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By detailed descriptions I don't mean what the trees and buildings and streets look like. I mean when an author seems to go off into a tangent about the exact location (and on occasion, history) of a place. Basically, when an author pretty much writes us up a map of the location.
"He drove to A, five miles outside of B and three miles from C, located near the D river and the F plaza and G bank, where various stuff happened many years ago."
Or, using where I live as an example. "It was located on Hydraulic,'so-many-miles' south of Pawnee, two miles from the Starlight drive-in theater."
Okay, so if you lived where I live, then the above description makes a lot of sense and gives you a very clear picture of where the story/scene is taking place. If you don't live where I live, then, well, it's probably one minute of your reading life you won't get back. And it's for the latter reason that I'm torn about detailed descriptions of places that actually exist. You get into what the location looks like - whether the buildings are old or new, castle-like or modern, etc - then you've got my attention. Start giving me various directions, city names, town names, street names, and my mind feels like it's being tangled in a knot.
It's not that I feel exact location to be unimportant. It is important. If the majority of the story is taking place in a single setting - namely a city - then names of streets and districts are going to pop up if you want both the story and setting to feel more real. But when is it too much? Are detailed directions - such as saying location A is five miles from B and is surrounded on three sides C,D and E - necessary or is "he drove to A, which was five miles from his home (or last location he was at)" enough?
And I hope this all made sense. It's a rather difficult issue to describe and I apologize for that.
"He drove to A, five miles outside of B and three miles from C, located near the D river and the F plaza and G bank, where various stuff happened many years ago."
Or, using where I live as an example. "It was located on Hydraulic,'so-many-miles' south of Pawnee, two miles from the Starlight drive-in theater."
Okay, so if you lived where I live, then the above description makes a lot of sense and gives you a very clear picture of where the story/scene is taking place. If you don't live where I live, then, well, it's probably one minute of your reading life you won't get back. And it's for the latter reason that I'm torn about detailed descriptions of places that actually exist. You get into what the location looks like - whether the buildings are old or new, castle-like or modern, etc - then you've got my attention. Start giving me various directions, city names, town names, street names, and my mind feels like it's being tangled in a knot.
It's not that I feel exact location to be unimportant. It is important. If the majority of the story is taking place in a single setting - namely a city - then names of streets and districts are going to pop up if you want both the story and setting to feel more real. But when is it too much? Are detailed directions - such as saying location A is five miles from B and is surrounded on three sides C,D and E - necessary or is "he drove to A, which was five miles from his home (or last location he was at)" enough?
And I hope this all made sense. It's a rather difficult issue to describe and I apologize for that.
