Just for something different I decided to start a SF novel last week, this time without much more than the central concept and ideas for the two main characters. This is quite a departure for me as I usually plot things out well in advance and also spend a lot of time on backstory. The thing I noticed was that what I was writing was quite spare on description. This is probably partly because with this off-the-cuff style I was more focused on dialogue and character, but also because I think I tend to be less focused on description generally when I write SF.
This really got me thinking. So does that mean that I use too much description for my fantasy work? How much description is the right amount? Does my SF need to be shown only on Black & White TVs?:)
There are a couple of competing theories here. One is that you should deliberately use less description and let the reader fill in the blanks. The other is that you should attempt to really draw things out for the reader, make immersion in the world and the scenery a key feature for the story - like how Tolkien used his descriptions of the scenery as a major element of the experience of LoR, even to the extent some argue it is a character in its own right.
I guess as I inevitably go back to redraft these first chapters I will have to decide whether I need to put more description in to match the usual balance of my style, or whether I stick to the purity of the storytelling voice.
How do people decide how much description to use? I don't think I have really ever made a conscious choice about this until now. It is usually just part of what arrives when I imagine the scenes.
I do remember one comment from a reader of my mixed-genre novel Warriors of the Blessed Realms. They said that the fantasy worlds seemed more real than the contemporary sections (set in Brisbane). Maybe I have to work harder to envisage a completely new world? At the time I did not see any problem with this - after all the fantasy world was more real to me than this one:)
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