Literary Term--when an author purposely does not describe something so that the audience is left to imagine it (likely to a greater effect than the author could hope to describe).

Question

Literary Term--when an author purposely does not describe something so that the audience is left to imagine it (likely to a greater effect than the author could hope to describe).

Answer 1

"Ambiguity" means something can be unclear or ambiguous in meaning, lending itself to differences in interpretation.

Perhaps you mean "understatement"? Understatement is when the author deliberately says less and expects the reader to infer or understand more than is stated.

Answer 2

While it also has the idea of having multiple possible meanings, "ambiguity" best fits this description. C.S. Lewis often employs this approach, usually paired with a simile, when he's describing something that he wishes to leave, in part, to the reader's imagination. Often, events are described as being indescribable, at which point Lewis will say the experience was "like a symphony of (something)" in order to allow the audience to imagine what such an event might be like.

Answer 3

The most general term for this method is "ambiguity."