When writing a novel, the plot, character development, and background are essential to your book. Writing the perfect setting can set the stage for a fantastic story or can make your story feel flat. As an avid reader, I enjoy a good setting as much as the next reader, but what can be a problem is when an author over-describes a scene. A scene that should have just been captivating becomes overdone. This is when I start skipping over parts and will miss some of the story because it becomes too dull to read.

The old saying is always true when writing a scene: “Less is more.” As a reader, I want to picture a captivating place within my mind, but to the degree that I still need to fill in the blanks by myself. When a writer writes an overly descriptive scene, ensuring every detail is described makes the story just plain dull. I want to know what the author wants me to see, but I also want to form my own ideas of what is happening. It is essential as an author that you know your audience.

Authors sometimes over enthusiastically describe scenes until you lose sight of what is happening during the scene. The setting takes over the whole story, and at the end of the day, you have one long story describing a scene, and the rest of the novel gets lost in all the descriptions. I want to read a book and form a story within my head. This is what makes reading enjoyable, playing out the scene inside your head.

In school, if we had an assigned book to read and the author over-described the scene, my teacher would skip over these parts. In her opinion, it was not even worth reading as it had no significance to the story. As an author, it is essential that you don’t write a book where a reader can skip the words or scenes because it is irrelevant to the story. Every word in a book should count. It is not the number of pages you write but the words worth reading.

The most enjoyable books I have read were the ones where the main character wasn’t even fully described. I enjoyed these books especially because not only could I see myself in the character but I could also live out the scenes through them. If there is a reason to describe a scene or a character with much detail, ensure that you make each word count. At the end of the day, you don’t want to bore your readers but to enthrall them.

The background is integral to a novel, but keeping it real is more important. Having the reader fill in the blanks makes for a more exciting story. Next time you consider writing a scene or a character with too much description, remember, at the end of the day, as a reader, I want a story, not an overly described scenario.