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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25729
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I agree with Standback, but his answer is not generally true.

In this time and age, most readers of Fantasy and Science Fiction have seen so many Science Fiction and Fantasy movies that their minds are full of images of spaceships and dragons. You can expect the average person to be just as familiar with the inside of a spaceship or the physique of a dragon, as with the Eiffel Tower. And just as you do not have to describe the Eiffel Tower in a novel but can simply refer to it by name, because of this **[common knowledge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonsense_knowledge_(artificial_intelligence))** about Science Fiction and Fantasy worlds that your readers bring to your books, you no longer have to describe the common elements of fantastic stories, either.

You can write "dragon", just as you write "dog", and you can write "spaceship", just as you write "car". Only if you want your readers to think of a particular type of dragon, dog, spaceship, or car, do you need to go into more detail.

* * *

I have even argued multiple times before, that you should not stifle the imagination of your readers by prescribing how they should imagine the elements of your tale. Allow them to imagine your horrors in just the way they find most horrible, allow them to **project themselves** into your narrative, and you will satisfy them the most.

Keep descriptions to a bare minimum. I skip them, anyway.

Original score: 4