I feel totally robbed of a lot of the pleasure of reading itself like this; it's like, by over-defining everything to such a degree, they're preventing me from having room within the story to imagine. Without that room, what's the use of reading fantasy lit in the first place?
This is exactly how I felt reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I felt that Tolkien spent too much time in describing scenery - in other words, a lot of what other people adored about the books drove me crazy.
I have a theory as to why this 'over-explanation' sometimes occurs, particularly in the case of imagery. In Tolkien's case, he wanted to be sure that the reader saw exactly what he himself envisioned - and so he described it down to the tiniest detail (Bilbo Baggins's front door springs to mind here). There is nothing wrong with this approach - as an author, he is, after all, setting the scenes. I prefer to have the place as imagined in my head (although of course guided by his descriptions) - yes, it might not be exactly what he saw, but it was never going to be anyway, regardless of how much detail he gave. In the end, I don't think it damages the story irreparably to let people exercise a little more of their own imagination. Indeed, some authors deliberately do this - R. L. Stein, amongst others, has been described as having a 'sparse' style in which the reader is left to fill in much of the scenery themselves. I love this sort of reading, but I know other people find it irritating and would prefer more guidelines.
I do also wonder how many RL authors are taking up this writing form as a response to fanfic - my understanding is that J.K. Rowling is one author who has altered her writing style in an effort to counteract what she sees as the 'co-opting' of her characters by fanfic writers. By giving so much detail, perhaps you think you are giving fic writers less room to move and/or run with your characters (and hence distort them).
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-03-07 03:08 am (UTC)This is exactly how I felt reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I felt that Tolkien spent too much time in describing scenery - in other words, a lot of what other people adored about the books drove me crazy.
I have a theory as to why this 'over-explanation' sometimes occurs, particularly in the case of imagery. In Tolkien's case, he wanted to be sure that the reader saw exactly what he himself envisioned - and so he described it down to the tiniest detail (Bilbo Baggins's front door springs to mind here). There is nothing wrong with this approach - as an author, he is, after all, setting the scenes. I prefer to have the place as imagined in my head (although of course guided by his descriptions) - yes, it might not be exactly what he saw, but it was never going to be anyway, regardless of how much detail he gave. In the end, I don't think it damages the story irreparably to let people exercise a little more of their own imagination. Indeed, some authors deliberately do this - R. L. Stein, amongst others, has been described as having a 'sparse' style in which the reader is left to fill in much of the scenery themselves. I love this sort of reading, but I know other people find it irritating and would prefer more guidelines.
I do also wonder how many RL authors are taking up this writing form as a response to fanfic - my understanding is that J.K. Rowling is one author who has altered her writing style in an effort to counteract what she sees as the 'co-opting' of her characters by fanfic writers. By giving so much detail, perhaps you think you are giving fic writers less room to move and/or run with your characters (and hence distort them).