There's a trend in writing now days that I find disagreeable. Some call it minimalist writing. I just call it boring. In this style of writing, description is at the bare minimum, if there's any description at all. Sights, sounds, smells, and everything else is left to the imagination of the reader. I've seen a number of reasons for writing this way, including but not limited to involving the reader more, description slows a story down, and even "that's just my style." However, I think many of the writers (not all, mind you, just a good number of them) that employ this minimalist way of writing are just afraid of description.

Description, the use of the senses and details, is a way to bring the reader into your story. Why minimize it? Why force the reader to work to enjoy your story? I prefer stories rich with description and detail. I don't want to "work" when reading a story; I just want to lean back and enjoy it, watching it unfold before me. I want to be drawn into the story, the setting, the characters; I don't want to develop them myself. And I shouldn't have to. It is a writer's job to provide everything the reader needs to be able to suspend disbelief and fall into the story. Reading already puts the imagination to work, there's no reason to force it to work any harder than trying to see the story as the author sees it. Besides, whose story is it anyway? The writer's. The writer is sharing something s/he imagined. To not bring all the richness that you as the author have envisioned for the story into your writing is to not be true to the story.

It is true that description can slow a story down, but not only are there ways to combat this, some stories should be a blend of quick and slow. A story that goes a breakneck speed from beginning to end will leave a reader breathless, and not always in a good way. Moments where the action pauses or slows are necessary to a story, particularly in novels, and a writer should not be afraid to let the pace drop a notch or two every once in awhile.

Almost any description can be written in active way: hair flows, froths, and curl; eyes twinkle and glance up; and so on. It is harder to avoid clichés this way, it seems they've all been used before, but part of the job of the writer is to reinvent, reimagine, and recreate. Descriptions can also be interwoven, a harder task if you're used to the block descriptions I grew up with, reducing the slow down generally associated with description. And mixing interweaving with smaller blocks of description can help keep the pace while allowing the author to give a fuller picture of the people, places, and things in his/her story.

A story without description is like a meal without seasoning. The salt, spices, and herbs each add their own subtle flavor. The same can be said of description. And just like some meals are heavily spiced and seasoned, so some stories will have more description than others. Each story should reflect the vision of its author, as well as his/her style, the genre of the story, and all the other little factors that go into making a story what it is. But a story without description ignores a fundamental characteristic of story telling and is as bland as a meal without any seasoning at all.

I am a "Description Queen" and proud of it. My stories reflect my vision of them. They are pieces of myself that I share with my readers. And that is the way it should be.