Authors have debated for years over how much description to insert in a scene. Description is a lot like seasoning in a stew. If the stew lacks seasoning, it’s bland and uninteresting. But if you shake too much seasoning into the pot, the stew is hard to swallow. Authors must keep the “seasoning rule” in mind when sprinkling in description.
Characters who are assigned lines of dialogue, but have not had a benefit of any description, are called “talking heads.” We can hear them but we don’t know what they look like. If a character doesn’t play a major role in the story, or even if he is what I call a “wallpaper character”–meaning he only appears in one or two scenes and is there for the protagonist to exchange dialogue to move the story forward–he still has a face, or perhaps a funny quirk. The reader doesn’t need to know his life history, his favorite color, or his shoe size, but let the reader see his wispy gray hair that sticks out in all directions, or the ink stains on his shirt. Maybe he has a gap between his teeth, or maybe his speech pattern is odd. Give the reader a quick glimpse of even the minor characters before your protagonist moves on.
Likewise, sticking a character into a setting without giving the reader a clue of the surroundings, the time of day, the season of the year, sensory details, or a mental image of the backdrop is confusing. In order to have a clear picture of the story timeline, the reader depends on the author to show the grass still wet with morning dew, or the blazing sun overhead at midday. The author needs to make sense of the movement of time in the story so the events feel realistic, and the reader can place the character in a mental calendar. Major holidays don’t come and go without notice, nor do the changing of the seasons. I like to drop in my characters’ reactions to the heat of summer, or the chill of autumn. Instead of saying, Three months later, the air was cooler… I show the character fetching her heavier cloak instead of her lightweight shawl, because there is a nip in the air. Perhaps when she steps out her door, she is surprised to see frost covering the ground. Showing the character reacting to the time of day, or the time of year, lets the reader move forward with the timeline.
Surroundings that are the backdrop for numerous scenes in the story–the kitchen, the workplace, the place where the character often goes to think–need to be vivid in the mind of the reader. But don’t stop the forward progression of the story to drop in a paragraph of description. Sprinkle the description in through the eyes and movements of the character in the first few chapters. By chapter three or four, the reader will have a good mental picture in her mind of what that place looks like.
Sensory details pull the reader into the story. Let the reader smell the fresh loaves of bread cooling on the table, or the fragrance of clover and summer grasses in a meadow. The sound of a sawmill, a cattle ranch, a busy street, or a thunderstorm moving in, or the grating sound of a character’s nasal-quality voice can help paint an image for the reader. Let the reader feel the thorny vines snagging at the character’s hands and arms when she picks blackberries, or taste the sweet blackberry juice on her tongue when the character pops a few berries into her mouth. Sensory details put the reader into the character’s head, and description creates a story world into which your reader can step.