Precision and Focus

When we talk about precision, we are usually talking about one of two things, the more common one being focus. Obviously, there are any number of ways to describe a scene, but some are better suited for a story than others. For example:

“The wall over there.”

“The wooden wall with the corpse suspended from it by razor wire.”

“The body hung from a beautifully crafted wall, constructed by my father’s mother’s brother from white ash inlaid with ironwood.”

The first example is imprecise. It does not tell us much about the wall, other than its general location, though we don’t know much about that either. If this wall were important for some reason, we would have no way of knowing this, if this was all that the author used in his description. The second and third examples are both more “precise” descriptions, but differ in their focus. This is in fact, where many pieces of description fall flat, because they focus on objects and actions which are not central to the action or motivations of the characters in the story.

Description

This is a touchy subject for writers to address, for any number of good and bad reasons. I myself tend to avoid heavy description in my writing, first because I find it boring to read, and second, because I am not very good at it. However, practice makes the heart grow fonder (or something like that) and I figure it won’t do to simply ignore it.

There are many writing “camps” which approach the question of description in different ways. I find that, in any group of writers, the best way to draw the lines of battle is to mention Tolkien’s use of description. In general, you will find that either people love Tolkien’s use of descriptive language (though if they are smart, they will generally through the term “world building” in there, despite the fact they are only loosely related) or they will loathe it, and describe how numerous times they skipped whole chapters of boring, unnecessary prose.