*finds the tail end of a lost thread, and picks it up*

Long winded, pointless descriptions seem to be on many people's peeve list. They're on mine too. I read Ben Hur many years ago, and I can remember flipping through all the descriptions at the beginning of the chapters to get to the meat of the story.

But, I can also recall teachers of mine harping on me if I didn't describe things in enough detail. I had one creative writing teacher that would constantly take points off my papers if I didn't have three to four lines of description attached to every single item in my paper. It almost drove me batty.

Has anyone had a similar experience? I've noticed that what teachers call "good" writing tends to annoy those of us who actually read it. :)

Description is good, in moderation. Like salt.