[Saxony Tarn]

A worse "Boring the Reader" sin -- over-pushing an agenda in an otherwise good story (Ayn Rand may well be paying the highest penance for this -- the books of hers that i've got aren't a bad epic read if you're forewarned enough to know when to skip the occasional ten-page speech. "i mean, okay, your characters are intended to illustrate your philosophy, but i thought i bought a novel, not a textbook..." and i certainly am not getting course credit for this, so... B ) )

So then the question becomes, how much detail is too much? Is a page to describe a tree too much if the tree is a central part of the scene -- for example, the Tree that forms the "castle" for Galadriel? A specimen like that may well merit such lengthy detail, so we can see it well enough for the artists among us to draw it.

The average oak in the surrounding forest, on the other hand -- probably not.

s.t. (thinking there should really be more trees in the parking lot outside...)