I recently read a book that had so little sense of place I felt like I was watching a play with the barest suggestion of stage dressing. The writing was good. The dialogue was good. But it was rare on any given page that I had a solid sense of where these scenes were taking place. The characters were interesting, their conflict hooked me, but a descriptive sentence or two more per page might have made the scenes come so much more alive.
Sometimes as a reader I want to settle in and experience the world of the characters in a deep and rich way, not skim along like a water bug, barely denting the surface.
I have to strive for the right balance with Kindred. It’s overwritten now. But I don’t want it to end up so spare that if it turned sideways, you couldn’t see it.