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As an author, I get the amazing task of creating an entire world within my books. I can make them as fantastical or ordinary as I want, and while there is something to be said for creating a world that is purely based in fantasy my favourite thing to do is create a world that is grounded in the ordinary. To be able to write a story that someone can connect to, that they can imagine themselves doing the activities that a character in the book is doing, is a truly magical thing.
Simple and boring as it may seem, a lot of the time I'll get my inspiration whilst I'm doing everyday tasks. I'll be in the shower, washing dishes, or doing the laundry, and I'll be flooded with ideas. Then I have the incredible task of working those ideas into a full story. How do you make a reader want to read about someone washing dishes, taking out the trash, or eating a meal? You weave it intricately into your story so that it becomes so indelible to the story that the reader can't imagine the book without those sections.
Everyday life, the mundane, and the ordinary aren't boring at all when creating a world for a novel. They are in fact the most important parts to creating that world. No matter how fantastical the world an author is creating is, it has to first be grounded in reality if it is to grab the reader's imagination (I speak of course for myself as a reader). If it is too far-fetched, if there is nothing to ground the story, then it can be difficult to relate to, and that can make following the story – no matter how imaginative and descriptive it is – nearly impossible.
Obviously, descriptive language is important, and it is necessary; it helps the reader better imagine what the author is talking about (whether it is the way a character looks or speaks, the way a building looks, or the way something might smell) . I do think that it can become too much if the author is not careful. When too much description is given it doesn't allow the reader any freedom to create an image of their own. As a reader, I find that extremely off-putting because I want to be able to put my imagination to use when reading; as a writer, I'm constantly searching to find a balance between offering enough description to assist in the imagination, but not so much that I don't allow the reader to do any imagining of their own. For me one of the ways I do this is to keep things ambiguous when I can, for example, I will describe how a person looks in basic term - brown or blonde hair- but leave it up to the reader to determine what exactly that might look like. I also might mention that a character has gone to a market, but won't talk about a specific one unless I feel it is crucial to the story. That way the reader can imagine the scene with the specifics of their own choosing. The hope is that the reader will then be able to invest themselves more in the world I've created.