The Power of Description

In this seminar, we'll discuss the idea that, for creative writing, it is often more fruitful to think of a poem or story or novel or whatever as a rich, elaborate, precise description—of events, of the characters' experience of those events—than to approach a work with a motive or sense of obligation to explain things for the reader. This opens onto all kinds of freeing distinctions that can disburden writers from what can be pretty paralyzing worries—e.g. of having to "understand" a work before you begin it, of having to "know" everything before you start; to know something is not the same as to understand it; to describe something is not the same thing as to explain it.