I've been reading a lot and thinking about writing styles and structures. I realize when I am reading a book I tend to gloss over descriptions of expansive landscapes and general surroundings. I don't like unnecessary embellishments for one, but also, I am the type of reader who designs a lot of the surrounding myself, and at times the authors description does not coinside with my own and I have to adjust or ignore the text. Disorienting.
When I write, I don't tend to describe the surrounds much if at all. I give greater objects in a room their place, but only if there is reason to explain their existence to the reader. Reading Garth Nix books, I started to see this lack of detail as a flaw in some ways. While reading his generous descriptions on the landscape of both the Old Kingdom and Ancelstierre as the characters treked through them, I would lose focus, get bored, reread the passages to try to understand and picture what was described but ultimately found I couldn't be bothered.
That I can't write in such detail may be a flaw I will need to overcome if I want to write books, because readers need a guide, but lengthy passages that only reveal the setting have never appealed to me before. I could see myself getting caught up in the wordiness of a blade of grass passing through the air, freshly clipped from an old fashioned reel mower, but it would be insubstantial to a greater story and would therefore not be something that would come to mind as a writing essential amongst the main story.
Perhaps Nix writes in those details in later drafts, as the story is already established and in need of those fleshing out moments, but even then, I don't know if I would be wasting page space for bits that end up being of no real importance.
Not to say Garth Nix is guilty of over wordy lengths of description. He really isn't in comparison to some I have read in the past, but because I have been simultaneously writing my own story while reading his, it has become natural to look at his work as a guideline for what is moderately successful.
When I write, I don't tend to describe the surrounds much if at all. I give greater objects in a room their place, but only if there is reason to explain their existence to the reader. Reading Garth Nix books, I started to see this lack of detail as a flaw in some ways. While reading his generous descriptions on the landscape of both the Old Kingdom and Ancelstierre as the characters treked through them, I would lose focus, get bored, reread the passages to try to understand and picture what was described but ultimately found I couldn't be bothered.
That I can't write in such detail may be a flaw I will need to overcome if I want to write books, because readers need a guide, but lengthy passages that only reveal the setting have never appealed to me before. I could see myself getting caught up in the wordiness of a blade of grass passing through the air, freshly clipped from an old fashioned reel mower, but it would be insubstantial to a greater story and would therefore not be something that would come to mind as a writing essential amongst the main story.
Perhaps Nix writes in those details in later drafts, as the story is already established and in need of those fleshing out moments, but even then, I don't know if I would be wasting page space for bits that end up being of no real importance.
Not to say Garth Nix is guilty of over wordy lengths of description. He really isn't in comparison to some I have read in the past, but because I have been simultaneously writing my own story while reading his, it has become natural to look at his work as a guideline for what is moderately successful.
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