How do you like your description? Light? A lot? I have to confess this is one of the hardest things for me. I don’t like to read a lot of description–just enough to get the jest of what I need. Too much to me slows the pacing and I had an editor who stressed how important pacing was to a story. I agree with her. I feel, like other aspects of a story, description is a balancing act. Too much may cause a reader to put the book down because the story is too slow. Too little may make the reader feel cheated of the rich texture she wants in a book. How do you feel about description and pacing?
I will admit, though, there are some books where the setting is more important to the story than others. In order to get a good feel of the setting you need description (more than I usually do). In Heart of the Amazon, the jungle is like a character in the book. I used more description in that story.
I know there are some readers who want to know exactly how a character looks to the author. I don’t. I want a little description, then the rest I want to leave to my imagination. How do you like a description of a character? Detailed? Nothing at all? Or somewhere in between?
