As a teen, I read books with insane amounts of description - those were the kind I seemed to be drawn to - but still, I skipped a large chunk of them. Yeah, yeah, I knew the way those leaves he was hiding behind would move in the breeze, blah, blah, blah.
As a young adult, majoring in Creative Writing, I was content to discover that sparse writing was the thing.
Now, as an adult trying to finish my book, I see the value of a well-placed, well-concocted description.
I mean, to this day, one whiff of a lemon transports me back to playing hide and seek in July, 1983, hiding behind my grandfather's lemon tree. The whole scene unfolds with that smell. I can tell you how those leaves moved as I hid, how I stayed still as my cousin came towards the tree, how I just ignored her and our game and just continued to inhale that smell, how she joined me, forgetting our game too.
That lemon scent is so pivotal to the whole scene, I now see.
I have become an Old Writer. Uh oh.
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NaNoWriMoing to finish a WIP.
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Read about a book a day in September. Some were absolutely amazing (Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy) and some were very formulaic.
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I forgot to mention one of my favorite books of this year - which I read in the summer:
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
The thing I liked the most about the book: the way the guys talked. I have a 16 year old son and I've never read the way real boys really really talk until I read this. Spot on.
I had a friend who just read Frankie and said she really liked it. It's on my kindle.
And endless description....I kinda died a little when a student just told me they're doing they're book report on Flowers in the Attic! LOL Talk some purple prose!
I read Frankie, and yes, the dialogue was near perfect. And since I go to high school, I KNOW that that's how everyone talks.
Description is fine so long as it's told well, so I don't think it will be a problem- unless you have like PAGES upon PAGES of it :)
I used to get bored reading too much description or too many metaphors. But after reading The Grapes of Wrath, I figured out that it wasn't too much description; it was that I wasn't reading a good book.
I listened to The Secret Life of Bees on tape...yes, old cassette tapes, or was it CDs?
Anyway, the words practically had me moaning over their beauty.
Your lemon tree story took me back with you. :)
Keep up the good work!
Krista and Rida, Frankie is the type of book I call a SIWIW: something I wish I'd written.
Anita: Thanks and I love the Secret Life of Bees. It made me cry while reading which is the only way I like to cry. :)