One of the interesting challenges in writing fiction is to write in such a way your reader can picture your world vividly, yet do this without necessarily going into the nuts and bolts of it all. How much detail is enough so readers can see in their minds' eyes what they need to "see" to get the most out of your writing?
Using the senses is a great way of bringing description to life and, as is the case with most things, less is more. You don't need huge wads of information, just enough to conjure up the required images. Taste and smell, I think, are the easiest to bring into stories. Your characters need to eat after all!
Hearing is also relatively easy to bring in as, whatever your setting, your characters will need to be aware of what is going on around them. Hearing is often used as the first indicator danger might be around. The odd strange noise here, another one there and so on and most readers will identify with how they felt/feel on hearing noises that are out of the ordinary for their situation. This can be anything from an unexpected dog bark, making someone jump, to the traditional (in film) footstep/creak on the stairs that isn't usual. (Course in film you get the bonus of incidental music giving a massive clue as to approaching danger and so on).
Vision is the sense all writers bring in almost continually as we are portraying what our characters see but I think probably the most difficult to convey in words is the sense of touch. Even in romantic fiction (of all temperatures!), get this wrong and it just seems mechanical. There's a reason the Bad Sex Award in Fiction exists! If you'll pardon the expression, a light touch with describing anything, including the sense of touch as your characters experience it, is the way to go.
Using the senses is a great way of bringing description to life and, as is the case with most things, less is more. You don't need huge wads of information, just enough to conjure up the required images. Taste and smell, I think, are the easiest to bring into stories. Your characters need to eat after all!
Hearing is also relatively easy to bring in as, whatever your setting, your characters will need to be aware of what is going on around them. Hearing is often used as the first indicator danger might be around. The odd strange noise here, another one there and so on and most readers will identify with how they felt/feel on hearing noises that are out of the ordinary for their situation. This can be anything from an unexpected dog bark, making someone jump, to the traditional (in film) footstep/creak on the stairs that isn't usual. (Course in film you get the bonus of incidental music giving a massive clue as to approaching danger and so on).
Vision is the sense all writers bring in almost continually as we are portraying what our characters see but I think probably the most difficult to convey in words is the sense of touch. Even in romantic fiction (of all temperatures!), get this wrong and it just seems mechanical. There's a reason the Bad Sex Award in Fiction exists! If you'll pardon the expression, a light touch with describing anything, including the sense of touch as your characters experience it, is the way to go.
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