In my opin­ion a true descrip­tion of nature should be very brief and have the char­ac­ter of rel­e­vance. Com­mon­places such as “the set­ting sun bathed the waves of the dark­en­ing sea, poured its pur­ple gold, etc.”—“the swal­lows fly­ing over the sur­face of the water tit­tered merrily”—such com­mon­places one ought to aban­don. In descrip­tions of nature one ought to seize upon the lit­tle par­tic­u­lars, group­ing them in such a way that, in read­ing, when you shut your eyes you get the picture.

For instance you will get the full effect of a moon­lit night if you write that on the mill­dam, a lit­tle glow­ing star­point flashed from the neck of a bro­ken bot­tle, and the round black shadow of a dog or a wolf emerged and ran, etc...

In the sphere of psy­chol­ogy, details are also the thing. God pre­serve us from com­mon­places. Best of all is to avoid depict­ing the hero’s state of mind; you ought to try to make it clear from the hero’s actions.

You under­stand it at once when I say, “The man sat on the grass.” You under­stand it because it is clear and makes no demands on the atten­tion. On the other hand it is not eas­ily under­stood if I write, “A tall, narrow-chested, middle-sized man, with a red beard, sat on the green grass, already tram­pled by pedes­tri­ans, sat silently, shyly, and timidly looked about him.” That is not imme­di­ately grasped by the mind, whereas good writ­ing should be grasped at once—in a second.
Anton Chekov (via Reading Like a Writer, Francine Prose)