[Bardos]

When a book is wordy (lots of --useless?-- discription, thoughts, etc) and bad, you cannot forgive the author for it.
If it's short and bad, then you can forgive the author.

What's your opinion about this?

[Belderan]

description is not useless, it gives us all a good picture of what the author is imagining. i definetly prefer lots of description in a book.
if the description is awful,only then is it unforgivable.

[Ancalagon the Black]

It depends on the book: Tolkien's novels have a lot of description, which while masterfully done, did not particularly excite me. Even if the descriptions are good, in most cases if they exceed a page or two I simply skip them... due to my short attention span... what was I talking about?

[Zsinj16]

I absolutely LOVE good description. I think Tolkien and Williams did an excellent job of desciption in their fantasy novels. It made me feel as if I were really in the world in which the book was taking place. Eddings' descriptions, however, constantly describing what kind of weave of cloth and thread that the characters' clothes were composed of, bugged me to death! When I like lengthly descriptions, I want them to be of castles, fortresses, towers, temples, dark corridors, gods, statues, monsters, demons, spirits, orcs, trolls, wraiths, heroes, villains, dragons, weapons, armor, vehicles, ravaging supernatural storms, not the fabric of clothes for goodness sake!

[Liselle]

Usually, only sins have to be forgotten, but do you really consider it a sin to write a bad book? In the worst of cases it is waste of a good tree (I read this expression somewhen here on the board and I deeply apologize for stealing it and hope not to be tortured like it is described in the other thread - oh no!)...

[Bardos]

Not sin! http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif

And I think you all got it wrong.
First, I just posed a question; I haven't told you my opinion, yet.
Secondly, what I am asking is: Do you agree with this: When a story is bad and wordy, you can't forgive it; when it's bad and not wordy, you can more easily forgive it. Agree, disagree?

Many said they like discription. Ok, but that's off topic... http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif

[Cadfael]

If a book is brimming with description with no plot... this is bad, but if the plot is captivating, and there is still a load of discription... I will forgive the longwinded descriptions.

Bardos... I don't think you are getting your point across too well here... this is not your fault... but I am finding it hard to grasp your meaning

[Nani-Re]

I think it depends on what the description is. I think that a book with a great deal of description can be good if it gives insight into the world, the characters, or the reason for the actions taken. However, I do have a problem with what I deem useless chapters, which why I will not read Stephen King any longer. IMO, he just throws a chapter in about some obsure character, and trying to remember that loose end is almost impossible for me. I do get very bored with description if it is too flowery, or setting driven. I don't really care what color and kind of flowers they are, just tell me that they are there. I would rather have action and dialogue than really in depth setting description.

[cassandra]

Uh...
Bad writing is unforgivable in my world. Long, short, or otherwise.