How far is too far?

[TFinnegan]

I am a writer. I get PAID to do it.
If I may, a VERY famous writer once wrote an essay on 'how to write'. In it, he delves into the subject of details, and in fact that chapter by itelf should answer your initial post title/question.

Allow me to paraphrase...

Like so many of the great writers know, half of the game is letting the reader do the hard work. Too much detail turns a 'story' into an 'essay'.

While it's a fine sort of ego-masturbation for an author to give every detail, as if his readers are incapable of thinking for themselves, excessive detail can take a story, which is written to be read by a reader, out of the reader's hands and head and make it more of a show-and-tell than an experience for the reader.

For example, Writing;
"The dark brown Victorian table which had rich hues of antiqued wood, lathe-turned legs and hand-carved lion's claw feet, each holding a crystal sphere, worn opaque with age, sat in the rectangular dining room with two doors leading into it. One from the kitchen and the other from the study where Richard sat, looking at the table through the french double doors. On it was a blood-red tablecloth, hand stitched in gold paisleys and running vines, leaves and grape bunches. Offset slightly from the center was a mint-green frosted glass bowl, an art-deco piece from somewhere in California, whcih was filled with a banana, two oranges, a pair of apples, a pear, and some strawberries."
-can certainly fill pages, it makes the whole thing a dissertation, and fails utterly to invite the reader into it.
Instead, allow the reader some credit, and let them make the story thier own, an experience for them, not at them.

Instead try this:
"Richard looked at the antique table in the dining room. A bowl of fruit sat off-center on the red and gold tablecloth."
You can still get the same picture acress.
Only THIS way, the reader brings his or her experiences into it, and for each reader then, this table will look different, but for each reader, it will also look 'right'.

That said, some of the greatest horror writers, Lovecraft, Barker, King, among others, have left the truly gory and scary details completely out. Nothing is quite as scary as the unknown. Show the reader the aftermath, or let them hear the screams of pain, and thier imagination will run wild. FAR more intensely than any 'preaching of scene' you can do at them.

Here's another example, this one of 'hidden' or 'assumed' gore...
"...He was being dragged by the armpits, his bonds gone. Blind and unable to lift his head, he bobbed between two men as he tried to gather his feet beneath him. Gunfire erupted in his ear, and hot spent shells danced off his head and back. Answering shots were fired from somewhere nearby, one hand dissapeared from his armpit and something wet and warm splashed across his side. Bullets dink-dink-dinked off of a bulkhead nearby, and he was unceremoniously dumped to the deck.
More gunfire. More Pain. Darkness..."

Obviously one of the guys carrying the main character just took some hits. Did his neck explode at the jugular? Did his intestines and half-digested food erupt from his belly?
Who knows?
I'm sure that was different for everyone who read it.
Either way, it was effective and allowed the reader to decide, while still getting the author's point across.

Anyway, I know I'm going a bit off here...
I guess I'm just reiterating alot of what was said above me...
Is it NECESSARY?
Or can you trust your reader's worst thoughts to do your work for you?
Only you know the answer to that.

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