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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36690
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36690
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

@Amadeus and @DPT both provide great answers. I will add one consideration to their answers, an aspect @DPT mentions, but doesn't elaborate on.

It's not just _how much_ description you have, how many senses are engaged, how many adjectives are used. Ultimately, **your description needs to paint one concise picture.** Your descriptors should employ different senses (including time, as @DPT points out), but all should point in the same direction.

@DPT gives an example of pain/fear, and the intrusion of singing birds. The birds are out of place, they do not belong. Contrast this with your example: pressing bodies, taste of coffee, rubber heels - it doesn't coalesce into one clear image. It's confusing.

I am almost inclined to say that @Amadeus's "Rule of Three" is an effect rather than a cause: a clear concise image can usually be painted well with three evocative sensory references. Like three points defining a plane: two are not enough, with four you're getting redundant. (Then again, maybe our brains are wired so that it's three images that draw the image for us.)

That said, sometimes the picture is already sufficiently clear, and more than one point of sensory information would just slow the scene down. In the middle of a pitched battle, for instance, one doesn't explore all one's senses. Other times, you can convey the fact that the character is overwhelmed, by providing more sensory information. (Overwhelmed by positive emotions is possible too - consider an exile returning home.) Or you can use three descriptors to draw a picture, and then a fourth to break it: for example, a peaceful pastoral landscape, and a gibbet.

Original score: 3