I hate it!
I put Headliner away for a few weeks, so I can come back to it with renewed vigour for setting the scene. While I am a chatterbox, as are my characters, I am often concerned I don't have enough descriptive narrative in my novel; that's what the blogs and articles tell me, anyway. As a reader, I don't care what the author tells me a room looks like. If they've done a good enough job of shaping their characters and said characters' journeys, I can imagine how their room would be furnished without any help from the author.
However, it does seem this is an important feature of the novel (even though I tend to skim past descriptions longer than a few lines on a page when reading). The key is balance, but chucking a descriptive passage here and there for the sake of balance is not going to work. And my characters fly so fast through life, I'm not sure they even notice their surroundings. Being on tour, playing shows in different cities each night; one doesn't get chance to stop and think, let alone appreciate one's delightful hotel rooms.
Okay, that's my complaining done for the afternoon. When I get home after my show, I'll consider ways to address my predicament. While I write primarily for me, I do want to please my readers, too. Waaaaaa!
+1, seconded, and ditto! I'm comfortable writing dialogue, and even introspection and the occasional action scene. But describing surroundings doesn't come naturally. My excuse is that I'm writing in first person, and my MC really isn't the type to notice the decor.
ReplyDeleteBest I can suggest? Come up with some quirky settings, an odd feature here and there, something that would even catch the attention of your crazy rockers. ;)