Or… To think or be told what to think, that is the question…

This was kicked off by a lunch with a friend and his granddaughter, aged 17. We were talking about writing and music, and I asked her if she listened to music. She’d said she watched the videos first, then put the music on her playlist. I asked her why, and her answer surprised me. She said she ‘had’ to watch the video to see how the music was supposed to be interpreted!

Now I’m an old fart, I grew up listening to baseball and football on the radio, using my imagination and the word pictures presented by the announcers to ‘fill’ the scene in. Same with music, the lyrics ‘built’ the world the music was celebrating.

Where am I going with this?

In writing, do you paint extensive word pictures of your characters, the scenes, or the environment? Or do you give a basic word picture and expect the reader to fill in those gaps with their own imagination?

As always, I don’t think there is one ‘right’ answer, but in large, I think it depends on your readership. Are they used to being spoon fed everything? Or do you make them use their own imagination?

I know I tend to write sparse scenes and descriptions, knowing my readers will fill in the blanks with their imagination, which sometimes makes for interesting situations… I once had to change a scene because one of my beta readers was rather vehement that the particular character DID NOT have a moustache! Oops… My bad…

Two examples-

1. Danny looked out the viewport and saw the star filled darkness staring back at him. He stepped away, shaking his head and pondering the frailness of man against the vastness of space.

2. Danny looked out the viewport of the space ship, seeing a panoply of stars twinkling in the blackness of space, and shivered as he pondered the frailty of man and hubris of travelling through the vastness of space.

I would tend to use the first. Less detailed example, letting the reader determine the ‘depth’ of Danny’s feelings and what other thoughts he had, screened through the lens of those reader’s experiences. That also gives them ‘ownership’ if you will, of the story.

I’ve been told I’m more of a story teller than a writer, and I’m perfectly happy with that. I try to give the reader a good story without pushing any particular agenda, but I also don’t like the ‘perfect character’ that never makes a mistake (either male or female). I also try to give the characters depth without doing a data dump on them, which doesn’t always work, as my readers have pointed out a time or three… sigh…

I also try to write so that you also have believable characters,  believable situations, and believable weapons.

I also try to get the little details right, even if it’s science fiction. It’s not hard to do basic research, and that can make a difference between a wall book and one folks will read, and maybe even read again.

But writing westerns is kicking my butt on research. And there are some rat holes that you can go down literally for HOURS! Of course, when you’re doing research, you’re not writing…

Anyway, a little bit of background on why I write like I do… For better or worse…