Description in Fiction

First, I'd like to say "hello" to my new followers. (I'm just one shy of 50 now!) I assume you found me through the blogfest. I haven't had a chance to read everyone's yet, but I hope to look at some more character interviews tonight. It was fun interviewing Anne and Clarice, and I learned something about them. I'll have to try that with some of my other characters.

I've taken a break from the story I'm writing about Anne and Clarice to reread Across Two Universes, as I feel it's sat long enough for me to look at it with fresh eyes. There are things I want to tweak here and there, but I don't feel I have to rewrite the whole darn thing, so I suppose that's progress. We'll see what the next set of readers think. One thing I have noticed, however, is that it could use more description; in fact, it seems more vivid to me in the places there is description. I never feel comfortable including description, so I have to go back over a rough draft and weave it in. Hopefully I can do this here without increasing the word count too much.

How do you feel about description when you're reading a book? I don't like huge tracts of it, but it does help bring the world to life, especially if you appeal to several senses. It seems that some of the subgenres I read, like paranormals or urban fantasy, tend to be sparse on describing the setting and focus more on action. When there is description, it's most likely to be involving a character. Have you noticed any other trends in description?