Trusting the reader

[SirArtemis]

So this is somewhat of a late night rant for me and then when I wake up I will see some feedback. Here's the thing. I find myself on the fence, as an author, with how much detail to include when writing. I begin to ask myself the question of how much do I trust my reader?

When describing a scene, you probably should put in some scenery and imagery, talk about the setting, describe the people involved. The question arises regarding balance.

For example, I could say something like...
"The man stood six feet tall with a shaven head and tattoos littering his body. He wore a vest with no shirt underneath and leather pants."

So what happens here is that I left out a few details. Does he have any piercings? Does he have facial hair? Any weapons? How is he standing?

For me, I see him with some ear piercings, a goatee, and standing with his arms crossed, but I never told you, so how do you see him?

This is when I ask the question of "how much do I trust my reader?" Do I let you make those decisions? Or do I blabber on about the details until I'm at the point where I'm giving you the distance in millimeters that his eyes are apart!

So then I conclude to only include details that are either important or basic in describing the image, or if I truly want the reader to see as closely to what I'm seeing as possible without overwhelming them.



So, what are your thoughts as authors to this dilemma? Any advice? Agreement? Disagreement? So on...

Looking forward to reading then when I wake.

[Esmerelda]

I've always thought that you should assume the person reading has never read anything you wrote before, has no clue about your characters, and is close to simply walking away from your story. I may not be good at following this, but in a lot of books I've read, the authors have included alot of details, to create a thorough mental picture. Tattoos and piercings, along with facial and bodily hair all provide details to create a vivid image in the reader's mind of what he, or she looks like.

I mean, "The rich beautiful woman walked across the room to meet her lover" is too bare, and you would be better going with

"The heavenly light of the full moon flooded the room, reflecting hundreds of times off the sequins of her long flowing evening gown hugging her shapely voluptuous form providing sharp contrast to the cascading angelic locks trailing behind her. With grace and poise she flowed across the tiled marble floor and over the rich Persian rug; her secret lover lost in the seemingly hypnotic gaze of her azure eyes. Pale white tender flesh met hardened ebony rock in a lovers embrace, her ruby red lips parting to greet his and inflame the desire consuming them both."

Rich detail, providing a clear image of a beautiful woman. See the difference?

In summary, don't trust your reader, not in the slightest, regardless of who they are, but don't go into exact detail, wax poetic instead, it's more memorable, more enjoyable, and provides better mental images. Exact details, such as millimeters is better reserved for things that need it, such as important scientific details.

[Jonah T. Barnham]

"The heavenly light of the full moon flooded the room, reflecting hundreds of times off the sequins of her long flowing evening gown hugging her shapely voluptuous form providing sharp contrast to the cascading angelic locks trailing behind her. With grace and poise she flowed across the tiled marble floor and over the rich Persian rug; her secret lover lost in the seemingly hypnotic gaze of her azure eyes. Pale white tender flesh met hardened ebony rock in a lovers embrace, her ruby red lips parting to greet his and inflame the desire consuming them both."



Augh. Augh. AughaughaughhhhHenryJameswhyareyouhauntingme?/1!?

*deep breath* Alright, better now.

In my mind, you need to find a happy medium between the two examples Esmerelda just described. Don't write a simple "The cat sat on the hat," but don't write the dreaded purple prose. Don't shove adjectives in just for the sake of sounding cool. Make what you're writing count, and make it work for you. Do you want the characters to notice that the other character's got a pierced nose? Mention it. If it's not important to the story? Leave it out, put it in, it doesn't really matter just as long as you don't overwhelm the story with adjectives and details for everything.

Additionally, I find it changes with the character. I've not written anything with this kid yet, but I know this: as long as you don't have tentacles coming out of your eyes, he's not really gonna remember your looks. However, my other main character thrives on details. He would notice the piercings (and therefore I would mention them) where Jonah would just be "Eh, someone's talking to me; I think they're human. Possibly."

TL;DR edit because I realized I failed to address the main question: Trust the reader, but not too much. Show them the things that you explicitly want them to see, and then let them ramble, imagine, theorize and otherwise go to town on the rest. The end result is better than a complete, detail laden passage any day because the reader and the writer worked together to create it.

Of course, this is all IMHO. YMMV, and all them other fancy abbreviations.

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Jesus Christ Esmeralda, I gotta agree with Dino boy above me. That's damn near over kill for description, lol.

Simply put, describe the details to a point where the reader can pick up the rest. Facial hair and tattoos and what not, sure describe them, but only if this is a character your going to see recurring in the story. If it's just some guy sipping coffee, describe the details, but don't go over board and let the reader imagine the rest. You only need to completely describe things that the characters will interact with a lot in your story. Everything else in my opinion only needs medium details.

For instance:

The man sat at the corner in the cafe, sipping his drink. (Okay, weak description, won't net too much.)

The man was sitting in the corner of the cafe, a book in one hand, while the other hand lifted a coffee mug to his lips as he gingerly sipped at it. (Okay, now we got ourselves some action, the guy is drinking and enjoying a book. I think this is enough for the reader to imagine what book he's reading and so forth and so forth.)

There was a man sitting in the corner of the cafe, bundled up in several layers of shirts and sweaters. He gingerly sipped his drink, smacking his lips, running his hand over his beard to remove the mustache the foam left behind. His hazel eyes scanned the pages of a large volume titled 'Temen-Ni-Gru' and he smiled as he flipped the page. He ran his fingers through his short spiked hair, scratching the side of his head.

(That's a lot of detail, way to much detail if you are merely writing about joe schmo in a cafe. If this guy I just described is never going to be seen again, then damn, that's impressive for him, wonder how you'll describe the really important people.)


I hope that helps you out, Artemis. These are all opinions of course.

[Letho]

I agree with the Jurassic Park reject as well.

Also, another thing to keep in mind is that description doesn't have to be restricted to a paragraph or two that strictly deals with it. If you shove a shitload of information in a single fat paragraph every time a new character is introduced, it's not only unnecessary, it also doesn't really help your pacing and if not done well (and that's often the case) it's boring to read. What you can do instead is give a basic description when someone/something is introduced, and then fill in the blanks as you proceed. Characters are very easy to do like this, especially when there's interaction with them. If some chick has huge gazongas, isn't it better to write how those bouncy things drew every eye to her as she approached you, and how your character had a hard time looking at anything save her cleavage, rather than just saying that her boobs are bloody huge in ten thousand words. It not only introduces this specific feature, it puts it in context.

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Yes, leave it to you Letho to use the boob analogy. :D

(A sample of Letho's Judging)

Scene: You did an okay job, but there was this chick who you described. She was kinda hot, I could get that from the description, but I think this would have been a better way to describe her.

"She had a rack that you could sit on." Bam! I'd be sold. Remember, Tits, or GTFO.

(Ya know it's true Duro!)

[Savas Tigh]

I use the cardinal rule of letting the mood determine everything.

Minimal detail for humor or conversations. Maximum detail for scenery or certain dramatic moments. Vary between the two depending on what you're writing.

[SirArtemis]

i appreciate all the feedback! keep it coming!

[Visla Eraclaire]

I use the cardinal rule of letting the mood determine everything.

Minimal detail for humor or conversations. Maximum detail for scenery or certain dramatic moments. Vary between the two depending on what you're writing.

This.

Someone mentioned something, which I don't think was really the thrust of the question, but which interested me. How much do you assume the reader knows about your character?

For most, I assume they've been reading along. That's not a good idea for Althanas because people haven't and judges haven't and they'll dock you points. I will never even begin to care. Why would I pick up a book in the middle of a series and expect every chapter to give me a "Last time on this book you're reading" summary.

[Jake Narmolanya]

I'd say it's too much when it stops being interesting or takes away from the action/continuity. Other than that, details are what makes great stories and original characters.

[Jonah T. Barnham]

For most, I assume they've been reading along. That's not a good idea for Althanas because people haven't and judges haven't and they'll dock you points. I will never even begin to care. Why would I pick up a book in the middle of a series and expect every chapter to give me a "Last time on this book you're reading" summary.

IAWTC. I dislike books that do anything that even remotely resembles this. I do, however, usually try to link the previous thread to the current thread just for my own twisted sense of continuity. Ha.

[Knave]

Anything that grows into a series, or establishes a timeline requires something of a backstory as the tale progresses and important events take place. There are two ways I've seen descriptions of events. Often on scale.

In the Legend of Drizzt series, a series with multiple interlocking often rearranging combinations of characters and settings, previous events are recalled as brief distant, and/or vivid, personal recollections. This is often done in illustrating a characters motivations and understanding of the situation. Largely, there is no great dive into the archives to retell the tale, but how it affected them.

In Les Miserables, back story is given a massive, massive, presence in omnipotent, omni-temporal third person narration. Detailed expositions ranging far and wide from anything our heroes need ever concern themselves with. The way in which this is done is often interesting in and of itself, and the theme of the book beyond needless misery is most likely history itself, IMO of course.

In Bokurano, only that which is prominent is given back story, which is both in depth and intense. The way it is delivered is often with a characters sudden, imminent, irreversible death usually display both the highs and incredible earth shattering lows. I am not an emotional guy, but I swear I almost started crying, which just goes to show that when done, exposition can be done well enough to leave the viewer emotionally filleted.

All of these styles have appeared in popular books and TV series, but the general idea is to space out your expositions from brick road pavement to scatterings of bread crumbs, regardless of how large these crumbs may be. I don't think I have ever seen a book whose prologue is a short hand narrative of the previous passage, at least not one that made it very far in the public eye.

Of course, some people have been turned off of major serieses by the very fact that they lack any short hand history for them to read before picking up book four without reading books one through three and the prequel. Its like following a level ten character without reading their profile, or operating in a country without understanding its specific place in the mythos we go by. A lot of us never even knew Underwood exploded until someone told us. Important events require a bit of mentioning when they are ground breaking. Reading the Dragonlance series (and yes, my reading is disgustingly fantastic) a time line and map are mandatory. You know, because eventually we have to ask why several of the gods are now dead and there is a massive hole where a continent should be.

Now thats all wide scale stuff, description wise of characters and settings is a little different. I've found its a matter of taste.

Many authors never give exact specifics to unimportant characters, they are usually given abstract descriptions so the mind may wander. Imagination is usually trusted to fill in the blanks because the blanks hardly matter. Again, matter of taste, some people can't stand not giving one character we will never see again a name and a vivid description. In niether case should you trust the reader to read your mind, your words are at best descriptive, even empathic, but never do they contain actual telepathy. If you think its good to know, state it, important, dwell on it, and move on.

Oh, and do remember the focus of the story, and just what you are trying to focus on. In television, when the baywatch girl runs onto the screen she, or at least parts of her, are the center of it. Everything else is blurred out. Likewise the explosions take up most of the screen when they occur. Don't lose sight of your point in the pursuit of clarity, unless thats the goal, those visiual trick images work because there is a confusion as to what we should be looking at. Unless its important, no one cares what the dog's collar looks like when someone is in the midst of being punched in the face.

Of course, sometimes leaving a bit of confusion can be artistically done. You can drown a story in detail, or enhance it, but somethings can be left out simply because they don't help our understanding of the context, or help by simply not giving us an understanding at all - making the use of imagination important again! I do like to see a writer use imagination against his reader, always leaves them begging for more.

Though anything can be done, it boils down to a matter of whether it was done well that determines if you did good by your work.

Lovecraft drowned people in his descriptions, and at least once I'm sure he thought he could kill a man with the power of his words. That style worked for him because he understood the words he was using, and had enough of them that could easily avoid painful repetitions. The downfall of flowery prose is the misuse, or overuse, of certain words that have become "popular," or sound "kewl" to add an assumed pop to a statement. Like the word "aphotic." Google Chrome doesn't even recognize it as a word. I dare one of you to tell me what it means without a dictionary or Wikipedia, and then use casually in a sentence.

Twilight wouldn't have nearly as many criticizers if it didn't seem like Stephany Meyer reached for her thesaurus to stave of the fatigue of overusing the same terms. Stephen King in an interview said, "She can't write worth a darn." I don't think this is a criticism of her story, but of her ability to convey it. Stephen King on the other hand has often had the opposite, an incredible grasp of word play, detail, and grammar, but not always the best story. Given Kings' massive amount of experience, I think we can defer to him on this point.

I'm lost, I don't feel like summarizing, did anyone learn anything?