Once, a very good artist and teacher said to me, “Don’t put every detail into your painting. If you do, the people will have no way of let themselves into it.” (Even though I used quotes, this is a bit of a paraphrase.) His thoughts left a mark on me. His point was that if I put in too much detail in my painting, viewers won’t be able to use their imaginations. The explicitness of your craft will turn them into objective observers and not active participants.
The above concept is a method I have kept in a lot of my creative endeavors. It is also what I employ in my Raven, Romda and Ravai series. In these books, you’ll see scant description of the three characters appearance. Furthermore, I practice this most every personality in my books. I want you, the reader, to make a picture of each person that is specific to you.
When I talk about a sunset, I don’t want to describe it perfectly to you with fantasia style. Instead, I want to take you back to a sunset you remember and let you put that into my book. This is helps out one of my goals in creating a little bit of interaction with the reader.
Another reason is to engage readers who are less apt to love reading. These types of readers see fiction as a static, impersonal way of presenting material. Everything seems over-explained to them. It isn’t the beautiful prose that classic readers love … even though both groups are reading the same book.
We are seeing a decline in reading, and I don’t see it coming back up to levels it was at before. Maybe, it isn’t important to start all children on the classical methods of writing. People may need different approaches to writing as much as they need different genres. Why not? So, they aren’t ready for Shakespeare or Milton as quickly. If they learn to read, they will learn to read more. Then, let’s see where it takes us.