Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

80%
+6 −0
Q&A Is it a good idea to leave minor world details to the reader's imagination?

Yes. In fact, it's inevitable that you'll have to leave some details up to your reader's imagination; describing every little detail takes up a lot of space on the page and you can only fit so many...

posted 5y ago by Anna A. Fitzgerald‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T12:58:46Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48069
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Anna A. Fitzgerald‭ · 2019-12-08T12:58:46Z (about 5 years ago)
Yes. In fact, it's inevitable that you'll have to leave some details up to your reader's imagination; describing every little detail takes up a lot of space on the page and you can only fit so many pages in a book. Your job is to provide the reader with the most pertinent visuals so they can form the rest of the picture in their mind's eye.

That said, if you're comparing X to Y and I have no idea what Y looks like, I'm going to have a difficult time completing the picture. Consider:

> Her beautiful nose looks just like GAIJAMU flowers.

I don't know of any nose-shaped flowers so now I'm imagining a lady with a sunflower for a nose. Unless that's the effect you were going for, you either need to describe what qualities a gaijamu flower and the woman's nose have in common, or find a better description.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-09-19T15:20:45Z (over 5 years ago)
Original score: 14