Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29638
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

There are several adequate answers already provided. However, you are presupposing that their is a way of writing that pleases every reader.

There is not.

I, generally speaking, do not appreciate descriptions. In the modern era, triggers are far more effective. If you write "The rolling green hills beyond the valley . . ." my brain will retrieve a pre-stored image of rolling green hills from experience or TV. Whatever descriptions you write beyond I will ignore, and switch reading mode from 'reading' to 'scanning'. But that's just my preference. I am not your target reader.

In basic discussion there is also the misguided notion that a novel should be written in a consistent style.

It doesn't have to be.

Descriptive passages slow pacing. Should a novel be like the monotonous banging of house music, or do you prefer the slow-slow-quick-quick-slow of a foxtrot?

All the disciplines of writing band together to create the unwritten effects of story-telling, and expansion of 'show don't tell'.

If, for example, we are in third-person. In describing a woman who has entered a scene, the POV character's thoughts become particularly wordy, purple, and descriptive - what are we to make of this? Does this provide a similar effect to string section firing up in a movie. And in a later scene we explore the child's thoughts pertaining to the same woman, what language, what style should the narrative adopt in the description?

Original score: 1