Too much description is bad?

[Kissmequick]

Rhinoplasty

 

[JunkMonkey]

If it makes you feel safer about the younger generation (wow, I haven't called myself a younger generation in a LONG time, but I'm going to assume from the 62 year old girlfriend that you're probably 20 years older than me at least!)

I'm (now) 54 - (today! It's my birthday!)

What was the name of this thread again?

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Brian Stableford: "A little purple prose is no bad thing."

 

[Laeraneth]

Intensely detailed descriptions of characters is a personal bugbear of mine. Since when does any normal person spend so much time looking at someone else's nose?

I've actually spent very little time describing the characters themselves.
There's the first impression from the point of view of the other character when they first meet, the general observations that most people make when meeting someone for the first time, hair colour, general ethnicity (if appropriate) rough build, that kind of thing, but the detail is mostly left up to the reader.
Otherwise, it's like an info dump for a person... a character dump if you will

Besides, detailing things like the way their nose is shaped or what they've done with their hair this week is just something that neither of my POV's would care about, thus it is 'overlooked' very deliberately.

 

[chrispenycate]

I read, in a fantasy book which has melded in my fading memory with a dozen others a three-quarter page description of a wedding dress.

What prevented this from becoming utter boredom was that it was written from the point of view of the best man, whose only interest in feminine attire was removing it, and was utterly hilarious; comments on fabrics ('smooth, shiny stuff') and general impracticability for swinging a sword, dancing, cooking a meal or the only other important feminine function, access for sexual intercourse indispersed with observations of how it brought tears to the eyes of the assembled females, doubtless in sympathy with their sister cooking inside all that cloth.
Totally excessive, but the banquet that followed was almost a let down, except when the fact that the bride was still wearing the thing relaunched the ruminations.

So 'how much is too much' can never be defined, except 'when it starts to drag'. And that is an extremely difficult point to define.