How much is too much?
February 21st, 2011 by Talya Bosco
I was originally going to write about writer’s block, but I changed my mind last night.
The husband has been wanting to see Shogun again, yes, Shogun, that mini-series from before most of you were probably born. 
. Netflix had it, so we got it and we’ve been watching it one disk at a time.
Last night we were on disk 2, and it was the part where the main female character needs to teach Angin (Richard C.) how to speak Japanese. She explains to him how to make something negative in Japanese, how to make it a question, etc.
She then says that to speak Japanese you have to truly understand the Japanese. And honestly, after watching 5 mins of it, I remember more Japanese than months of my hubby trying to teach me a word here and there.
But, besides for that, I realized that so much of this episode that I enjoyed would be cut out nowadays. It would be edited out as “unneeded”. And in defense of some editors, it wasn’t NEEDED but it made the whole story deeper and richer.
So it got me thinking. How much description is too much?
My first book my editor edited out entire descriptions of areas of the city, telling me it was unneeded for the romance, but I felt that it let you know where she was, how the area made her feel, etc. I edited it out, because, what did I know? She was the experienced one. And she managed to train me to leave out most description of other stuff.
I have since realized/learned I need to put in more. That even though she didn’t like it, sometimes it DOES help.
But having said that, I will say that I have read some stories where description does go overboard. I read one story with 3 entire sentences about the color of the hero’s shirt. Oh, wait, they might have mentioned the texture/material, too. But the point still is that the author went WAY overboard in description.
So, what do you like? Do you like a lot of description? Very little? Do you want to know where the character is? Do you like descriptions of the area (think Kenyon and New Orleans)? Or nothing at all? Can you go overboard (ala James Fenimore Cooper)? Or is it never too much?
There’s definitely such a thing as to much. SE Hinton once talked about writers who describe every blade of grass — that’s definitely too much.
And I’ve read some historicals where the writer very clearly did a ton of research, and by god were going to show us Every Last Bit of it because she worked hard and she was going to use is all! o_O I remember one where the characters are travelling somewhere in a carriage and one of them has a guidebook on the area they’re passing through. Not the area they’re leaving from or going to, but just passing through, none of the story actually takes place here. So they’re in the carriage and she starts reading from the guidebook. The other characters in the carriage with her have to listen, and so does the reader — about this famous manor house and that ruined abbey and the field where some battle took place in sixteen-whatever, and the quaint village ahead where there’s an inn that served ale to Edward the Whichever, but of course the characters aren’t stopping there because they’re just passing through. [headdesk] Definitely too much pointless description.
I think that’s the trick of it — is there a reason to describe something for the reader? Does it tell us about the character, about the place where something important is happening, about how the characters are reacting? Something? Anything? If not, skip it.
Angie
Angie, I have to agree. If there is a true reason behind it, then leave it in. I remember reading Last of the Mohicans and I swear that man took an entire page to describe a waterfall. And that was only part of the descriptive section. (LOL, and yes, they were only walking PAST that waterfall, not staying there) That was too much for me.
LOL, and I so sympathize with you for reading that pointless description.
Thanks for commenting!
What a terrific discussion. The amount of description also reveals a writer’s style. I wonder if too much description does not bode well for today’s electronic readers–is it better with a paperback, for example?
But if the description does not move the story forward then don’t get too bogged down. And don’t TRY to make a story literary!
DD – I have ready many a story where it does seem the author is trying to make it literary. If you don’t want to be a genre author, then don’t be one.
I don’t know if description should be affected by the electronic readers. We still are the same readers, we just read it in a different format. I think too much is too much in any format