Descriptions can be lethal to your scene:
Descriptions are important to visualize the setting and get the reader’s senses involved. Either new writers do not describe the setting, or the setting is confusing or the description is inappropriate.
Fiction is movement and descriptions stop it unless the description is part of the tension and the movement.
Therefore, descriptions are only good in small amount, like pieces of a puzzle that you work slowly into your story.
A description is a pause.
You do not want to pause the action and the suspense too much or too often.
You cannot pause to describe a place or the character’s feelings and thoughts. Make it part of the action. Poetic tirades only stall the movement of the story and adds static to it.
The writer needs to show a lot by the action and tell a little, actually describe as little as possible or sporadically.
Consider this:
What slows down your story to what speeds it up:
Descriptions are important to visualize the setting and get the reader’s senses involved. Either new writers do not describe the setting, or the setting is confusing or the description is inappropriate.
Fiction is movement and descriptions stop it unless the description is part of the tension and the movement.
Therefore, descriptions are only good in small amount, like pieces of a puzzle that you work slowly into your story.
A description is a pause.
You do not want to pause the action and the suspense too much or too often.
You cannot pause to describe a place or the character’s feelings and thoughts. Make it part of the action. Poetic tirades only stall the movement of the story and adds static to it.
The writer needs to show a lot by the action and tell a little, actually describe as little as possible or sporadically.
Consider this:
What slows down your story to what speeds it up: