A friend of mine recently asked me to proofread his new novel. I have found the task comes with great responsibility, not just to my friend, but to the work itself. It's not just about spelling and grammar, it is also about what is best for the story and looking at something from the point of view of the reader. I do know, of course, that most writers think about the reader as well, but sometimes things get overlooked and writers' confidence or often the lack of it also comes into play.

I have to admit my friend is a very talented writer, the story is great, the characters are believable, the pace of the story is perfect and his writing style is brilliant, but in the process of proofreading the story, I found myself having to add in a lot more description and through this process, I got the feeling he was holding something back and not writing to his full potential. I nervously asked him about the reason for this to which he replied he was worried that his young readers might get bored if there was too much description in the story. I explained to my friend that actually the opposite is true; not enough description will bore readers more than too much and that this is where the 'art' of writing comes in, otherwise everyone would be doing it and making a success out of writing.

I believe that when writing a novel, you have to take readers into the world you want to create, the world you want your readers to escape to and you have to give them plenty to visualise. Imagine Gone With The Wind with not a lot of description, Harry Potter, or Alice In Wonderland with not a lot of description. These books and, of course, millions of others would not make it without plenty of description, so that we know where we are, what we are seeing, hearing, and what the characters are feeling and thinking.

Another angle you can look at is that the 'happening' in the story is the 'plant' and descriptions are the 'sunlight' that feed the plant and you have to keep the plant in sunlight in order for the 'plant' (the happening) to grow. If you don't give your readers something to visualise, they could lose interest in the story and stop reading the book.

Don't be afraid to let go when you write, don't hold anything back, nothing bad is going to happen. If anything, your writing will be better and your confidence will grow when you take yourself out of your comfort zone when you write. Ensure that you expand your sentences and paragraphs. Of course, some things have to be left to the imagination, but you can do that naturally when you write. If you are a writer that has problems writing descriptive text, when you read a book, take note of how the author has written descriptively, notice when they have expanded on something and when they have not. You will see that there are times when the author wants you to use your imagination and other times they want you to 'see' exactly what the character sees.

As a writer, you are a communicator, so you must communicate your passion and excitement to the reader.