Story VS descriptions

[Djmac1031]

So I'm putting the final edit on what has become my longest story to date, just over 22K words.

I know to some of you that's nothing of course. But here's what I'm discovering as I review it:

I spent a lot of words telling the actual story. This character did that, etc. I spent far less words describing people or scenes. A character walks into a room. No really depth on what that character looks like, what they're wearing, or what the room looks like.

Not that there's no colorful descriptions at all. It's just at a minium.

I'm adding a few flourishes here and there but at this point I'm more interested in simply finishing the thing and making sure the story works logically, flows well, and hopefully is entertaining.

I've never been one to write long passages dedicated to descriptive text anyway I suppose. I've often been told my style is "simplistic," and I don't really take that as a negative. I tend to tell just enough to set the scene and hopefully readers fill in the blanks.

Still, I sometimes wish I had a little more skill at that kinda thing, to paint a more vivid image in a readers head.

I suppose I'm curious how some of you feel about it. As a reader, do you care what, say, a house the characters are in looks like? What color the walls or or the style of furniture? Does it help immerse you in the story? Or are you more interested in the actual events taking place in the house? What the characters are doing/ saying?

Obviously I'm sure there will be varying opinions on this. Not looking for any definitive answers or anything, just musing out loud.

I think my story is pretty solid, despite my minimalist approach to scene / character descriptions.

I suppose it'll be up to readers after that.

 

[8letters]

For the main characters, I try to provide enough of a physical description that hopefully an image comes to mind for the readers - height, hair color and length, and eye color. For things like a house, a room, or the furniture, I only describe it if the descriptions are important. I'm finishing a story where the living room has two small couches in it. That fact that the couches are small is important because neither is big enough for four people to sit comfortably, so the two couples each sit on one couch. I mention the dining table several times but I don't provide any description of it as isn't unimportant.

There are those that think it's best to provide as little descriptions of the characters as possible to give the reader more latitude in how they picture the characters. As a reader, I want some physical description of the character.

 

[Lifestyle66]

You're right in that different readers want one or the other, minimalist or descriptive approach.

I've noticed that some books are sold with minimal storyline, but max out on descriptive scenery to produce 80-100k words. Without all of the descriptions, I'd imagine some books would be short stories.

IMO, It depends on the scene and whether the descriptions add value to that scene. I prefer minimal descriptions which add the necessary value. The woman is medium height, blonde or brunette, busty or well endowed, with a nice figure. Or maybe she's just a "MILF" as enough to allow my mind to fill in what I want that to mean. A room is a living room or bedroom, maybe with a king bed to accommodate the number of people. But more than that and it's just wordy for the sake of meeting some word quota.

But if you're trying to sell books, then word count matters.

 

[StillStunned]

Personally, I only add details that contribute to the story or the mood. Essentially I provide the bare minimum to let the reader fill in the blanks.

I once read a quote: "The landscape was as boring as a long descriptive paragraph." If people are going to skip it anyway, I'm not going to write it.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

So I'm putting the final edit on what has become my longest story to date, just over 22K words.

Lightweight

I suppose I'm curious how some of you feel about it. As a reader, do you care what, say, a house the characters are in looks like? What color the walls or or the style of furniture? Does it help immerse you in the story? Or are you more interested in the actual events taking place in the house? What the characters are doing/ saying?

I think the trick is to find the real balance in relation to your story. If you are trying to set a specific mood, such as a feeling of dread or mystique, then a proper description can really add to that feeling. If the house isn't important, then a brief description of it should suffice just so the readers can have an idea of the space.
I am definitely not a fan of protracted descriptions of unimportant surroundings. I find them tedious. Yet I've read such descriptions many, many times. It's somewhat a matter of taste in my opinion, but I also think there is a proper "range" for lack of a better word, in which the level of detail and description needs to fit for maximum effect. You want to paint a picture but you don't want to bore the reader with trivial details.

 

[ronde]

I tend to be pretty minimalist in my descriptions of people and locations unless some particular thing is crucial to the story. For example, I often have women with tattoos in my stories, but that's about all I'll say - that they have a tattoo or tattoos. In one story though, I used the woman's tattoos as an outward expression of the changes to her mind.

I don't usually do much when describing locations, but you usually don't have to. Everybody can draw a picture of a "ranch style" or "Plantation style"house, so that's enough of a description. In one of my last stories, I did spend some time describing the inside and outside of a "aheep wagon" because I thought there would be several readers who'd never seen one. Without that detailed description, much of the story wouldn't have made sense to those people.

I've never liked very detailed descriptions of people or places. I think if an author does that, he'd telling the reader what to "see" instead of letting the reader put him or herself into the story by making their own pictures.

 

[Voyeurkenneth]

What an interesting question.

I prefer minimal descriptions, just enough to put an image in my head. What I don’t prefer, typically, is the insertion of direction or orientation in the middle of the scene, after I’ve already imagined a space:

“He turned to his left, rushed down the right side of the room to chase her”

^It’s clear the author has it envisioned the space in their head, but it’s unnecessary to the reader.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

As a reader, do you care what, say, a house the characters are in looks like? What color the walls or or the style of furniture? Does it help immerse you in the story? Or are you more interested in the actual events taking place in the house? What the characters are doing/ saying?

Both.

Immersion is such a powerful tool to keep the reader engaged. If the reader feels that they are sitting at the very next table watching our characters having lunch in the diner booth, they are engaged - the fly on the wall so to speak. Description does that. We don't need a full description of the server - In fact we might not even need any description for her - but the main characters and their immediate supporting cast should be described. For me, there is nothing more annoying than putting a face to a name that is not described, and then two scenes/chapters later, we get a brief description and it's radically different than what we were forced to imagine. Now it can be difficult to describe everyone in detail right away when they are introduced, but the reader needs something to go on, something brief, the blonde girl with the braids, the heavy guy with the neck beard, etc.

Do we really need to know the color of the walls in the room? That depends. It's your scene and you;re the one who knows the mood that you're trying to get across. If you're trying to hint that this character might be satan in disguise, perhaps his office is dimly lit and done in shades of opal and crimson. Who knows? If it's just a generic office, then we probably don't care that it's done up in eggshell and apricot, so don't bother. The main thing for me is that if the scene is raining, I want the reader to feel a sense of damp. If the scene is in a small room with several people, I want the reader to feel cramped. That is immersion.

Now, what is happening in the story? This is plot. Plot should have motive. Now, if you're writing a 5k word vignette, you probably have two horny people hooking up and engaging in the category kink. We're not too worried about the plot, but a little motive can really make your story engage the reader's brain. Why did she pull him around the corner to suck his dick? Ahh, because the security camera can't see around the corner, I get it (or maybe because the security camera *IS* around the corner and she wants to blackmail him, hehee ). Characters do things for reasons (motives) and if the only reasons that they are horny, there's nothing wrong with that, but it won't make your story any more interesting than the other million out there that also employ two horny characters getting it on for the sake of it. Why is motive important? It engages the reader's brain. Readers should do some work in reading the story, but that work should not be trying to immerse themselves. The writer should be doing that work. The type of work that the writer should be getting the reader to do is the picking up of clues, the hints of foreshadowing, and following the motives to put together how the characters got where they are and where it might go from there. Now there are no hard rules that must be followed. In fact you want to bend and break a rule \here and there so that you stay original and don't cut a cookie from the pattern, but this is generally the kind of engagement that works best.

You state that you have 22k words so far, so at that length there must be some plot to follow. Obviously, I haven't read the piece but I would make sure that your events aren't a bunch of straight exposition. Use your descriptions and dialogue to immerse the reader and glean the motives. If your narrative is literally 'he did this, she did that' you might have a problem.

 

[StillStunned]

^It’s clear the author has it envisioned the space in their head, but it’s unnecessary to the reader.

Sometimes when an author goes overboard with their descriptions, I get the feeling they've fallen in love with their world or their characters, to the point where talking about them is more important than telling the story.

(Yes, Robert Jordan, I'm talking about you.)

 

[pink_silk_glove]

There are those that think it's best to provide as little descriptions of the characters as possible to give the reader more latitude in how they picture the characters. As a reader, I want some physical description of the character.

Agree. You gotta give me something. "Oh, I just like to let the reader put their own favorite fantasy character into it," is nothing more than a stone's throw from "Oh, I just like to let the reader write the whole thing himself."

 

[Lifestyle66]

There are some times when I use a worry approach. In my last story, and the current pending revision, I'm using wordy descriptions of their monogamous, missionary sex as a means of conveying "boring".

 

[Djmac1031]

If your narrative is literally 'he did this, she did that' you might have a problem.

it's not literally that. I think it was more just realizing the minimal approach to certain scenes. There were some I knew I'd come back and flesh out, and I did.

The one scene in particular that got me on this train of thought was a scene where a character shows up at another characters house.

I had a lot of dialog and story to get to, trying to move the plot along. So I didn't spend any real time dwelling on the size of the house or the neighborhood or whatever.

Then there were two characters that are introduced and again, I didn't spend a ton of time describing them in huge detail. I did drop little descriptions as the conversation scene progresses; they're both blonde, they look the same but aren't sisters, they have freckles, they're petite etc. Those things get scattered in as the scene plays out.

Didn't describe clothing at all, as it wasn't really relevant.

Reviewing the story, I don't think it's DEVOID of any descriptions at all. But it's definitely a minimalist approach.

 

[Bamagan]

So I'm putting the final edit on what has become my longest story to date, just over 22K words.

I know to some of you that's nothing of course. But here's what I'm discovering as I review it:

I spent a lot of words telling the actual story. This character did that, etc. I spent far less words describing people or scenes. A character walks into a room. No really depth on what that character looks like, what they're wearing, or what the room looks like.

Not that there's no colorful descriptions at all. It's just at a minium.

I'm adding a few flourishes here and there but at this point I'm more interested in simply finishing the thing and making sure the story works logically, flows well, and hopefully is entertaining.

I've never been one to write long passages dedicated to descriptive text anyway I suppose. I've often been told my style is "simplistic," and I don't really take that as a negative. I tend to tell just enough to set the scene and hopefully readers fill in the blanks.

Still, I sometimes wish I had a little more skill at that kinda thing, to paint a more vivid image in a readers head.

I suppose I'm curious how some of you feel about it. As a reader, do you care what, say, a house the characters are in looks like? What color the walls or or the style of furniture? Does it help immerse you in the story? Or are you more interested in the actual events taking place in the house? What the characters are doing/ saying?

Obviously I'm sure there will be varying opinions on this. Not looking for any definitive answers or anything, just musing out loud.

I think my story is pretty solid, despite my minimalist approach to scene / character descriptions.

I suppose it'll be up to readers after that.

I don't think detailed descriptions of settings and props add very much to erotica, except perhaps for the stories that are trying to do double-duty as period pieces or world-building exercises. Sometimes that's interesting, and sometimes it's just filler or packing peanuts for the sexy parts. For me, it's enough to know that they're in a house and sitting on a couch or whatever, and details about the upholstery and wallpaper choices are not particularly welcome.
Describing the characters is more important, I think, and vital for certain readers' engagement. I personally favor 'fuzzy' descriptions like 'tall' or 'slender' or 'busty' as opposed to numerical height and weight and bra size parameters (for an example that gets frequent discussion here). I'm probably a little too vague at times, or dole out details too slowly.

 

[Djmac1031]

I once read a quote: "The landscape was as boring as a long descriptive paragraph." If people are going to skip it anyway, I'm not going to write it.

I suppose for me, it depends on the story. Two characters walk into a house. Is the size / shape / color of the house relevant? Depends. If it's a ghost story, or murder mystery, probably. If they're just there to pick up something or meet someone for a conversation, probably not. The person they're meeting and the conversation is what's important. So why waste time describing the house?

 

[Djmac1031]

I don't think detailed descriptions of settings and props add very much to erotica, except perhaps for the stories that are trying to do double-duty as period pieces or world-building exercises.

Generally I agree. Although I did write a Voyeur story called Apartment 409 in which the layout of the apartment itself was important because it was conducive to voyeurism involved.

 

[StillStunned]

I suppose for me, it depends on the story. Two characters walk into a house. Is the size / shape / color of the house relevant? Depends. If it's a ghost story, or murder mystery, probably. If they're just there to pick up something or meet someone for a conversation, probably not. The person they're meeting abd the conversation is what's important. So why waste time describing the house?

I'll describe the important features, or at least impressions. A castle might loom, but in a Gothic story it's going to be set on a hill in the midst of a dank forest, and it's going to have turrets and a drawbridge.

In the description of the Imperial Palace in my series The Rivals I gave enough detail to create the impression of vast wealth and power: ancient artifacts, and decorations from every part of the Empire. Mostly because no-one is going to walk into an Imperial Palace and *not* be impressed by their surroundings.

 

[SimonDoom]

My view: details are necessary to the extent they serve the needs of a particular story, and no more so.

It's always hard to give advice about a story you haven't read, so I read your story Brenda's Nude Night Out. And I see what you mean. You don't go into a lot of detail about clothing or setting. Brenda visits the swingers' club, the Purple Orchid, and you don't describe it in much detail. One thing you DID mention about it is that Brenda noticed that it was surprisingly clean. That's an important little detail--more important than going on for a paragraph to describe the wall coverings and furnishings. Those things the reader can fill in with their imagination. The cleanliness detail is important because it provides a plausible explanation of why Brenda might feel more comfortable in this completely new and strange setting than she otherwise might.

I think the minimal description of setting in this story is perfectly OK. I think you handle the narrative nicely. You jump right into Brenda's perspective and don't burden us with exposition. A few paragraphs in you offer a very brief explanation of what she's doing and why. You keep the narrative in your story focused on Brenda's perspective and experience, and on her encounters with other people. That makes perfect sense to me, given that this is a first-time experience.

So if your style from this story (which has a nice score of 4.66 and 26 favorites, by the way) is any indication, I'd say keep doing what you are doing and don't feel compelled to embellish your story with details in a way that isn't your style. As an exercise, you could try writing a story that way to see how you feel about it.

 

[Taylor_Knight]

22K words. You should feel very good about that. I've written two novels so far but my longest story on here is around 7K.

I've always found this a fascinating topic and, like you, don't spend too much time with description. As a rule, I never (almost) describe my main character's physical attributes; I like readers to envision them for themselves. I do describe the other characters as they're almost always (almost) seen through the eyes of my main character.

I go by feel a lot. It's kind of how I live my life, both inside my stories and out of them.

 

[SimonDoom]

There's no right answer to this, and if you read enough you'll see there's an infinite number of ways to handle the issue. I enjoy Henry James' novels. You can get through a 500-page James novel having no idea what the characters look like. It can be true with erotic fiction, too. It's been a while but I don't recall that we ever get a clear description of what O looks like in Story of O.

 

[StillStunned]

It's been a while but I don't recall that we ever get a clear description of what O looks like in Story of O.

I always pictured her as roundish.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I had a lot of dialog and story to get to, trying to move the plot along. So I didn't spend any real time dwelling on the size of the house or the neighborhood or whatever.

And that's the other factor in the equation of course. Pace matters. There are times in a story where it's okay to stop and describe everything. Then there are other times where stuff has to happen and too much description will bog down the pace. How can you tell these spots? Go by feel. Practice. A good beta reader can be a huge help here.

 

[Djmac1031]

I always pictured her as roundish.

your logic is sound, if circular.

 

[SimonDoom]

I always pictured her as roundish.

Well defined on the edge, but a bit hollow inside.

 

[Bamagan]

Well defined on the edge, but a bit hollow inside.

But when properly dilated, one's whole face can fit inside.

 

[StillStunned]

But when properly dilated, one's whole face can fit inside.

Aha, is that what they mean by "giving head"?