: Re: How much detail is too much? I've read a few amateur stories online and sometimes the author will include so much detail that the reader gets a little bored or distracted and forgets what

@Cofer669

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Daniel's answer is good, but I have an additional "yardstick" which may be helpful:

Part of art, of any art form, is inviting the audience to contribute.

It's even been said this is what makes it art: A return contribution is invited. You supply something yourself as an audience or reader, rather than just having the words flow in at you without you yourself participating.

If you describe every tiny detail to such a degree that nothing is left to the imagination, you wind up with a court deposition, not a story. There's not going to be a great deal of interest, because the reader will not be invited to participate and use his imagination to fill in gaps.

If you consider carefully, you'll likely find that any story which really "pulled you in" was one in which you were actively participating in imagining the details and filling in "how it would have been," rather than one in which you were slavishly noting every last exhaustive detail directly from the author's description.

Other things besides physical descriptions can be left to the imagination too, of course. You need to provide enough detail to spur your reader's imagination to fill in the rest.

Something which goes along with this:

Don't use description to make your reader's imagination wrong.

If you introduce a character and keep him doing things and saying things for several chapters before you happen to mention that he has very dark skin and pale blonde hair, you are very likely to throw your reader out of the story. She will have come up with her own mental picture of how this character looks by then, and the description, coming so late, will make her feel that she "got it wrong." Really, the author is at fault for such a jolt.

Physical descriptions are a good thing to include, just don't stop the flow of the story to include them. Don't stop the action. It's not vital that your readers envision every detail just exactly the same way you do. Include enough that they get a colorful (vivid, evocative) picture of the events you depict—fully fleshed out by their own imagination, which you've coaxed into action with your masterful use of descriptive words.

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