Viewpoint When is it too much detail?

[Phantom Thief of Hearts]

I've been watching a lot of book reviews on youtube during lockdown and I've noticed that in a lot of them when a writer goes too long with describing something in the story it's too much and it would lose the reader's interest and bore them. So I ask this question to all of you... When is it too much detail for a post?

I'll be interested in seeing your different view points on the subject whether it be for professional writing or for an RP post.

 

[NeonFlow]

When people describe say washing the dishes and setting up camp with vivid descriptions in a step by step fashion for a fantasy rp where everyone else is coasting on three or four paragraphs then that person writing a small page that illustrates a internal monologue that searches the depths of said characters soul

Only to put the same detail in explaining how the character answered a question with a demonstration of combat prowess and charming singing with alluring dancing with each step listed so you can practice at home.

Then maybe to much

 

[Phantom Thief of Hearts]

When people describe say washing the dishes and setting up camp with vivid descriptions in a step by step fashion for a fantasy rp where everyone else is coasting on three or four paragraphs then that person writing a small page that illustrates a internal monologue that searches the depths of said characters soul

Only to put the same detail in explaining how the character answered a question with a demonstration of combat prowess and charming singing with alluring dancing with each step listed so you can practice at home.

Then maybe to much

Yeah, the book reviews tend to say that repeating information is common and also similar sentence length makes a book drag on.

 

[Ace Cream]

If a post spend paragraphs upon paragraphs explaining details that I don't care about then it's too detailed for me. I am not an english speaker so long-winded narrative can also get confusing sometimes.

 

[Phantom Thief of Hearts]

If a post spend paragraphs upon paragraphs explaining details that I don't care about then it's too detailed for me. I am not an english speaker so long-winded narrative can also get confusing sometimes.

I feel you. I'm dyslexic so long paragraph post about how characters move their arms makes it more difficult for me to read.

 

[Syntra]

When it's not interesting. Look, I don't care about the exact shade of green of some random leaf, and I doubt a lot of people do. It's also too much when the information you're sharing is redundant. Don't mention five times that your character is angry-- we get it.

As for my own writing style, I always ask myself a few questions.

1) Does it advance the storyline?

2) Does it tell the reader something important/interesting about the character?

3) Can it be used for foreshadowing/pretty imagery?

4) Failing all of that, is it at least funny?

If the answer to all of those questions is no, then I won't include it.

 

[Phantom Thief of Hearts]

When it's not interesting. Look, I don't care about the exact shade of green of some random leaf, and I doubt a lot of people do. It's also too much when the information you're sharing is redundant. Don't mention five times that your character is angry-- we get it.

As for my own writing style, I always ask myself a few questions.

1) Does it advance the storyline?

2) Does it tell the reader something important/interesting about the character?

3) Can it be used for foreshadowing/pretty imagery?

4) Failing all of that, is it at least funny?

If the answer to all of those questions is no, then I won't include it.

I'll keep this in mind for my own work, thank you!

 

[Crayons]

When it's not interesting. Look, I don't care about the exact shade of green of some random leaf, and I doubt a lot of people do. It's also too much when the information you're sharing is redundant. Don't mention five times that your character is angry-- we get it.

As for my own writing style, I always ask myself a few questions.

1) Does it advance the storyline?

2) Does it tell the reader something important/interesting about the character?

3) Can it be used for foreshadowing/pretty imagery?

4) Failing all of that, is it at least funny?

If the answer to all of those questions is no, then I won't include it.

These are all good, but I want to add:

Does the description tell you something you need to know in order to visualise the scene? This doesn't necessarily need to be a long description of every aspect of what the characters would see/sense but it should give the other players/the readers enough to be able to feel like things aren't happening in an empty white room like the Janet dimension.

Does the description add to the atmosphere? You have to create some kind of atmosphere or mood in storytelling. That requires description whether it's briefly saying that there's the first cold winter wind of the season or describing little sounds that evoke an emotional response in the reader (creaky stairs, bird song, etc.)

I don't think description needs to be long to be effective, you just need to pick the right things to describe. That is a skill in itself, which is why descriptions in RP sometimes get over long - the writer doesn't have a grasp yet of what to describe or not. It's actually really hard to tell in your own writing, but I know it when I see it in other people's.

Things not to describe: Any mundane action or unnoticeable thing. Please please not the character's entire daily routine before they even leave the house to meet the other characters. No one cares, literally no one.

 

[Phantom Thief of Hearts]

Things not to describe: Any mundane action or unnoticeable thing. Please please not the character's entire daily routine before they even leave the house to meet the other characters. No one cares, literally no one.

basically don't tell people that the character needed a potty break! Got it!

 

[Crayons]

basically don't tell people that the character needed a potty break! Got it!

That would actually be quite interesting. You hardly ever see characters go to the toilet. I wouldn't mind if someone had their character get up in the middle of an important meeting with "welp, need a crap, back in ten." But yeah.. you don't need to describe the potty break. Although again, could be funny.

 

[Syntra]

These are all good, but I want to add:

Does the description tell you something you need to know in order to visualise the scene? This doesn't necessarily need to be a long description of every aspect of what the characters would see/sense but it should give the other players/the readers enough to be able to feel like things aren't happening in an empty white room like the Janet dimension.

Does the description add to the atmosphere? You have to create some kind of atmosphere or mood in storytelling. That requires description whether it's briefly saying that there's the first cold winter wind of the season or describing little sounds that evoke an emotional response in the reader (creaky stairs, bird song, etc.)

I don't think description needs to be long to be effective, you just need to pick the right things to describe. That is a skill in itself, which is why descriptions in RP sometimes get over long - the writer doesn't have a grasp yet of what to describe or not. It's actually really hard to tell in your own writing, but I know it when I see it in other people's.

Things not to describe: Any mundane action or unnoticeable thing. Please please not the character's entire daily routine before they even leave the house to meet the other characters. No one cares, literally no one.

That's definitely true as well! I always have to remind myself to throw these things in, as I am not a visual writer. I never imagine things in my head as I write, so it's hard for me to do. I tend to go for metaphors/very brief descriptions/focusing on one specific aspect of the scene because it's a) easier, b) it gives the reader some agency. They can imagine the rest of it on their own

 

[Ace Cream]

No one cares, literally no one.

There's one who cares, the writer. We sometimes forget that other than ourself, other people are not as invested in our character/world. So the writer might think that a describing every mundane aspects of a character's daily life or every nook and cranny of a world interesting and help then characterize said character/world, but then other player will skim most of it and just go,

 

[Crayons]

There's one who cares, the writer. We sometimes forget that other than ourself, other people are not as invested in our character/world. So the writer might think that a describing every mundane aspects of a character's daily life or every nook and cranny of a world interesting and help then characterize said character/world, but then other player will skim most of it and just go, View attachment 775931

Well... exactly. You write for someone else to read, or in RP, to respond to. If your post contains stuff that is only of interest to you, keep it in your drafts/imagination and don't post it/include it.

 

[Phantom Thief of Hearts]

Well... exactly. You write for someone else to read, or in RP, to respond to. If your post contains stuff that is only of interest to you, keep it in your drafts/imagination and don't post it/include it.

Lord knows this what what motivated me to leave other RPs in the past.

 

[Hashbrowns]

Too much detail for me is when an author doesn’t advance the story. When I’m reading long chapter books, I tend to skip over some lines because the details aren’t important, or they have repeated several things several times.
I need to work on that last one, especially during rp’s. I usually look for synonyms or I make some fun (or exceedingly dark) imagery, so that I can keep the other person interested.
Another thing that bothers me is when a writer can’t focus on the topic at hand, like if they’re in a battle and suddenly everything is launched into a four page long backstory or the main character become emotional mid-fight scene. I struggle with this too. I have ADHD and it is incredibly hard for me to know which paragraph includes which detail or what to add or what not to add. I usually ask every now and then if I’m doing well, then I edit things according to the responses I get.

 

[Daisie]

I wouldn't mind if someone had their character get up in the middle of an important meeting with "welp, need a crap, back in ten."

That literally happened in one of my RPs, nearly word for word

 

[Crayons]

That literally happened in one of my RPs, nearly word for word

I wish to congratulate the player who did this. XD

 

[Phantom Thief of Hearts]

That literally happened in one of my RPs, nearly word for word

I'm kinda mad that the reactions I could give isn't a "HA HA MADE ME LAUGH!" one... But have a heart!

 

[Phantom Thief of Hearts]

Too much detail for me is when an author doesn’t advance the story. When I’m reading long chapter books, I tend to skip over some lines because the details aren’t important, or they have repeated several things several times.
I need to work on that last one, especially during rp’s. I usually look for synonyms or I make some fun (or exceedingly dark) imagery, so that I can keep the other person interested.
Another thing that bothers me is when a writer can’t focus on the topic at hand, like if they’re in a battle and suddenly everything is launched into a four page long backstory or the main character become emotional mid-fight scene. I struggle with this too. I have ADHD and it is incredibly hard for me to know which paragraph includes which detail or what to add or what not to add. I usually ask every now and then if I’m doing well, then I edit things according to the responses I get.

honestly back in the day I use to just read the last paragraph and call it a day.

 

[Idea]

Allow me to start with the obvious: When it comes to "too much detail", as defined by the reading becoming boring, it's highly dependent on the reader. After all, what is boring with is itself a matter of the person’s tastes and what they are personally willing to slog through, as well as how much their imagination is stimulated by the particular kind of detail they are reading. This is to say, there really isn't a way to guarantee what you write won't be boring or that your level of detail will exactly match what the readers you encounter would specifically want.

Furthermore, there are a couple of very important and relevant distinctions between detail added on a post and detail added on a book:

1. Control- In a book you have full control over the story. In a roleplay, you have to await the input every short bit, potentially tearing down any castle of cards you try to set up. There is a level of uncertainty in roleplay that doesn't exist in books, and while you can certainly mimic the book's model more closely such as by planning with the other player, realistically you can't do this much without the vast majority of people getting extremely bored of that (as someone who loves planning, I learned this the hard way). As such, unlike a book, in roleplay you never really know what is foreshadowing, unless you retcon or railroad things. You can never be entirely sure what details are relevant, or put aside description for when it fits better, because even if that description is relevant then you don't know whether that timing will ever come to exist.

2. Continuity- A book is not segmented into small snippets of scenes separated by potentially days, or weeks. But RPs have posts, or in some cases sessions. This has a big effect regarding both what people expect to read and what people will read. If someone said that 2000 words on a book are too much they'd be laughed out of the room. But if someone suggests they want to make RP posts that big they get told they're writing too much and should go write a book instead. What does this mean? It means that if you want to capture a given feeling, the same scene written in a book is going to be a lot shorter and less detailed than one in an RP, because you can't bank on feelings from a previous part of a scene. It means that a book can get away with low-description and still feel as descriptive by spreading out things more, as it doesn't have to worry about conveying everything in a way that someone else understands the scene just as well. But a roleplay post that does the same can be far more incomplete, not to mention feel empty.



Both the continuity problem and the control problem create for roleplay posts a lot of choices that simply don't translate to books. What choices you make and should make are dependent on your preferences and those of the people you work with, specifically what you value. Do you value more cohesive scenes and a better structured story? Do you value understanding the setting of the scene to situate your mental image of the characters and their actions? How about having the characters say what you want them to say without taking the risk of the conversation veering into an entirely different direction that prevents you from saying it? Then that is probably going to push you towards more detail on a roleplay post than it would when writing a book. But those things may not be as important to you as for instance feeling the story flowing better or having dialogue that feels more real.



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Now all that said, I do think there are two ways that work more or less universally to at least improve your odds of not boring people, two things to keep in mind.

A) Setting expectations- From the very start, you want to know your audience and you want your audience to know you. This means, for one, writing for the sort of person whom you want reading. Addressing their tastes and their needs, not trying to achieve the impossible and often self-destructive goal of appealing to everyone. After that, you want to be sure to start your work, and any introduction to your work, with something which is representative of what they should expect. If you want to have a fast-paced, very action-oriented (not in the violence sense, but in the sense of focusing more on what characters do rather than how, why and in what circumstances) novel, then you probably shouldn't open with a big hyper-detailed description of a field (unless it's for ironic purposes, and even then shouldn't be done if you don't already have the trust of the readers). As I mentioned earlier, expectations and what a reader is willing to put up are relevant factors in whether they get bored. Setting the right expectations can affect the mindset with which your work is approached and make it be received better.

B) Create investment first, focus later- Describing a random room is probably not easily going to be a very fun read. But if you are instead reading about a room where a murder took place and there may be clues anywhere in it, suddenly you might be a lot more interesting in carefully reading that description, just to see if you can catch anything. Watching a character waking up and going through their morning might be boring, but following through the morning a character we haven't seen since their violent burst of anger yesterday over the loss of their best friend is another thing entirely. And more generally, watching anything from something you're interesting in is a lot more, well, interesting than something you aren't already invested in. Getting reasons for why we should care or be interested can go a long way in making those descriptions a more appealing read. People are not inherently interested in your story because its YOUR story not theirs, or in the case of roleplay, your world or your character, not their content.

C) Purpose- When adding detail, there should always be at least one clear purpose (to you) why it is being included. Maybe it's push the plot forward or set something up, or maybe you just want to create atmosphere. All valid purposes. What you shouldn't do is add detail just to add fluff. This one isn't necessarily going to make you less boring, as there is no guarantee people will pick up on the reason the detail is there, in fact even if they do that doesn't mean they will value that reason to the extent you do. However, it can at least help trim down some of the detail to a more reasonable degree and help you avoid adding detail that is outright bad and pointless.

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There is still one final distinction I want to draw, and that is between "boring writing" and "bad writing". I don't think the two are synonymous, or one necessarily implies the other. Bad writing can be very fun, because what makes writing fun is not just the quality of the writing, but also the circumstances and mindset in which the art is appreciated. For that same reason, very good writing can and often does fall by the wayside, because it failed to meet the right set of circumstances to even be given a proper chance. You can improve your writing and make it less boring, but improving your writing does not necessarily mean it'll be less boring, and making it less boring does not necessarily mean it'll be better.



I hope this helps. Best of luck and happy RPing!

Edit: I knew I was forgetting something. Adding point C.