Something that has never annoyed me before has begun to annoy me. When a book describes the scene, I don't really see the point in it a lot of the time. It's important to know it's a woman's bedroom, but why does it matter that she has a blue straw hat and a three piece mirror, some brown gloves, an electric fan and the letter K stitched into her bed sheets?
If the author just said 'a lady's bedroom' isn't that all we really need? Am I being dumb?
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can you cite an example?
Never, nerver read The Terror and The Abominable.
this is what i was referring to, but I didn't mean this book specifically
I feel the same way OP
Either it’s found necessary information for later, meant for atmosphere or character shading, or its sloppy writing/editing. You be the judge.
perhaps it's beautiful but you can't see it because you're reading a translation
perhaps it's beautiful but you don't see it because you're too young
perhaps the author is just doing what he's used to do, because most people like it or because he's a good student
perhaps he gets paid more by writing a longer book
perhaps there are symbols everywhere and the blue straw hat is like the sky in which she believes she can fly
there are a lot of bad reasons, a lot of good ones too. It kinda suck not to be able to pick the right one.
Why does everything need to have a "point"? If vital information is all you're after, just read the sparknotes, or a synopsis on wikipedia, save yourself a dozen hours. What if the author just wanted to tell you about the woman's blue strawhat simply because that's how her room manifested in his imagination? Isn't it what fiction literature ultimately all about, people sharing their imaginations?
Well, the author is trying to make the scene present to you. Also such details may have a significance with respect to other things in the book ("symbolism," though I think the idea is broader than that tired term suggests).
>. It's important to know it's a woman's bedroom, but why does it matter that she has a blue straw hat and a three piece mirror, some brown gloves, an electric fan and the letter K stitched into her bed sheets?
the symbolism will eventually trickle down onto your plebian mind
I don't know the book, but this description alone explains (or reinforces) many things.
Brass beds are expensive and those come from New Orleans, so it's really expensive. My bet is old money Asian family.
The description shows some distance between the father and the heirs too. Was he a cold and severe businessman instead of a loving father?
>The description shows some distance between the father and the heirs too. Was he a cold and severe businessman instead of a loving father?
Hm?
Book is 'the sailor who fell from grace with the sea' btw
Yes, you are being dumb.
Descriptions can be a very powerful tool for storytelling. Take the bedroom of a hoarder and a control freak, per example. The bedroom of the hoarder will be full with useless mementoes, pointless trivia and mess that will make it harder for the characters to traverse. Through the description of someone's bedroom, the author conveys important information about that someone's personality (the lack of control over himself, impulsive consumption, unable to say that is and is not important, etc).
Now imagine the bedroom of a control freak. The description of unecessary organization will also convey important information about that person, although incomplete. Why incomplete? We know that person has a severe obsession with control, yet we don't know why. That already produces some curiosity for the reader.
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Besides that, descriptions are also useful for convey the passage of time. Hence Lord of the Rings, a novel that will go in detail about the ins and outs of a forest that we'll never see again. Tolkien isn't wasting our time, he's actually portraying the idea of a voyage through his descriptions.
how do I get a Yea Forums jap gf?
On clothes:
A common sin in the YA novels I receive is that they will go on and on about the characters' appearances without a goal. This is not a sin of descriptions in general, but a sin of the writer. Because a character's appearance can also be useful to convey information (yes, you'll be wasting your reader's time if you describe without a purpose). If you want a subtle way of saying someone is in a hurry, you don't need to have the character say 'I'm in a hurry!'. That is trivial.
A smarter way is to describe that character's clothes according to how in a hurry they are. Their ties will have weak knots, their hair won't be properly combed, they might have coffee smudges and stains on their clothes, they'll heavy breathe, their beard might be unshaved, the possibilities are endless.
>an example about descriptions of bedroom
Dostoieviski isn't famous for descriptions. That's why you should pay extra attention when he actually describes a place. Take Raskolnikov's tiny room in Crime and Punishment, and how depressive and oppressing his shack is.
I hope these ideas were useful, OP.
that nose is too low or jsut awkward looking
Daisies, nice.
I kinda feel the same way. Descriptions can be useful to establish mood or traits, but when it's done as plot progression it usually gets a bit dull and pointless and a lot of times I just half understand it, just like written fight scenes which are usually dull and boring to read.
>getting brainlet filtered by fucking Mishima of all things
How?
Best post ITT so far
>am i being dumb?
Kind of, yeah. Describing a scene can be important in the same way that set design for a film or a play can be important. It can set the mood, add characterization, add world building, it can feature metaphors or symbolism, and I'm sure quite a few more things that I can't think of off the top of my head.
That being said, I agree that a lot of writers suck dick at describing the scene to the point where it would benefit those writers if they just said "lady's bedroom".
because stream-of-consciousness shit is boring.