Every technical decision you make during the writing of a new story—from the length of your sentences to your choice of point of view—becomes part of that story’s description. The statement “John showed up with a gun” describes an event. “John arrived, pistol glinting in his hand” describes the same event with a little more pizzazz. Your instinct for jazzing up a plain declarative sentence has repercussions, however, because the rewrite describes something beyond a simple action. For starters, the rewrite gives us a bit of atmosphere—“glinting” suggests light and gives the gun an aura of menace. Second, it tells us something about the observer, who uses the more accurate “pistol,” and is aware of the “glinting.” Third, it suggests something about John’s state of mind: a man with a glinting pistol must surely be aching to pull the trigger, whereas a man who simply shows up with a gun could have any number of intentions. The mental images in the rewrite are profoundly different from those in the original sentence. Even the smallest decisions about description can affect a story in countless subtle ways.