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Monday, November 23, 2009

Description: Essential or Overdone?

I've been shying away from books recently that include lots of descriptive passages. Why? I guess I have been spoiling myself with books that have a little more action. I'm still in the middle of Up Island, and when I picked it up last night I delved right into six or more pages of pure description -- nothing else. I'm telling you, those were some of the hardest pages to get through. It would have been better had the description served a huge purpose, but really, it didn't and I don't think it will have a large impact on the next chapter in the book.


2 comments:

Tahlia said...

Wow. 6 pages. How did it get published? You don't need to do too much study about writing these days to find out that pages and pages of description is a 'no, no'.
I always make sure that it doesn't slow down the aciton.

If you're interested you can have a look at ch1 of my YA fantasy novel, 'Lethal Inheritance’. http://publishersearch.wordpress.com/lethal-inheritance/

Willow said...

I can't take much description either--weave it into the story or dump it, say I.