The Dangers of Overwriting

Agent Nathan Bransford critiqued a query today on his blog. The query was good enough to get him to read the sample pages, but that's were things fell through. There were several important points he made, and here's one of them:

....one thing I never realized until I became an agent and began reading so many books is that it takes a great deal of mental work just to start a novel, because it takes a lot of brain energy to get your bearings. Every detail you read in the beginning establishes where you are, who the characters are, what they're like, etc. and your mind has to piece things together, which isn't always easy.

....As much as I like the premise of this query, I'm afraid I didn't feel that there was solid grounding here. Starting off with a conversation is tricky, and rather than learning as I went along I found myself more and more confused about what was happening and where and when it was happening.

I also had some concerns about the writing. There were times when the dialogue was stilted ("That, I still retain,") but perhaps more importantly, I honestly felt that although the author really tried to create some unique imagery, I felt like the description tried too hard. As a very rudimentary rule of thumb, description should be as clear as possible, except when something is indescribable in simple language, in which case it can be more expansive.