Apparently I fancy myself a writer now

[Tadao]

My suggestion is to write a short story in it's most basic form and then write it again adding a little detail, and then once more to flesh it out were needed. If you practice with short stories you'll eventually find out what the readers needs to know vrs what the reader should be left to imagine.

When people read books, they need to be drawn into the story, one way of accomplishing that is to let the reader connect with the character. If you tell the reader his hair is brown, let the reader decide if it is a feather cut or how long based on the characters nature. Only go into detail when it is absolutely important to the storyline or if it is playing on a clever pun.

Practice on short stories though. Have a decided beginning and end and try to make them meet in 500 words or less. You'll find that things you thought were important to the story are really just fluff and stuff. It's only a practice so don't beat yourself up over it. It's only going in the trash or a folder to be worked on again if you think it can go somewhere.