If there’s one failing to my writing it’s probably a lack of description. This isn’t to say that I don’t include any description. I do. But when it comes to including long, laborious passages about the moss-covered flagstones or the texture of the fabric in a character’s clothes, I tend to ignore it and move on.
For me, the story is the thing. So I prefer to write about the action and let the reader fill in the details with his/her imagination.
Personally, I blame this tendency on the game developer Infocom.
Back in the 1980s, when personal computers were little more than suped-up pocket calculators, the great game designers at Infocom put out a series of video games based on the Great Underground Empire known as Zork. Go ahead, Google it. I’ll wait. … You’re back? Okay.
Unlike the early arcade games and Atari console offerings, Zork was a text adventure. No pictures, just words. And the descriptions in the game were utilitarian, to say the least. If the game said the room included a table, you’d better believe there’s something on the table. A lamp? You’d better take it. Chances are you’ll need it later.
Here’s the opening description from Zork I:
West of House
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.
Pretty simple, right? There’s a good reason for that. You see, back in the day, we didn’t have gigabytes of data storage. In fact, your average 2-sided floppy disk held less than 1 MB of data, so every bit (byte) counted. As a result — and this is pure conjecture by me — the Infocom crew didn’t put a lot of erroneous descriptions into their story because they didn’t have room.
So, back to writing and why I avoid descriptions. I don’t always do it purposefully. In fact, I admire writers who can build worlds and make me feel like I’m there. I love the way Hemingway uses the senses when he describes eating a piece of fruit, or the way Dickens can transport me to London, England. I wish I could do more of that.
But when I write, I am telling a story. I want to capture my readers as quickly as possible, to drag them along at a break-neck pace on a thrilling adventure. I don’t want to slow down and describe a sunset, because I don’t want to give them time to pause and put down the book. I want them with me for the ride, hopping from scene to scene like a child skipping through a game of hopscotch.
To do this, I write a lot of dialogue and keep the description to a minimum. And if there is a lamp on the table, you can bet one of my characters is going to need it. Because sooner or later, they’ll discover the awful truth:
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
> Light lamp.
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