's say a sunny side up. The runnyness of the yolk would determine your personality. Uncooked meant you are always fine with danger. Half cooked, you want something enjoyable in the sense of unpredictability. and Fully cooked meant you just want something not too much out of the ordinary.
Then again again we also have the way you eat it. Do you put extra sauce, do you use knife to cut, or content with a spoon. Do you eat it with fork or chopsticks? Or just with your hand on a steaming white rice. That alone would be enough to tell about the character and the background of it, or even making a conversation.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Yeah, and most romance is trash. Is description of erotism, that is why tolkienish (I made that up) description doesnt work anymore. Is not enviroment description they looking for, is feelings and emotions with a grain of eroticism.

Well trash is what people read the most now days and everywhere i look, they want more of it, not less. So I dont really understand where you get that vision from... although I could be wrong. Anyway, time will tell, but just in case if you are a betting man, dont bet on your idea.

Robert Jordan had pages and pages describing the scenes his characters traveled through - he was a recent author who did well with an inane amount of description... seriously - while reading the first book of the Wheel of Time series, I was jealous of his ability to describe everything but his characters in the most minute detail (characters all seemed to have exactly one physical detail described ... endlessly ... and no other details; Rand's red hair, Nynaeve's brown braid she constantly tugged at, Perrin's eyes, especially after they turn golden, etc.) but by book 3 kind of wished he had my level of descriptive abilities (i.e. 'not really enough')

 

[Zenftiy]

To increase the number of words in a chapter.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

To increase the number of words in a chapter.

That was Dickens, Victor Hugo, at least one of the Dumas's...

 

[Prince_Azmiran_Myrian]

At least make sure it's not boring, otherwise...

 

[MajorKerina]

Because some of us are really f-ing hungry for breakfast

 

[zephyrtrillian]

Yes! Well. Not the texture of toast. But how scrumptuous breakfast is? Yes. It's a relaxing break from the tension to have a nice breakfast. ?

 

[RepresentingWrath]

People who say this doesn't add anything are weird. They think of the most boring implementation of describing breakfast and toast, as if it's the only way of doing it.

Example of what I'm trying to say here. You can always make a really long breakfast eating scene where MC is locked together with the villain. It will be tense and add a lot to the story. As for describing toast, in this context you can use description of toast with big success to create juxtaposition for example. Through MC's POV we can compare toast to lives of innocent or something like this.

 

[CrimsonGenius]

Okay I get it.

 

[Danja]

Example of what I'm trying to say here. You can always make a really long breakfast eating scene where MC is locked together with the villain. It will be tense and add a lot to the story.

*** Visions of Batman eating breakfast with the Joker. ***

 

[RepresentingWrath]

*** Visions of Batman eating breakfast with the Joker. ***

Or that Denethor eating scene from LOTR movie. I understand it's a movie, but you can defintely use it in writing, and once again it adds a lot to the character.

 

[Representing_Tromba]

Or that Denethor eating scene from LOTR movie. I understand it's a movie, but you can defintely use it in writing, and once again it adds a lot to the character.

This adds so many uncomfortable feelings to the scene right before the haunting music.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

This adds so many uncomfortable feelings to the scene right before the haunting music.

I even made a whole thread about this scene.

 

[Representing_Tromba]

I even made a whole thread about this scene.

I remember.

 

[Deleted member 166465]

I disagree with you on many points, but I’m too tired to argue.

I can respect that.