The wrong kind of details: the components of wonder (aka lmp's rant) - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Niphredil Baggins · 08-04-2002, 09:03 AM

Hmm.. this made me think of myself... I remember a scetch of a chapter in my story that lmp was dissappointed with, I remember how I looked closer at the story and saw what he mean when he said it has no sense of wonder... I had been describing an elven palace as if it were any common mansion in the mortal world, I wrote of lace curtains and washing utensils, as if they were the same ordinary sort you see in old paintings, and thus the images it raised in a possible reader's mind were mundane instead of magic... I altered the chapter later, now it speaks of 'curtains of lace glistening like cobwebs in morning dew'... but I don't know if I'm speaking about what lmp meant at all, now I'm actually defending details...

What, then, is the unwanted detail? I wonder if I am guilty of it by having manure in elven stables and an elf out of breath...

Or is it the details of how people look? I usually just give the body shape, the hair colour, sometimes the colour of skin and eyes, and let the reader imagine the rest... I'm usually bored to death by lenghtly descriptions of the beauty of some princess or other, and anyway I forget it after three pages. On the other hand, I sometimes describe clothes a lot; they have symbolic meanings to me, but may just bore the reader...

Now I'm getting paranoid and thinking lmp started this topic because of something stupid I have written. I know he didn't. Stupid hobbit, quit rambling, you have nothing worth saying.

High Fantasy is beyond me.

08-04-2002, 09:03 AM	#8
Niphredil Baggins Wight Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Finland Posts: 118	Hmm.. this made me think of myself... I remember a scetch of a chapter in my story that lmp was dissappointed with, I remember how I looked closer at the story and saw what he mean when he said it has no sense of wonder... I had been describing an elven palace as if it were any common mansion in the mortal world, I wrote of lace curtains and washing utensils, as if they were the same ordinary sort you see in old paintings, and thus the images it raised in a possible reader's mind were mundane instead of magic... I altered the chapter later, now it speaks of 'curtains of lace glistening like cobwebs in morning dew'... but I don't know if I'm speaking about what lmp meant at all, now I'm actually defending details... What, then, is the unwanted detail? I wonder if I am guilty of it by having manure in elven stables and an elf out of breath... Or is it the details of how people look? I usually just give the body shape, the hair colour, sometimes the colour of skin and eyes, and let the reader imagine the rest... I'm usually bored to death by lenghtly descriptions of the beauty of some princess or other, and anyway I forget it after three pages. On the other hand, I sometimes describe clothes a lot; they have symbolic meanings to me, but may just bore the reader... Now I'm getting paranoid and thinking lmp started this topic because of something stupid I have written. I know he didn't. Stupid hobbit, quit rambling, you have nothing worth saying. High Fantasy is beyond me. __________________ Wistful, willful, wingless, fly!