Writers: How Descriptive Are You?

[The Sum of Awe]

What is the genre and target audience?

All of it is fiction of multiple genres and no necessary target audience, just people who want to read it I suppose

It depends on whether the color of the coat, the straps hanging down, and the plaid shirt are important. Do they communicate something important about the character? Do they foreshadow something in the plot or represent something relevant to the current action? Will they be used as recurring thematic elements? Is this the first time the character is introduced (you can be more descriptive when introducting a character to establish them)?

Essentially, description should never be used for its own sake.

Thanks for the advice

Would you think this reason would deem it important; that the author imagines it like a movie going through their head and that's how they exactly imagined it?

"Detail is very important", said xkatz while cooking pancakes, which were turning crispy brown and smelled like old, greasy gym socks. You could hear the pancakes sizzling, and xkatz began to drool like one of Pavlov's mutts after hearing the chiming of a silver bell. He then proceeded to grab a shiny, white plate, which reminded him of his mother's skin complexion and then slowly and gracefully put the pancakes on the vintage white Star Wars plate that he got some years ago at a Comicon convention.

He then whispered like a creepy old man, "It adds so much to the story".

He then looked outside. It was raining and the color of the sky made the walls of bedroom appear to be a blue. A sad blue, a blue that made him feel like laying in his quaint olive green bed and stare at the dull ceiling, watching the fan spin, spin, and spin like his alcoholic evil twin, Revoltingest, who was an ugly Scotsman. Like uglier than the narrator can even describe.

"Without details, how can you have AWESOME metaphors?!", xkatz said to the reader as he seductively ate his awful pancakes in his depressing room on his semi-comfortable bed in a pretentious manner.

That is pretty much how I write, and now that I read it from someone else writing it, description isn't bad at all, IMO

There's no easy way to tell how descriptive you should or shouldn't be as a writer, since so much of it boils down to personal taste.
Having said that, I personally prefer small descriptions interspersed within the action of a story than a huge chunk of explanation. Neither is necessarily better than the other, it's purely preference.
Another important thing to consider is what genre you're writing and where the story takes place. People tend to think along the lines of "as normal, unless otherwise specified" when they read. This means that a modern, realistic setting needs far less description than a fantasy or sci fi world simply because the reader fills in the blanks themselves. One trick available to you if you don't want to spend too long on description is to use names and words that people associate with a particular time/place/genre as this can radically change the image a sentence conjures. For example:

"Andrew walked to the shops."

"Alaric rode into the market."

"Zorbex slithered to the Cred-Store."

none of those sentences use much in the way of description, but each conjures a different image.

Thanks for the advice Much appreciated, but it's not really that I use lots of space or spend too much time describing it; I describe it as short as I can, such as "The sky was a blend of dark and white gray, and as Mr. Smiley Face walks out of the tavern, his leather jacket nearly blends in with the shade, if only the jacket were a little darker and didn't have white lines."

It's an irrelevant description, but that's how I picture it as I write, I'm just concerned that people will not read it if they don't get to imagine how he's dressed on their own and such and such.

 

[Revoltingest]

How can one judge how describe oneself is?
Read a sample of my writing, & tell me where I stand.
(Kudos if you recognize the title's reference.)

Naked Came Sum Of Awe
It was a hot & steamy August day in Vinayakabad, a normally quaint & sleepy little town in the sparsely populated Quagmire mountains of South Xkatzistan. But today was different. Because of violent strife in the Peoples Republic of Shyanekh, the annual Tour de Xkatzistan was competing here. Sum Of Awe was an average rider, often described as a high potential low achieving ne'er do well who would rather party than train. But Vinayakabad is his home town....

 

[Vinayaka]

I'm just concerned that people will not read it if they don't get to imagine how he's dressed on their own and such and such.

Writing it, and then finding someone to read it are to very different things. If you don't have a great hook, nobody will bother. Do you have a blog?

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Writing it, and then finding someone to read it are to very different things. If you don't have a great hook, nobody will bother. Do you have a blog?

Good point. But if I weren't to think someone would read it after I write it, or if it wont get published, etc. I would probably not write. Also I do not have a blog.

 

[Me Myself]

Writing it, and then finding someone to read it are to very different things. If you don't have a great hook, nobody will bother. Do you have a blog?

Do you?