How much do I show readers?

Recently I had a constructive comment in which my peer said, in effect, ‘maybe I could offer you some help with substance and color.’ I was not offended and gladly accept the insight, but it does again raise that age old question of detail.

When I read, I like to render.

I liken it to big open world video games from some years back. I could walk to the edge of the known world, and in the distance I could see it rendering, taking shape for me as I approached it. In the same way, I don’t feel compelled to tell my readership everything about the world ahead. I give it to them piecemeal, just-in-time description.

Some readers want the author to describe everything in great detail. They want full wardrobes, complete floor plans, every grunt and cut of a fight scene. They like having the author do the heavy lifting for them. It seems to make the book more cinematic, maybe, where it’s all presented for consumption, as-is.

My writing tends toward the sparse. I’ll establish it’s a train station, but I won’t elaborate on how many tracks. I’ll mention the waiting area has period furniture, art deco architecture, maybe even parquet flooring, but I’ll stop there. I’ll focus more on my characters lounging there or threading through the throng of travelers to further describe the environment as it matters to them.

I guess it may be like teaching. We teach the way we were taught, by default. I write like I like to read. I don’t need (or want) suffocating detail, for I want to see it for myself in my mind’s eye. Thus, I write it as if I were among the audience.

I’m interested in what my audience here might think of this conundrum.

With that reader feedback and recommendation to flesh out my work, I went into our writing community with an agenda. Typically when I read a piece, people smile and nod and say something about it not being their genre. This time, since the helpful reader was in that group, I decided to blow the doors off with a piece of my most sensory and sensational poetry. Practically ever word in that poem ripples with detail—and it did not generate so much as a shrug from anyone in the room.

I’ve so much yet to learn: To detail or not to detail, that is my question.

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