When is the prose too much description for you?

[paranoid marvin]

"Winter deepens behind us," he said quietly to Aragorn. "The heights away north are whiter than they were; snow is lying far down their shoulders. Tonight we shall be on our way high up towards the Redhorn Gate. We may well be seen by watchers on that narrow path, and waylaid by some evil; but the weather may prove a more deadly enemy than any. What do you think of your course now, Aragorn?"

"Well master, there it was and there it is: the tall tower and the white houses and the wall; but not nice now, not beautiful. He conquered it long ago. It is a very terrible place now. Travellers shiver when they see it, they creep out of sight, they avoid its shadow. But master will have to go that way. This is the only other way. For the mountains are lower there, and the old road goes up and up, until it reaches the pass at the top, and then it goes down, down, again - to Gorgoroth." His voice sank to a whisper and he shuddered.

These are a couple of extracts I've taken from LOTR to show what I meant about descriptive prose being embedded into engaging dialogue. I think that both paragraphs amply portray in the mind of the reader a vision of what lies ahead for the protagonists, but in a way that is meaningful and evocative. Don't get me wrong, elsewhere there are long passages of descriptive prose, but Tolkien does have a knack for getting not just the look but the feel of the places that his characters are describing through their own eyes.

 

[DAgent]

What do you mean by having a "good idea" of the location? I would probably get bored if you spent a page telling me about the character or location, unless what you were telling me was interesting. If that description is fine detail about appearance, then it had better be something spectacularly intriguing, and probably ought to be significant in the story. When I'm writing, I would tend to avoid more than two paragraphs in a row telling the reader about a scene or character, unless there were some entertaining bit of backstory or the like to lighten the impact. In general I'm not much into detailed description of people and places, and where I do put it in, I prefer it to be a part of the story.

If a place, a location, a person is going to be important to the story, I like to have a good idea of what they look like, especially if the geography of a location is going to play a role in the events, or gives some suggestions to a characters status and tastes.

So say my MC is dressed in every day clothes, and ends up in a penthouse suite with a millionaire walking down some massive flashy staircase towards him, and just leave it at that, that's not a very vivid image, just rather basic. Obviously it might work for some people to have such bare basics down, but it doesn't personally stir up my own imagination of the scene and feels more like something that belongs in an outline.

I'd be more inclined to write something like:
The MC stood in the middle of the cavernous penthouses entrance hall, a massive gold encrusted flight of steps sat before him. Everywhere else around him was glass walls, with ornate tables displaying pictures of family all around their father, or sparkling beakers or other treasures that had been collected over the years. Then he heard the slow footsteps coming down the steps as the boss, dressed in a dark blue suit that probably cost twice as much as the MC made in a year, made his entrance, theatrically adjusting a diamond cufflink. The MC felt underdressed.

Now that might not be to everyone's tastes, but it is to mine, and it's the style I would therefore write in.

 

[DAgent]

There's a very interesting article on "Invisible Writing" - What Do People Really Mean by "Invisible Prose"? - that touches on this. I was coming here to post a thread on it, but since this is here...

I'll definitely check that link out, thanks. Sounds just what the doctor ordered.

In any case, the answer, personal to me, is

It depends hugely on just how it's done but I generally like my prose simple so I can zoom from plot point to plot point at a hundred miles per hour. Which suggests a lean towards dialogue, which does go quicker.

There's a lot of fantasy books that are in love with their landscapes, that makes them characters and produces those long wells with prose. I struggled immensely with Titus Groan. I am not in love with it in Lord of the Rings, Watership Down, or Gideon the Ninth, but could appreciate them all. I loved the beginning of Nicola Griffith's Spear, The Tombs of Atuan, and Rosemary Sutcliff.

That's one of the things I do love about fantasy worlds, getting some idea of what they are meant to look like, that is of course going to come down to personal taste, which is exactly what your point is. This can lead to slowing down the pace, quite a lot, but I think I might compare this to visiting an art gallery and really taking the time to absorb all the paintings. Some people are going to enjoy that, others won't.

 

[DAgent]

There may be two separate questions here. One, what is the minimum amount of description necessary? Two, how to make description interesting to read?

I think you just nailed it there. Some people like having a picture painted with words, some don't. And I guess I'm not going to be able to please the latter.

It's extremely important to get the balance between description and dialogue exactly right.

(Hoping someone can tell me how to do this)

(That makes two of us...)

I'm not sure I'd like to have description-dialogue-description-dialogue, I think I'd rather have it interspersed. Tolkien was very good at this, and at getting characters to describe areas in their dialogue.

Yeah, it's not something I can see working very well all the time. I'm working on a short story where I am doing just that where the MC is listening to a voicemail and then responding inside the privacy of his own head to each line of dialogue, which seems to be working for me in that situation.

For what it's worth, one of the things I picked up from Brandon Sanderson's lectures is that a reader will be in either dialog mode or description mode. When the reader is in dialog mode, the reader will not really pay attention to the descriptive bits and instead will be skipping ahead to the next line of dialog. I find that I agree with this and dislike it when characters are fidgeting when they are talking. I also find that lines of dialog embedded in a description feel superfluous and can usually be omitted entirely without affecting the flow or understanding of the text.

I've seen a couple of his lectures on youtube awhile back, rather inciteful stuff.

I think it is fortunate that there are so many different authors writing their stories in so many different ways, since it is obvious from the responses here that not all readers share the same tastes ... and sknox is right that a reader's tastes can change over time. Mine certainly have, or at least I am able to experience and appreciate (or not appreciate!) things in wholly different ways than I did forty or fifty years ago, which I suppose is hardly surprising.

So rather than ask the question of such a small sampling of readers, I think that The Big Peat is right when he says you should consult your own preferences and see how the authors you like do it, then do something similar. I've always said that the best way forward is to write a book that you would have loved to read ... if somebody else had written it. Trying to please an audience that doesn't include yourself, well, it would make writing a chore and it can make the writing itself look stiff and unnatural.

That could also be a nightmare to try to emulate someone else's writing style, but also a very valuable lesson. Variety is of course, the spice of life, but you've got to go with what feels best for yourself too.

"Winter deepens behind us," he said quietly to Aragorn. "The heights away north are whiter than they were; snow is lying far down their shoulders. Tonight we shall be on our way high up towards the Redhorn Gate. We may well be seen by watchers on that narrow path, and waylaid by some evil; but the weather may prove a more deadly enemy than any. What do you think of your course now, Aragorn?"

"Well master, there it was and there it is: the tall tower and the white houses and the wall; but not nice now, not beautiful. He conquered it long ago. It is a very terrible place now. Travellers shiver when they see it, they creep out of sight, they avoid its shadow. But master will have to go that way. This is the only other way. For the mountains are lower there, and the old road goes up and up, until it reaches the pass at the top, and then it goes down, down, again - to Gorgoroth." His voice sank to a whisper and he shuddered.

These are a couple of extracts I've taken from LOTR to show what I meant about descriptive prose being embedded into engaging dialogue. I think that both paragraphs amply portray in the mind of the reader a vision of what lies ahead for the protagonists, but in a way that is meaningful and evocative. Don't get me wrong, elsewhere there are long passages of descriptive prose, but Tolkien does have a knack for getting not just the look but the feel of the places that his characters are describing through their own eyes.

He still has a lot to teach us, that's for sure. Thing is, these descriptions could be reworked into descriptive prose, it would take some work of course, but then, you also loose character interactions and development. He's found way to multi task rather well.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

That could also be a nightmare to try to emulate someone else's writing style, but also a very valuable lesson. Variety is of course, the spice of life, but you've got to go with what feels best for yourself too.

But I didn't say to copy anyone's writing style. I tried that when I was a young writer, and the result was not good. (Which was, I suppose, a valuable lesson, since it inspired me to stop doing it.) I said to see how your favorite writers handle this one thing and try doing something similar.

It is very important to discover your own voice and style. They may be distinctive, or they may not, but whatever they are, they should be yours. The best way to do this is to absorb a great deal of the kind of writing you like, from the writers you like, then synthesize the various influences you draw from them, into something that feels particularly right for you. The synthesizing need not be a conscious process, in fact, I think it's best if it all takes place somewhere in your subconscious mind. I said above "discover your own voice" but it can also be a case of allowing your voice to discover you.

 

[The Big Peat]

That could also be a nightmare to try to emulate someone else's writing style, but also a very valuable lesson. Variety is of course, the spice of life, but you've got to go with what feels best for yourself too.

Arguably the greatest possible trait to possess as a writer, beyond persistence, is discernment and learning. Being able to listen to feedback and know what works for you and what doesn't, being able to implement it, being able to look at other people's styles and use them as guides to your own without becoming imitative or not quite getting it...

It's arguably even more important than being able to write well, because without it most people won't be able to write quite well enough.

So - bearing in mind what Teresa said too - yes, it can be a nightmare. But believing you can do it without being a nightmare is necessary, and also true.

I must also emphasise that what she said about it being best done subconsciously is incredibly true in my opinion, and I am someone who does consciously think about the synthesis from time to time. But I do that because my subconscious doesn't quite provide enough and sometimes I need to consciously fill a little on what it provides, and I know that the foundations my subconscious give are both far, far sturdier and far, far easier to come up with too (until they don't).