My professor says my narrative writing is too descriptive and not enough story. What's the difference?

[Disser]

I'm in a creative writing class and I just got my first story back with a grade I'm not happy with. The professor wrote: 'Lovely descriptions, but where's the story?' I'm confused because I thought descriptions WERE the story. I spent pages describing the setting—the old house, the creaky stairs, the afternoon light. I thought I was creating atmosphere.
But apparently nothing actually HAPPENS in my story. No conflict, no change, no point. I've read that narrative writing needs a plot structure with exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, and resolution . I think I skipped all that and just wrote exposition for five pages. How do you balance beautiful writing with actually having a plot? How do you know when you've described enough and it's time for something to happen?

 

[Willow]

Here's the breakdown:

Description tells us what things LOOK like. The light, the stairs, the atmosphere. It's sensory.

Story tells us what things MEAN. It's driven by a character who wants something, faces obstacles, and changes as a result.

Your professor loved your eye for detail. That's the hard part! Now you just need to hang that description on a narrative skeleton.

Try this: take your current draft and ask "what does my character WANT in this space?" Even something small—find a lost letter, confront a memory, decide whether to stay or leave. Then make it HARD for them to get it. The descriptions will become part of that struggle (the stairs creak when they try to sneak, the light reveals something scary).

Description serves story, not the other way around.