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I am currently reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. If I have not seen this on the stage and at the movie theater, I would never have been able to continue reading it. Mr. Hugo tells a great story with equally great characters. But in the course of moving the story along, he spends a great deal lecturing on the setting and background. But after reading for several hours about the Battle of Waterloo, or the history of an obscure convent, etc., etc., when does the reader just say enough?

There are some books that have just bored me to tears, and that is the last thing I want to do as a writer. Where do you find the balance between the story and the background?

I don't mind details in the beginning of the book or even chapters. When it comes to the core sections of the book or a chapter, background and details should be used to add to earlier descriptions and not become an endless flow in themselves.

emdee wrote:I don't mind details in the beginning of the book or even chapters. When it comes to the core sections of the book or a chapter, background and details should be used to add to earlier descriptions and not become an endless flow in themselves.

I think that is the problem I am facing with the book I am reading. It is just too much background in some places when I am really just wanting to get on with the story.

For me there really has to be a good mix of story progression mixed with background and setting. If the background and setting are stretching for pages at a time I'm gonna get bored and either start skim reading until something catches my attention again or just put the book down. Less is often more for those things in my opinion.

I think sometimes writers become confused into thinking that the more detailed background they provide at every turn, then the more sophisticated their writing will be. But this is simply not the case. It can actually take away from a story when it becomes overbearing and adds nothing to the story in itself.

SidnayC wrote:writers become confused into thinking that the more detailed background they provide at every turn, then the more sophisticated their writing will be.

I recently read a book just like this. I felt the writer was trying to show off his abilities rather than tell the story. It made for some very tedious reading.

that is precisely my no.1 complaint....

It's a sign of a good writer if he/she can do the job in one sentence or less rather than a whole paragraph. Nothing more boring than long overblown descriptions.

Norma_Rudolph wrote:It's a sign of a good writer if he/she can do the job in one sentence or less rather than a whole paragraph. Nothing more boring than long overblown descriptions.

Ha! If you can't get to the point, maybe it is best left unsaid (or unwritten)!

I was trying to read a book one time that had so much description of the background and the setting that I had to keep going back and re-reading what I had already read to remember what the point of the paragraph was. There was way too much setting and background that didn't take the story anywhere. I finally had to give up because I just couldn't keep track of where the story was going and that is the only book that I have never finished. Some of the other books that I have read and that have kept my attention from the very start of the story have been ones that managed to tell the setting and background through the action that was happening and with characters talking about what was going on. I try to use what those authors have done when I write to make my writing more exciting.