#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.02.04 — How much detail do you use to describe your settings?
Here's the thing. I love, Love, LOVE Charles Dickens. Sometimes I emulate his florid writing style, but I know better; I fix all fluffy florid flowery fabulosity during revision.
My answer here is that I detail the setting by having the POV interact with it. At first, when moving into a scene, it's what catches the POV's interest, not necessarily a description at all. It might even miss something a reader might consider germane, like other character's clothes or lack thereof. Intentional, of course, since I'm an author who is manipulating the reader's experience to say something out the characters society and therefore through contrast that of the reader's. What's not described (and later discovered by the reader) is a statement all of its own. From thence forward, it's what happens and the physicality of dealing with the setting and its occupants and nothing more, even if there's an irrelevant elephant in the room. If the POV doesn't notice it, or wouldn't care? No description. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. Bupkis. The following two excerpts demonstrate what I do from a passage I published in yesterday's word weavers (https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/116011495876300289):
I brought up my wings, tapping joints on the wood ceiling, blocking the glaring light of the sprite lantern hung in the center of the room, creating an ever smaller shaded space we alone occupied; it didn't matter he was bigger than me.
We know the POV has wings, but she taps them (sound) against a wood ceiling (modifies sound adds an image of planking, and the feel of wood by extension). Blocks a lamp. It's bright. Throws shade. (Sight) It's a room. He's bigger than her, and she's slowly encircling him.
My splayed feathers filtered the dimness to blue, making his darkening bruises stand out. Lines of scabs on his scraped knees resembled distant barbed wire. Sweat. I remembered it was salty. My nose twitched. I'd liked his male scent—might have recognized him by it, but this? Acidic. Acrid. Mixed with someone else's stink.
Blue feathers splayed out (a visual). They cast blue light. (Implied translucency) This illuminate the man's wounds. (A visual description of only what matters) Sweat: first taste then smell describes the couple's past explicitly. Then there's the shadow-appearance (via his smell) of someone else who's sweat is mixed in. Is this jealousy implied by the word stink?
I do my best to translate any inadvertent tracts of pure description into interaction with the setting, and if there are characters, they become part of the setting. Works a lot better, and keeps the reader where the action is.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#BoostingIsSharing
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
