Im reviving this thread specifically because i've attempted to read At Night All Blood Is Black, and i think it is the perfect example of too much (unnecessary) detail. The first chapter is basically a dozen iterations of how the MC should have but didnt mercy kill his friend as they lay in the trenches during WW1. Its written in a stream of consciousness so there are like ten thousand commas and like 4 periods. And then the details of the trenches go from "gaping wounds in the earth" to a "gaping hole" that "looked to me like the slightly parted lips of an immense woman's sex" 2 chapters in and i dont know this character(other than his name) or what the plot is.....
Those descriptions are something else. I picture a young Larry Flynt wandering No Man's Land and coming to terms with his own purpose. He's like those guys in that 1917 movie. I don't remember their names. I called the helper guy Samwise when I was watching it, and that seemed to fit. It was the good soldier who had the quest. But see, at the end who carries on when Frodo succumbs? Anyway, I would have Mr. Flynt go AWOL and start a publishing company with Gibson Girls drawn in cross hatch. He hires perverts from a local university and they do the sketches. I would have a series of wacky adventures in Belgium. Later his empire is contested by the Underworld and some German guy who he'd met years ago in the battlefield scene. Larry (let's call him Lawrence) fled from him when going AWOL but . . . they meet again! I'd finish the book like a Shakespeare tragedy. Even though Lawrence found his true purpose, his earlier lack of focus undoes him, as he is slain by his old enemy. With description you should always decide: What is the paragraph's purpose? Paragraphs move with different speeds. Description is slow, so how much of it should be in a fast moving paragraph? If it's a typical mixed-purpose paragraph, are you writing in rhythm? No one wants to hear an author drone on. Shift to dialog, action, character, from the present to the past, from the storyworld to introspection, etc. Are you explaining important details or listing facts that can be assumed? Breeze over the obvious and state those details quickly (or not at all). Get to the unique details. Are you forcing the reader down a narrow path? Does the reader really need to know exact details (the measurements and the stage direction outline of a scene)? If the reader assumed a different layout, would it even matter? And even after all of that, if the description really needs to be there, there are rhythms within the description. Sensory detail can mix with inner detail. By inner detail I mean that the description is explained by the MC inwardly, not by the 5 senses. He/she draws upon the past/fantasy/imagination to build unique connections. Metaphor is one way to do that, but if you rely too much on metaphor then everything crumbles. My theory is that thick amounts of metaphor fail because metaphor is indirect. It forces the reader to stop and make a connection. The reader fulfills the phrase's meaning themselves. (If they have no context for the metaphor, then the phrase's meaning is incomplete.) But if they have to keep doing that then it exhausts them and they find the story to be irritating. If you have just the right balance though, you are drawing description from the reader. That involves them in the story, which is a plus. ---------------------------------------- It's fun seeing all these old accounts. In 2023, I picture the posters white-haired and decrepit. They're sitting in cane chairs lined up on a southern veranda. They're fanning themselves, nodding, mocking one another with quiet sarcasm. (I'm going to stop now before I come up with another plot.)
If it's "gaping" despite only being "slightly parted," I'd hate to see what it looks like fully dilated.
