Description: Overrated?

[Dragonfree]

Well... it just sometimes seems to me that description is very overrated.

I mean, most if not all fanfics I've seen have comments about the description, usually complaining about how it's not enough. But can't there be too much of it?

I personally think that there can indeed be too much description, and to be honest that manages to tick me off a lot more than a poorly described fic. I don't have the attention span to read description that spans almost the entire page of a book, I sometimes find myself having read ten pages of a novel and having no idea what happened during them all because I just skimmed through the text, most of it being unneccessarily long descriptions. It happens automatically, when I've been reading pure description of one little moment for a few lines, I stop noticing the words properly, and then I realize long after that that I have no idea what's going on because I missed out everything that actually did happen during those pages. Then I need to turn back. Very frustrating and confusing. If I concentrate really well on the text, I can get through some long description, but if I have to do it too much, I just give up, and I never feel like that book/fanfic is as good as one where the description just flows with the text and sinks in without me noticing that I read it at all. How does it sink in? By not being too long.

Of course, I just have a short attention span and can't read without anything happening (I could add that if for example a pokémon battle, action scene or someone's thoughts are described a lot, it won't turn me off, just when a moment or person or place is described in too many words), but that makes me find it frustrating when people keep telling everybody to put more description, because a lot of description can make it dead boring, for me and probably other people too.

So...

What do you think about the amount of description that should be in a fic?

[Chris 2.1]

I think Description is a vital part of any fanfic. Description is, as everyone knows, the part which describes to us what things look like, and a lot of the time your setting can be very specific; you have to describe it carefully and closely to make sure people can recreate in their minds what you want them to.

Although this, for example, is OTTUD - Over The Top, Unecessary Description:

Ash reached for his belt and grabbed the small Pokeball. He held it up to the light and tapped it, the ball becoming large and feeling cool in his grip. He threw it forward, and as it flew into the air the button opened, sending a wave of white light pouring out of the now open ball and spilling onto the arena, taking the form of Torkoal. The ball flew pleasently back and Ash caught it.

IMHO, that's waaaay to unecessary. Here's something more...managable.

Ash reached for a Pokeball from his belt. He gripped the cold metal sphere and hurled it forward. Torkoal emerged in a blazing shower of light.


So, Description is vital, but too much is unecessary.

[dratinihaunter13]

Some readers like to know enough about a setting to where they can feel themselves in that setting. That's what a lot of us mean when we ask for more description in our replies. too much description is tedious of course, but if ya look around at the fics here, i think lack of description is a bigger problem than too much of it. page long chapters are what's getting commented on for more description, and that's good advice for those fics.

ugh, some books have way too much description though, i do the same thing you do with them dragonfree. i realize the page number at the top corner of the page has changed and i don't remember a thing. kinda like falling asleep while driving (heh, scary). first book i think about that fits that description is The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne. YUCK. on the over-description at least. the rest was cool.

[Jamesology101]

Description is sort of what writing is. You're describing something to a reader. So it's sort of necessary.

You need description, IMO. Description helps you get a feel for the situation, and it can help to build suspense or atmosphere. It draws you into the story and holds your attention much better than simply glossing over what's going on, for me at least. A while ago I read a book (well, half of it, I had to stop halfway through) which had almost zero description of any kind in it, other than who said what and where they were standing at the time. It was so difficult to get engaged in what was going on that when one of the characters decided he was going to commit suicide it was a whole two pages before I even noticed!

On the other hand, there's nothing worse than excessive description, especially when it concerns how characters look. I don't like too detailed a picture of what a character looks like, beyond any really important features to give a general idea, because then you lose your own personal image of them in your head.

So, yeah, I think a fic needs description to be interesting, so long as they don't go overboard.

[mistysakura]

Of course there can be too much description; it makes short-attention-spanners like myself lose track of what's going on, and it also adds a risk of falling asleep.

I think that some things require more description, while others practically don't need it. For instance, I think I once read a paragraph on how a character brushed his teeth; honestly, I don't care. Pokemon battles etc. generally need a bit more description, but still not so much that it bogs the action down. Settings are about in-between, depending if they have any actual significance on the story. For example, a cave or something that the characters are exploring would need a bit more description, but a bedroom wouldn't (in my opinion).

But then, I'll just say that most of the description problems here involve too little description; everyone else has already elaborated on that.

[PancaKe]

Not enough description = bad
Too much description = bad.

There has to be a line though, between too much and not enough, I mean, sometimes you just get the bare skeleton of a fic and other times you get a beached whale of a fic when it comes to description, and honestly, too much description can be a bit boring in some cases.

I mean, for instance, lets look at pokemon fics. Like, for battle scenes, it helps if there is quiet a hunk of descritpion, not as much as a beached whale, but for battle scenes and action scenes of any kind, you definantly cant just have the skeleton. And this is where I fail. Because you cant just say an action scene, you have to show it. Its hopeless if its like

Charmander used scratch attack on Pikachu. Pikachu was hurt.

But if you go too far in the description i suppose, it is probably really bad also.

Charmander grunted extremley loud as he pulled back his bright orange tired arm, and brought it across the yellow and red cheeks of Pikachu. The claws moved through the fur, leaving blood red lines bleeding after them. Pikachus yellow and red fur soon became stained red with blood, as the yellow mouse pokemon grabbed it and was howling as he held it with his small hands. he yelled angrilly and loudly at charmander because he was hurting and wanted charmander to know this.

I suppose its not that bad, (and not just because i wrote it). I guess, more to the fact, what annoys me is pointless detail. Like, scenery description is good, but too much is annoying.

They were surrounded by trees VS They were surrounded by tall, dark trees with dark emerald leaves. There's no real problem with either sentance but it also has to do with how much description there is in the rest of the fic. Alone, the second verison sounds much better, but in a fic of description goes here here and here as well the first sentance would be more pleasing.

Descritpion is not a bad thing, as long as there isnt a skeleton or a beached whale of it.

~Mist

[The Muffin Man]

Descriptions need to be short and to the point, IMO. I don't wanna read for 20 minutes and get no where in the actual plot. Nothing annoys me more than:
Reading for 10 minutes and not knowing what the hells going on, because the descriptions dragged out.
And reading for 10 minutes and not knowing what the hells going on, because the description was barely even telling me the characters involved.

[mr_pikachu]

Description is definitely important, but it's even more important to maintain a balance. I always gave up on The Lord of the Rings, because there was too much description (if I recall correctly). However, most fics here have too little description, especially trainer fics. The ones that are more unique tend to have better description as well, simply because the author has a better feel for writing.

My problem is with direct description. I can't stand reading a list about a person's features. Even if it's done better than "he wore a blue shirt, black pants, yellow shoes, white earrings, a gold necklace, black war paint..." it can still be annoying. But if it's done like, "[Character name here] nervously smoothed the wrinkles out of his sky-blue T-shirt as he walked along the path. He'd never been so nervous, and he realized that when he looked down, and didn't see the familiar strings on his black sweatpants. [Character name here] gasped in horror as a voice began to laugh behind him, and he quickly pushed the strings into the rear of the stretchy elastic band. Yes, this was going to be a bad day." That may be a bit drawn out, but it's certainly more interesting than the first one. Except for the war paint. ;)

[Dragonfree]

I also feel that that example was a bit drawn-out - I've been thinking about a good way to voice what I think about description better and I've found a better way to say it: I like reading in real-time. Too much description puts it in slow motion and really gets on my nerves, too little is all fast forward and while I personally am a lot more easily annoyed by slow motion writing, I can well understand people who absolutely hate fast forward. I agree with you on Lord of the Rings; it's over-described and while the plot itself is amazing, I just really don't like Tolkien's slow motion writing style. If something happens fast, it should be described fast, but Tolkien describes everything at the same speed. For example, I read about the battle in Helm's deep and I flew through the chapter without a problem because the things that were happening fit that speed, but then I got farther and it started to seem drawn-out. I find that Rowling describes at the exact ideal pace for me.

Basically, I've seen fics where somebody from this world was transported to the pokémon world, saw a group of pokémon and then it took about five minutes to read the description of each pokémon, which among other things included how many toes they had. While it was a really good description, it's just unrealistic to have somebody surrounded by five creatures they've never seen before and look at each of them for five minutes, noticing details like that. It really just didn't flow properly. I've seen action scenes that should be fast-paced being described in such a lengthy way that they weren't exciting at all.

When I'm writing in my crazy style *coughLostInRuxidocough*, I tend to describe in slow motion to my opinion, even...

[PancaKe]

Nothing annoys me more when description is blank. In other words, its description, but it hell is boring. I cant stand reading trainer fics that say

Joe Bloe was 5"11 and wore long blue jeans and a black t-shirt with a green vest. His arms were 67 inches long and his legs were 12 inches, and hsi shoe size was 99 and his hat size was 103.

BORING.

At least make it interesting.

~Mist

[Last Exile]

Description/storyline is the no.1 criteria, but can only take so much of the spotlight. If you focus too much on it and neglect plot and characters, you're stuffed.

This is why Pokemon sucks. All storyline, next to no plot, character development at a snail's pace. it takes 100 episodes to do what should have taken 10.

Watch some current japanese animes and you may get some decent examples. Last Exile and Trigun are good examples of balance.

[Dragonfree]

Originally posted by Citrus Crush Chikorita
Description/storyline is the no.1 criteria, but can only take so much of the spotlight. If you focus too much on it and neglect plot and characters, you're stuffed.

This is why Pokemon sucks. All storyline, next to no plot, character development at a snail's pace. it takes 100 episodes to do what should have taken 10.

Watch some current japanese animes and you may get some decent examples. Last Exile and Trigun are good examples of balance.

I agree. Pokémon isn't an idea or game that can be made into a decent TV show. If they would only decide to make a new plot for the animé instead of always HAVING to base it on what happens in the latest gameboy games... the gameboy games are strategy and have only bits and pieces of a plot, and the strategy is what people like about it, not those hints of a plot scattered around. If the absolutely need to make the show out of the games' very limited plot, they should at least base it on Colosseum which has a bit of a plot. Then again, it's not very much of a plot either. Pokémon has never been about plot. Screw Ash sometime and make the show center around a character who does something interesting that has a continuable plot, will you?

[Mewfour]

Too much is boring. Too little is confusing. *tests sig*

[The Decapitated Mole]

Well... A thing on the anime drawn-out thing--I have at least part of a reason. There was a translated article in Antarctic Press's New Mangazine No. 1 by a guy from a animation company. They usually make 13 episodes of a show, or a few more, with a good plot, but if the show succeeds they have to draw the plot out, which is why in shows like DBZ enemies come back and do all kinds of stuff over and over again--they have to draw the original plot out forever to keep the show going.

On the description front--Description is pretty important, but action is more so, because without action, you can't have description, and if you take so much time describing one action that you don't have a whole lot of it, the fic proves boring and unreadable after a few chapters. But if you spend so much time having action and not describing it all, the fic proves boring and unreadable after a few chapters. So I'm in the middle between the 2nd and 3rd answers on the poll, therefore I shan't vote.

o_0
jimm

[Iveechan]

Description is vital to a point. When I type out stories, I frequently read over what I write and change wording and use my mental thesaurus to spice things up. To me, unless it's vital to a story, it's pointless to describe some trainer's clothes. When someone says "He had an orange shirt with blue jeans and a black, sleevelss jacket"... heck, I'm going to forget it a second later.

When describing something's features, rather than saying "it had *blank* with a big "blank", and it had markings on its *black", you could say "the beast's robust body was decorated with thick, black stripes with a row of sharp spikes lining its spine". That came off the top of my head, but you get the idea, I hope. Adjectives are great, like instead of saying Mightyena all the time, you could say "the fierce grey wolf", or "the shaggy beast", stuff like that. I love the word "the" when describing stuff, it just makes it sound cooler.

[Damian Silverblade]

Is description the most important part of a story? That'S a loaded question.

The first, short answer is that no, description is not what your story should be built around. The plot should always be what your story is about, and if description is blogging the plot down, then desciption has to go.

The second, longer answer is that description is probably the most powerful weapon in a writer's arsenal when used properly. There is very little that sets the mood of a scene better than knowing when and how to describe and to not describe.

For example, say your character is stepping in dark hallway in a house where he suspects a viscious pokemon is hiding. The character is nervous, he's paying close attention to his surrounding trying to guess where the beast could be...

"Ash looked forward, then back. The dim light of his flashlight reflected off the black walls. Outside, a hoot-hoot howled. To his left he could see a door, closed. To his right the wall was bare, save for a painting a few feet away from him. Carefully, he set his foot down on the floor, wincing at the noise..."

This set the mood - a tense mood, with the character noticing everything. Note here that you have short, choppy sentences - the character is looking at everything about him, but he's in a very practical mood - he's not goign to waste them figuring what shade of black the wall is, what the painting's about, etc. He's going to notice what's important to setting out the environment.

Now, let's imagine the same character is walking through the hallway in the middle of the day, with no particular menace - he's just going to join a friend on the other side.

"Looking to the other end of the hallway, Ash saw Misty, and made his way to her."

You don't need much more details - the hallway is a hallway. Your readers can fill in the blank themselves. You're telling them the essentials - that they are in a hallway. A badfic would simply have "Ash looked and saw Misty. He went to see her." with no details on the scene.

Let's imagine the scene again, but this time, Ash is in the middle of a swords duel.

"Ash rushed through the hallway, drawing his sword. He barely had the time to bring it up to parry that already his opponent was slashing again, this time toward his legs..."

Again, a rather undescriptive scene. Battles should be pure actions - you can tack some description to the action, but don't get bogged down in adjectives and the like. The character, in the middle of a battle, won't be paying attention to the black hallway or the painting - he'll be paying attention to the sword and the guy who is trying to kill him. So that's *all* you should be talking about, unless the surroundings do something really important (ie, the crowd cheering during a battle) that the characters would have no choices but to notice.

Yet again the same scene. This time, Misty has been wounded and Ash is holding her.

"Ash held on tightly to Misty. A lone tear rolled down his cheek, falling slowly to the marble floor, mingling there with her blood in a pool that kept growing and growing. Her eyes were dimmer than he could ever recall seeing them, and her hand, tightly gripping his, was just as cold as the claw that gnawed at his heart. Her hair, once so beautiful, were now dirty and torn, and scratches and wounds covered her arms and neck, all paling before the wound in her chest..."

See? Usually Ash wouldn't be paying attention to what Misty looks like all that much - he knows it. Moreover the readers do not need to be told what Misty usually looks like - they know. But in this case that's the whole point : Misty does not look like she usually does, so you want to take the time to describe Misty's present appearance, and what's important about it - ie, wounds, torn hair, cold hand, etc. These are the important elements to describe - not things that are like they usually are.

That's another rule of thumb for description : the more extraordinary something is, the more description it deserves. The more ordinary something is, the less it needs. Thus, a perfectly normal forest need little description beyond setting it out loud that they are, in fact, in a forest. "They were travelling by one of the many trails through Viridian forest." That's it, that's all you need. People don't need to be told that there are trees in Viridian Forest - they can figure that out already on their own, generally speaking.

Now let's imagine another forest. "They entered the forest, looking around them in amazement. Silver trunks surrounded them, and crowing the trunks were golden leaves, sparking in the dim sunlight. A crystal river flowed between the trees, its waters singing clearly..." - this forest is definitely not a usual forest. So you need to describe, to make sure the readers knows what your forest looks like (yes, I stole my forest from Tolkien).

This is especially true when the exceptional place/person/thing is something the characters are likely to go "Woah!" at seeing (for a real world example, you should probably go far more in depth describing New York than some random town somewhere in Iowa - nobody cares about a random suburb town that has nothing important. The first sight of NY on the other hand would and should be something impressive). So, the more amazing a place (or other person or thing) is, the more description it might need - because it represents the character taking a long time just admiring the sight.

Anyway, I think I've rambled on enough on this matter.