I regularly get emails from thriller readers. They tell me my books are like movies. That I describe everything so well. That the visuals are so vivid.
They’re wrong on every count.
I use almost no description. Almost none. What I do is lay a strategic foundation — specific details, grounded in truth — and then step back. Let the reader construct the rest.
The martial art of jujitsu works by taking your opponent’s force and redirecting it. Their strength becomes your lever. Their momentum becomes your advantage.
Ju-Jitsu Writing does the same thing. It uses the audience’s own pattern-matching instincts against them. In the best possible way.
You’re not fighting the brain. You’re not trying to overwhelm it with description. You’re working with its fundamental nature — the fact that it’s a prediction engine, always trying to complete the picture. You lay one brick. Your reader constructs the wall.
The difference is massive. Describe a woman’s face in exhaustive detail — eye colour, skin tone, scar tissue, everything — and the reader gets a photograph. You did the work. They consumed it. Passive.
Or give them three true details: a scar that catches the light differently each time, fingers that won’t stay still, a way of holding her chin that suggests she’s made a decision and isn’t going back. Now the reader is working. Their brain is assembling a person. They’re invested in the construction.
And here’s the thing — their version will be richer than anything you could have described.
This is Autocomplete in practice. You know the brain fills gaps. You get to choose which gaps. You understand Inference, so you lay down the pattern and trust the reader to complete it. You embrace Simplicity — not because you’re lazy, but because restraint is more powerful than excess.
Ju-Jitsu Writing isn’t minimal writing. It’s not sparse. It’s efficient. Every detail serves. Every sentence has a purpose. Nothing is wasted on description that the reader’s brain can already manufacture.
The technique takes practice. You have to learn when to speak and when to be silent. When to name something and when to let the reader name it. When to show and when to trust.
But when you get it right?
The reader doesn’t remember your words. They remember their own vision. They defend it as true.
That’s not description. That’s partnership.